Greg Mortenson

Early life

Mortsenson was born in 1957 in St. Cloud, Minnesota. His parents, Irvin and Jerene, went with the Lutheran Church to Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in 1958 to be teachers in at a girls' school in the Usambara mountains. In 1961, Dempsey became a fundraiser and development director for the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, the first teaching hospital in Tanzania. Jerene was the founding principal of International School Moshi. Spending his early childhood and adolescence in Tanzania, Mortenson learned to speak fluent Swahili.

In the early 1970s, when he was 15 years old, Mortenson and his family left Tanzania and moved back to Minnesota. He attended Ramsey High School in Roseville, Minnesota, from 1973–75, where he graduated.

After high school, Mortenson served in the U.S. Army in Germany from 1975–77 and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal. Following his discharge, he attended Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, from 1977-79 on an athletic (football) scholarship.

In 1978, Concordia College's football team won the NAIA Division III national championship with a 7-0 win over Findlay, Ohio. Mortenson graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1983 with a bachelor's degree in liberal studies and an associate degree in nursing.

Origins in K2

Mortenson describes the origins of his humanitarian work in his best-selling (but later discredited) book, Three Cups of Tea. He states he traveled to northern Pakistan in 1993 to climb the world’s second-highest mountain, K2, as a memorial to his sister, Christa. After more than 70 days on the mountain located in the Karakoram range, Mortenson failed to reach the summit. Earlier, Mortenson and fellow climber, Scott Darsney, were also involved in a 75-hour life-saving rescue of another climber, Etienne Fine, which put them in a weakened state. After the rescue, he descended the mountain and set out with a local Balti porter, Mouzafer Ali, to the nearest city.

According to the account in Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson stated he took a wrong turn on the trail and ended up in the small village of Korphe. Physically exhausted, ill, and alone at the time of his arrival there, Mortenson was cared for by some of Korphe's residents while he recovered. As a gesture of gratitude to the community for their assistance to him, Mortenson said he would build a school for the village after he noticed local students attending school in an outdoor location and writing out their lessons in the dirt. Mortenson has since stated in a 2011 interview that the timing in the Korphe account in Three Cups of Tea is inaccurate and that the events actually took place over a longer period of time and during separate trips.

Literacy in Central Asia

Mortenson has written and spoken widely about the importance of education and literacy for girls worldwide. He has further stated that girls' education is the most important investment all countries can make to create stability, bring socio-economic reform, decrease infant mortality and population explosion, as well as improving health, hygiene, and sanitation standards. His view is that "fighting terrorism" perpetuates a cycle of violence where there should instead be a global priority to "promote peace" through education and literacy, with an emphasis on educating girls.

Three Cups of Tea describes his travels in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province including his escape from a 2003 firefight between Afghan opium warlords, how he was subject to two fatwās by conservative Islamist clerics for educating girls, and receiving hate mail and threats from fellow Americans for helping educate Muslim children.

According to op-ed columnist and friend of Mortenson's, Nicholas D. Kristof, the schools built by CAI have local support and have been able to avoid retribution by the Taliban and other groups opposed to girls' education because of community "buy-in", which involves getting villages to donate land, subsidized or free labor ("sweat equity"), wood and resources.

As of 2014, CAI reports it has established or significantly supported over 300 projects, including 191 schools, in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.

Central Asia Institute

After experiencing frustration in his efforts to raise money for the school, Mortenson convinced Silicon Valley computer pioneer Jean Hoerni to fund the building of the Korphe school.

Hoerni, who was critically ill at the time, formed the Central Asia Institute so that he and others could make tax-exempt donations to support Mortenson's work, and Mortenson became its first executive director. The mission of the non-profit organization is to promote education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

From 2006 through 2011, Greg Mortenson promoted his book as well as fundraising and promoting girls' education through public speaking events at schools throughout the United States. Travel expenses for his speaking engagements were paid for by Central Asia Institute through the end of 2010. Mortenson personally kept monies received in exchange for his service as a public speaker as well as royalties from the sale of his book. In 2009, the total cost of his book promotion, fundraising, and awareness-building for girls education paid for by CAI amounted to $4.6 million.

In April 2012, after a year long investigation by the Montana attorney general, Mortenson agreed to repay $1 million to the CAI. The Montana inquiry had found that he had misspent over $6 million of the organization's money, although no criminality was found. Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock said: "Mr Mortenson may not have intentionally deceived the board or his employees, but his disregard for and attitude about basic record-keeping and accounting for his activities essentially had the same effect."

Bullock also wrote in the report that "CAI's mission is worthwhile and important," and "Its accomplishments, driven by the vision and dedication of Mortenson, are significant – as even their harshest critics acknowledge."

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Mortenson was required to resign as executive director and could no longer serve as a voting member of CAI's board. However, he was allowed to remain with CAI as an employee.

Books

Mortenson and David Oliver Relin are co-authors of the New York Times bestselling book Three Cups of Tea. Listen to the Wind, a 32-page book Young Reader's version of Three Cups of Tea for ages 4–8, was written by Greg Mortenson and illustrated by Susan Roth. It was a New York Times bestseller for 97 weeks. As detailed in a New York Times article, Relin "suffered emotionally and financially as basic facts in the book were called into question" and ultimately committed suicide on November 15, 2012. In 2009, Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan was written by Greg Mortenson as a sequel to Three Cups of Tea.

Controversies

Mortenson has been criticized by writers such as Peter Hessler and Jon Krakauer for financial mismanagement of his charity, for "dodging accountability" and for writing a book Krakauer described as "riddled with lies".

In April 2011, 60 Minutes and author Jon Krakauer accused Mortenson of fabrication in his non-fiction books and of financial improprieties at his charity, Central Asia Institute. After a one-year investigation, Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock did not file charges of fraud or criminal activity. Bullock sought restitution for book royalties, speaking and travel fees, promotional costs, and inappropriate personal bills Mortenson charged to the CAI. Mortenson was ordered to reinstate $1 million to the charity, which included credits for repayments already made. In October 2013, Mortenson completed the repayments to CAI, fulfilling the terms of the 2012 settlement with Bullock.

60 Minutes and Jon Krakauer

On the April 17, 2011 broadcast of CBS News' 60 Minutes, correspondent Steve Kroft alleged inaccuracies in Mortenson's books Three Cups of Tea and its sequel, Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as financial improprieties in the operation of the Central Asia Institute.

60 Minutes made the following allegations:

60 Minutes asked Mortenson for an interview prior to their broadcast. Mortenson did not respond to their requests; however, he answered their questions in writing. Mortenson refused to talk to Steve Kroft and, reportedly, the CAI staff requested that the hotel hosting the 60 Minutes crew ask them to leave the facility. Mortenson also canceled the speaking engagement that was scheduled that afternoon in the Atlanta convention facility.

In an April 2011 Outside magazine interview, Greg Mortenson insisted that Krakauer contacted him only once and inaccurately claimed that he had been trying to get a hold of him for some time. He claimed although he arranged to meet with Krakauer, the interview was eventually cancelled "once I realized how deep and dirty this whole thing was".

Mortenson wrote a statement in response to the allegations against him that were published in the Bozeman Chronicle: "I stand by the information conveyed in my book, and by the value of CAI's work in empowering local communities to build and operate schools that have educated more than 60,000 students", and added, "The time about our final days on K2 and ongoing journey to Korphe village and Skardu is a compressed version of events that took place in the fall of 1993..."

Jon Krakauer, a former financial supporter of CAI, questioned Mortenson's accounts of his exploits independently and was interviewed for the 60 Minutes segment mentioned above. The day after the broadcast, Krakauer released his own allegations in a lengthy online article, Three Cups of Deceit - How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way. Krakauer explored financial improprieties at CAI in great deal, reporting that a former board treasurer had left the organization because "Greg regards CAI as his personal ATM," routinely charged personal expenses to the organization, and rarely provided any receipts or documentation.

In response to Krakauer's allegations, CAI produced a comprehensive ‘Master Project List’ on work CAI had completed, or currently was then working on. The list was released in December 2011.

In January 2014, Mortenson was interviewed on Today by Tom Brokaw. He apologized and acknowledged that he had let a lot of people down, and said "I failed in many ways, and it's an important lesson."

In August 2014 Krakauer wrote a follow-up article for The Daily Beast in which he stated that an audit of CAI's overseas projects indicated that the charity was still "beset by widespread corruption" and that Mortenson remaining as the public face of the charity was not "in the best interest of the charity or the people it serves". He concluded that "anyone thinking about donating to CAI should probably reconsider".

Lawsuits

In May 2011, Jean Price and Michele Reinhart, and Dan Donovan, a Great Falls attorney, filed a class action lawsuit against Mortenson on behalf of readers, asking federal judge James Malloy in Missoula to place all proceeds from the purchases of Mortenson's books into a trust to be used for humanitarian purposes. Several named plaintiffs dropped the lawsuit after confessing they had never read the books. The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice in federal court in May 2012. U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon chided the plaintiffs for presenting arguments that he called imprecise, flimsy, and speculative. An appeals suit was dropped by the 9th District Federal Circuit Court on October 10, 2013.

On October 6, 2013, after a lengthy lawsuit filed by Central Asia Institute, Philadelphia Insurance company was ordered by Magistrate Judge Jeremy Lynch to repay Central Asia Institute $1.2 million to pay for legal costs involved in the lawsuits and investigations.

In May 2015, the Montana Attorney General stated that Central Asia Institute and Mortenson had completed the terms of a three-year compliance monitoring period, and CAI stated that the IRS had completed its examination of the nonprofit. The organization reported that it was having a return in donors and rise in contributions.

Awards

Honorary degrees

Published works

Personal life

Mortenson lives in Bozeman, Montana, with his wife Tara Bishop, a clinical psychologist, and their two children, Amira and Khyber. In 2011, Mortenson was diagnosed with hypoxia and had surgery for an aneurysm and an atrial septal defect, an event which exactly coincided with the airing of the 60 Minutes expose and the release of Krakauer's accompanying book.