Syracuse Resident To Lead Peace Corps Midwest Region
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Jennifer Peryam-jperyam@timesuniononline.com
SYRACUSE – Syracuse resident Brad Merryman will lead the Peace Corps Midwest region after serving the past two years abroad as a Peace Corps volunteer. When Merryman retired from a 25-year career in the information technology industry, he applied for the Peace Corps. He was following a lifelong goal to make a difference for others and experience a new culture. He had no idea that his international service would make such an impact not only in the Costa Rican community he was assigned to, but in his own life, as well. Now back in the U.S. after two years abroad, Merryman will combine his Peace Corps experience and management background as the new regional manager of the Peace Corps Midwest Region, with a main recruiting office in Chicago and several field-based recruiters located across the region. Merryman, 53, will relocate from Syracuse to Naperville, Ill., a Chicago suburb, to oversee the recruitment and awareness efforts that draw thousands of Peace Corps applications from communities and college campuses across the Midwest. He also will communicate the agency’s international outreach and cultural exchange mission across an 11-state territory that spans from Indiana and Kentucky to North Dakota, and Missouri to Ohio. “To play a part in bringing volunteers into the Peace Corps, to lead the team that recruits and selects volunteers, and to promote the work of Peace Corps volunteers from the Midwest is an honor,” Merryman said. Merryman’s ties to Syracuse date back more than 40 years, when as a child he vacationed with his family on Lake Wawasee. His parents bought a summer cottage in the early 1970s that he visited over the years. Merryman has lived in Syracuse with his wife, Cathi, since 1991, full-time since 2006, except for his two-year Peace Corps service in Costa Rica. “The benefit a volunteer provides to a community in need is felt at the time of their service, but it can be passed on for years to come as the people in communities share what they have learned from their volunteer,” Merryman said. Merryman’s own background differed from many of the recent college graduates he served alongside in Costa Rica. The community economic development volunteer brought with him more than two decades of experience and global travel in the high-tech industry, most recently with Sun Microsystems. Throughout Merryman’s career, he worked directly with clients to assess its IT needs in order to recommend and implement solutions, in addition to taking on senior leadership positions in sales, marketing, and program management. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and marketing from Illinois State University in 1981 and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago in 1993. “My service was a fantastic experience and certainly has had a powerful impact on my life,” Merryman said. “One of the biggest things I walked away with was a realization of the global need that exists – many communities and people want help, but what they really want to learn is how to help themselves.”
