Corridor 9/495 Chamber BFF Speaker: Peace Corps Volunteer Judith Fleming

The Corridor 9/495 Chamber of Commerce held its monthly BFF Luncheon on November 5, 2019 with a very inspirational speaker, former Peace Corps volunteer Judith Fleming. Watch the full presentation here. Here is the description of the speaking engagement from the Chamber’s website: “Sometimes, a woman just needs to shake things up a bit. In 2016 at the age of 70, Judith Fleming put her condo on the market, gave notice to her boss, and joined the Peace Corps for a 2-year station in Uganda followed by another 8 months in Republic of Georgia, East Africa. Judith’s work focused on empowering girls and women in a country where women don’t own land and girls have fewer opportunities.

Only 7 percent of Peace Corps volunteers are over 50. Judith left her comfortable life to serve an agency in which her main mode of transportation was a bicycle known as a “bota bota, stood out wherever she went as a white woman since she was older than the typical lifespan in the country, and ate beans, rice, vegetables, bread and some goat and chicken meat – – although she did not eat grasshoppers like her neighbors.

Remarkable enough, this was Judith’s second assignment with the Peace Corps. After graduating from college in 1967 at 21, she was among the first members of the Peace Corps to go to Tonga and Western Samoa where she spent more than two years.

In the intervening fifty years, Judith’s career accomplishments were as an executive in both the corporate and non-profit worlds, rising to Vice President of Corporate and Human Resources for a Fortune 500 company.  This renaissance woman has made positive changes in the world and will inspire us all to design the next chapter in our lives.”