Dean Lewis

Dean grew up on an Oregon stump farm near the banks of the Columbia River when, in his senior year of high school, he met up and fell in love with Nan, the Kiwi AFS Exchange Student. Nan grew up in Christchurch in a disciplined, school-uniform-wearing family with her father the Headmaster of the largest high school in the country – a striking contrast to their backgrounds.

At the end of Oregon high school, both went to university: Nan went back to New Zealand and Dean stayed in Oregon. They wrote about three times a week, patched in ham radio calls until Dean could get permission from the local Draft Board to study in Christchurch. Under pressure to maintain grades, and not get drafted, they worked hard to graduate, get married and return to the U.S…. only to get drafted for Vietnam.

Instead, Dean was sent to Germany and was a Cold War nuclear missile guy, initially. From there, Dean studied economics in England, and Nan produced two bonnie girls.

After a short stint of teaching economics at Repton School, they returned to live in Oregon, then Washington D.C. and then back to New Zealand in 1978.

Having lived outside the U.S. from 1967 to 1991, they returned to Washington D.C. to join the World Bank Group to restore Eastern Europe after the Wall came down, giving Dean a unique perspective on “before” and “after” the Soviet Empire collapsed.

They are married, raised their two British-born girls largely in New Zealand but now all live in the United States.