THE KOREA SOCIETY

About the Speaker

General Van Fleet’s grandson, Joseph A. McChristian, Jr., currently serves as the President of the Van Fleet Foundation. As part of a military family, his youth was spent living and travelling in many countries. Following a family tradition, and a personal dream, he graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point as a Distinguished Graduate in 1965. His military career included service as both Commander and staff officer of Armor and Military Intelligence units in combat and during peacetime. He also served as an Assistant Army Attaché at the US Embassy in Cambodia, as an Instructor at the Cambodian Senior Officer’s Staff College, and as Assistant Professor of Military Science at Princeton University. Airborne and Ranger qualified and a veteran of two combat tours in Vietnam, his decorations include three Bronze Star Medals, the Air Medal, the Joint Service Commendation Medal and the Army Commendation Medal. Upon leaving active duty in the military, Mr. McChristian pursued a business career in the financial industry with Citicorp, American Express, and then with Price Waterhouse where he worked as a Principal Consultant in Corporate Finance Emerging Markets advising clients in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and West Africa. In 1989 Mr. McChristian established The McChristian Companies, a corporation through which he acquired and turned around two distressed manufacturing companies in the US, founded several joint ventures in the former Soviet Union, and started, with his son, an Internet services practice in the US. Mr. McChristian was a George Olmsted Scholar. He received a Master of Arts degree in Economics and Finance from the Institute of Political Studies, University of Paris, France, and continued graduate studies in Economics at Princeton University. He is also an Honor Graduate of the US Army’s Military Intelligence Officers Advanced Course. He speaks Russian, is fluent in Greek, and is bi-lingual in French. In addition to his work with the Van Fleet Foundation he is active in local government and several community service organizations where he lives in South Florida.