I started at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) in the summer 2005 as a program officer in the education and training division. The focus of my work was supporting undergraduate education in advancing peace and conflict resolution efforts. Soon I was asked to direct USIP’s summer seminar for community college faculty.

The first class in 2007 included Paul Forage, who had recently joined Indian River Community College (IRCC) in Ft. Pierce, Florida to lead its emergency management program. He had previously been at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) where he had established its peace studies program.  At the USIP seminar, Paul shared about his work in humanitarian training, and particularly his Atlantic Hope exercise. Starting at FAU, he ran a simulation-based program for undergraduates interested in humanitarian careers. When he started around 2000, he was the first in the country to do so on a regular basis.

At IRCC, he continued and expanded his humanitarian training. Designed for undergraduates, Paul would bring together students from schools including Northwest Missouri State University, Northern Oklahoma College, and the University of Florida for a spring multiday simulation where students would engage as humanitarian and disaster specialists responding to a complex emergency where war and displacement were present.  IRCC’s public safety facility was ideal for holding these programs in that it included dilapidated buildings, dense woods,  and other amenities that could offer a realistic backdrop. Students were the NGO workers tasked as members of International Humanitarian Action to respond to a crisis in Atlantica. He would enlist former military and police to role play as government and insurgent actors. He would  also recruit community members to act as refugees and displaced persons. The students attending would be briefed in principles of international humanitarian law as well as the basics of camp management. He also had opportunities to take his training to Macedonia and Haiti. The program was anchored in experiential education: one learns by doing and then reflecting.

My own background before joining USIP had been in teaching at the community college level where I had engaged in limited experiential learning with my students. I was though a practicing mediator, where simulation-based training was the cornerstone. But I had little exposure to humanitarian education. USIP was focused on peacebuilding and was at times dismissive of humanitarianism as a measure more aligned with development  and responsive in approach rather than preventative.

However, I was able to make the case that Paul’s work might benefit from peacebuilding aspects, and as result I was able join his program in 2008 in an observational capacity. In subsequent years, I continued to attend, and in 2010 helped Paul obtain a $75,000 grant from USIP to continue his work. Soon,  I moved from observation to role playing, including as an insurgent leader. I encouraged other undergraduate programs including community colleges to attend his annual March program.

During this time, I was also teaching graduate students at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, now the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. I became more focused on graduate education and recognized that my own students could benefit from his training. Joined by George Mason colleagues, I encouraged Paul to consider the development of a graduate level simulation separate from the undergraduate one. The graduate one would include more aspects of peacebuilding as well as analytic and problem-solving opportunities. Because many graduate students were considering humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding careers, but lacked experiential opportunities to develop capacity, his program was an ideal fit.

Paul was also convinced. He had long believed that his efforts, though important for undergraduate students, could enhance graduate education. Paul was not only a teacher, but a researcher and scholar, and offering his program to master’s and PhD programs, was a natural extension.

We offered the first graduate program in the spring 2013 to nearly 40 students from George Mason University, Kennesaw State University, and the University of North Carolina/ Greensboro: all from peacebuilding programs.

Up to that point, the program  - called the Consortium for Humanitarian Service and Education - had been run out of what had become Indian River State College. Though there were advantages to having an academic institution as our home, it also restricted what we could offer and required us to comply with the college’s requirements regarding expenses, services, and programmatic offerings. We decided in 2015 to leave Indian River and formed a 501c3: the Center for Peacebuilding and Humanitarian Training, Inc. I was made president, and Paul was our primary consultant.

For Paul, this was an important milestone for him, and part of the grand vision of his work. It had been his dream to have a standalone self-sustaining entity that would provide the broadest range of offerings and make important contributions to the field. Unfortunately, at the same time Paul was facing  difficult health challenges. These challenges continued and Paul passed away suddenly in September 2015. This was a tremendous loss to us all. For me it was personal in that Paul and I were not only colleagues but had become fast friends. He was also my mentor and the visionary for our work.  We were all his students.  In keeping Paul’s spirit alive,  we renamed ourselves the Forage Center for Peacebuilding and Humanitarian Education. And since many of the schools we received our students from and partners were from the Mid-Atlantic and Washington, DC area moved our operations to Maryland.

We continued to hold exercises for a few years in Fellsmere, Florida, but in 2019 we ran our first exercise from our 40-acre training site in Swanton, Maryland. In addition, recognizing that our mission and capacity included working with a range of audiences including public and professional groups, we started offering virtual seminars on peacebuilding and humanitarianism. 

We offered onsite programs at Embry Riddle University (2023),  Arcadia University (2021) LaRoche University (2018), and at George Mason University (2018, 2019). Looking to engage with broader audiences, we established Forage Center Conversations during the pandemic and continued to offer virtual seminars for students and faculty.  We established  the Paul Forage Fellows program in 2022 to support exceptional graduates of our program. From 2019 until 2025 ,  we held our signature simulation in Western Maryland, engaging students from George Mason University, University of San Diego, University of North Carolina/Greensboro, American University, Rutgers University, Arcadia University, as well as from other institutions.  We have also had professionals from NGOs such as the International Committee of the Red Cross join us.  As had been Paul’s practice, alumni of the program would return every year as role players and technical support now called Coastal Promise. Our exercise directors were always alumni.

Since 2015, we have engaged  with over 600 students – high school, undergraduates, and graduate level – in various simulations, online programs, seminars, and career events. We hosted our last event in April which was focused on advancing careers in the field. Our alum are worldwide. Staff at the Forage Center have published (see our most recent publication in the Handbook on Humanitarian Crises [Edward Elgar, 2025], “Bringing the ‘human’ to humanitarian training”  that discusses the approach to our work), presented at conferences, been interviewed by media, and asked to consult on humanitarian training. (I assisted the University of San Diego in 2022 to develop their online master’s program in humanitarian action).

We have inspired countless professionals to make a difference in the world – one that is fraught with conflict and is vulnerable to humanmade and natural disasters. Whether you have attended a multiday exercise or an online seminar, you have likely benefited from the experience. You are making the world a better place for the beleaguered, vulnerable, displaced, hungry, and war-torn. Be proud of the work you are doing, we certainly are.

(photo: Paul Forage lower left at Indian River State College around 2011)