In this month’s Scholar profile Max Finberg (NY '90), Director of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Center for Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, was interviewed by Jeni Lamb (CO '09), a current participant in the Truman Summer Institute and intern for the American Seed Trade Association.

Max Finberg has spent his career working on domestic and international hunger issues. Prior to his appointment at USDA, Max served as the Director for the Alliance to End Hunger, a collaboration of nonprofit organizations, religious bodies, universities, corporations, and individuals dedicated to eradicating hunger at home and abroad. He also spent 12 years in the service of former Congressman and Ambassador Tony Hall (D-OH) as the founding Director of the Bill Emerson and Mickey Leland Hunger Fellows Program at the Congressional Hunger Center, a senior legislative assistant working on domestic hunger issues, and as an advisor and special assistant to the UN mission in Rome.  Max holds a Master’s in Social Ethics from Howard University’s School of Divinity.  A 1990 Harry S. Truman Scholar from New York, Max attended Tufts University to study International Relations, German, and Political Science as an undergraduate.  Today, Max lives in Washington D.C with his wife and two young children.

Jeni Lamb graduated with degrees in Agricultural Economics and Political Science in May 2010 and is currently finishing a Master’s in Agricultural Economics at Virginia Tech. She is a 2009 Truman Scholar from Longmont, Colorado.

Edited Question and Answers with Max Finberg (NY ‘90), Director of the Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, United States Department of Agriculture

Lamb: Your early career experience is extremely inspiring—how did you come to serve as the founding director of the Mickey Leland Hunger Fellows Program just out of college?

Finberg: Actually, I spent a year interning in the Office of Congressman [Tony] Hall (D-OH). As a sitting Congressman, he had just finished fasting for 22 days to raise awareness of hunger issues. From there he founded the Congressional Hunger Center, a separate nonprofit organization, and I was one of the first employees to move from being an intern in his Congressional office to being the director of this nascent Mickey Leland Hunger Fellows Program. I am thrilled the program is still going and training the next generation of hunger fighters.  We have even had a couple of Truman scholars go through the program. It was great because here I was only a couple years out of school running a program, only because I was the only one there. Still, it was crazy to trust me with that kind of responsibility. Honestly though, it was just great, great stuff bringing folk together, creating an experience where fellows could spend six months in the field with a food bank or shelter and six months back in DC working on hunger and poverty policy. Back then at least, there was nothing that combined the field and policy experience.

How did you establish that relationship with Congressman Hall to where you think he was willing to put so much trust in you to develop such an innovative program?

When I was a sophomore at Tufts, I came down to DC for the National Prayer Breakfast and I heard him speak for the first time. I thought “wow”, here was a politician who cared about hunger and hungry people and loved God and I would like to work with him. So I wrote him a letter asking for an internship and never got a response. I wasn’t from Dayton, Ohio or anything like that.  I came down my senior year to the same breakfast, heard him speak again, and still thought “wow,” again, this would be great if I could work with this man. I had a friend who knew his wife, and tried to get an internship that way through giving him my resume. It didn’t work, that path didn’t open. I moved into a group house with a bunch of guys in DC trying to love God, love each other and figure all of that out. It turned out that the house was a block away from where Congressman Hall and his family lived.

So the line that I usually use is that I stalked him until he gave me a job, but what really answers the question is I started by learning about him, getting to know him and started to serve him.  Soon after I had moved in, his son, who was 12 at the time, was diagnosed with leukemia. So some friends and I would cook extra meals, mow his lawn, visit his son in the hospital—things that allowed us to interact but in a way that wasn’t…oh, can I go with you to your meeting at the White House?  When that paid off was nine months later when an internship opened up and he hired me in the Congressional office and then as Congressional Hunger Center staff. It worked out. I was able to deliver what he wanted—“a domestic Peace Corps focused on hunger” was the one liner—with the help of a lot of people. I never would have predicted that I would serve him for 12 years, but one thing led to another and the relationship was built—partly due to my willingness to serve him and his family early on.

Wow, fantastic. Can you talk about your decision to study at the Howard School of Divinity and pursue a Master’s in Social Ethics?

So after three years of serving as the founding director [of the Mickey Leland Hunger Fellows Program], I took advantage of the wonderful gift that is Harry Truman’s legacy and went to graduate school in divinity.  I loved it. I really couldn’t get excited about a law degree or even a degree in public policy. So when it came down to whether I should study more macroeconomics or the Old Testament, I said, “Give me Moses any day”!

I wanted to stay in DC and keep working with the Hunger Center part-time, so I went to study at Howard [University]. As the only white guy in my class, it was a wonderful experience in [understanding] how the Bible could apply to both political and social issues.

How do you think the decision to study divinity impacted your career, especially in terms of being able to move across domestic and international hunger issues?

It is a fabulous foundation. Personally, my motivation to help hungry people, wherever they live, is rooted in my faith. Professionally, it gives me the language to relate to other people also motivated by their faith as to why they want to help others.  Being able to quote from the Bible as to why we should help hungry people helps build an immediate rapport.

Certainly, this seems especially important as international hunger, domestic hunger, and domestic obesity tend to be placed into silos in academic and public debate. How do you see these issues as interrelated?

Absolutely. It’s all about caring for our neighbor.  Whether you go back to the story of the Good Samaritan or the preface to that parable or the most important prayer in Jewish life, “love your God and love your neighbor”. How do you do that when your neighbor is starving? How do you do that if your neighbor, even if they may not live next you, contracts diabetes because of obesity at an early age? All of that, for me, relates to caring for your neighbor.  It gets even more basic when it’s very specific, scripturally or otherwise, that this is about hunger. Maslow is pretty clear: after breathing, eating is up there as a human priority. Anything else is built on the pyramid of having enough to eat—you can’t learn, you can’t be fulfilled. 

Is that what you find most exciting about your current position—to mobilize groups behind this idea of caring for your neighbor?

Certainly. It’s already happening. That’s what is great about hunger as an issue, it’s very bipartisan, it’s not liberal or conservative. You’ll have very politically conservative people who are willing to help hungry people. Maybe not through government, maybe they don’t agree with that. It allows for an intersection with a variety of different folks and it’s a fabulous part of my job to be able to work with such a vast array of folks. Yesterday, I got to meet with the Jewish Council on Public Affairs on work they are doing with WIC [Women Infants and Children] and the school lunch program and call Islamic leaders to congratulate them on the great job that they are doing with domestic hunger efforts.  That’s a great part of my job.

Along with enjoying your work, you also have a young family. Can you offer advice to other Truman Scholars on how you have been able to maintain a life balance while working to make a difference in public policy?

Life has seasons, just like years do. It was hard for me to see that early in my 20s, because I was running all out. Put the petal down and do as much and accomplish as much as you possibly can. That changed almost nine years ago when I got married, but it changed really five-and-a-half years ago when our daughter was born shortly before we left Rome, and now, with a two-year-old son, even more so. I am glad that my new job doesn’t have me traveling internationally anymore. It was fabulous to get my passport stamped all over the world and see some things in Sub-Saharan Africa especially and to travel all over Europe, South America and Asia. That season was fabulous, this season with young kids I want to be home.  My wife has made even more of a sacrifice; she is in public health and used to travel all over Africa, and her season as a mom is challenging and very different. But again, it’s seasonal. When the kids are a little older, she’ll go back to work and we will go back to putting in a few more hours.  Also, it’s about the decision to work in public service. It’s not private sector salaries, but we’ve made life choices so she can stay home, even in this expensive neighborhood of Washington, DC.

Thanks for being willing to be so open and share such a candid perspective. It’s been a pleasure talking with you today.

Thanks Jeni!

For more information on the Congressional Hunger Center and Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellows Program, please visit: http://www.hungercenter.org/