Aug. 20, 2026

#53 - Paul Strasburg

Show Notes

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” – Mother Teresa

A routine trip to northern Thailand changed the course of Peace Corps volunteer Paul Strasburg’s life, even if he didn’t know it at the time. A simple request to help build a school became a successful challenge that, years later, would bloom into an NGO now called Thousand Currents, promoting interdependence and having a positive impact on tens of thousands of lives around the world.

Paul Straburg was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, graduating from Tucson High School in 1960. Following a BA from Stanford University in 1964, he spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English in northern Thailand.

After leaving Thailand, he enrolled in graduate school, working summers in two Thai Peace Corps training programs and completing a master’s degree in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton in 1969. He then embarked on a 15-year career in nonprofit management, including positions at the Ford Foundation, the Vera Institute of Justice, and, eventually, the New York City government as commissioner of the Department of Juvenile Justice. At that point, Paul’s lifelong interest in international development rekindled, and he returned to California to start a small people-to-people development assistance project called International Development Exchange. In the decades since, IDEX has grown into a significant conduit of international learning and financial assistance, now known as Thousand Currents. Paul also served for several years on the boards of International Rivers, Volunteers in Asia, and Enneagram Studies in the Narrative Tradition.

Now retired, he retains an active interest in immigration issues and electoral politics. Paul is married to Therese Saracino and has two grown children and two grandchildren.