Mark L. Schneider

Mark Lewis Schneider (born 1941) served as the 15th director of the Peace Corps (1999–2001).

Schneider grew up in Antioch, California where he attended Antioch High School and was class salutatorian. Schneider attended U.C. Berkeley on a four-year scholarship and graduated in 1963 majoring in journalism.

Schneider joined the Peace Corps and served in El Salvador with his wife, Susan, then married for one year, where they helped build a bridge across a ravine and introduced a school milk program. As Peace Corps Director Schneider revisited his old site on an official visit to El Salvador in March, 1999.[ The bridge Schneider helped build is still standing and has been named after him.

Schneider called his Peace Corps service "the most illuminating, rewarding and exhausting period of my life. I saw the constant struggle to survive in the developing world -- children without enough to eat, mothers without access to health care, fathers unable to find work to earn the income to care for their families." Returning from the Peace Corps, Schneider earned a Master's degree in political science from San Jose State.

Schneider was a member of Senator Edward Kennedy's staff from 1970 to 1977. From 1977 to 1979, Schneider served as a senior policy adviser to the director of the Pan American Health Organization then senior deputy assistant secretary for human rights at the Department of State. During the Clinton Administration Schneider was appointed assistant administrator for Latin America at the U.S. Agency for International Development in November 1993 directing U.S. foreign assistance programs in this hemisphere, supporting democracy, social and economic development and environmental protection.

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