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Gus Lee biography A nationally recognized authority on character and ethics, an author and character-centric leadership consultant, and Chair of Character Development at West Point and Chief Learning Officer for Integware, which is a character-centric Colorado Fast 50 corporation. Gus Lee has worked on leadership development in 50 industries with executives from every continent. He has spoken on character, courage, integrity, leadership, character coaching culture, teamwork or conflict resolution to the National Conference of Supreme Court Justices, the Smithsonian Institution, the LaJolla Conference, the Vail Conference, Advocate Health, Anglo Gold, Asia Society, ASTD, Bank of America, California District Attorneys Association, C2, CAHE, Calpine, Center for Academic Integrity, Centura Hospitals, CMS, Compassion International, Corbis/Microsoft, DEA, CTA, El Pomar Foundation, Executive Forum, Fisher Hamilton Scientific, the FBI, GAMA, Governance Institute, Halliburton, ISEC, Intel, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Kaiser Permanente, Kansas City Police Department and Regional Police Academy, King & Spaulding, Levi Strauss, Lockheed Martin, Los Angeles District Attorneys Office, Lucent, MCI, Memorial Health System, MOAA, Mountain States Pathology, NAIS, National Weather Service, NOAA, the Securities and Exchange Commission, SSM Health, the State Bar of California, TECO Energy, Trilogy Venture Search, U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Justice, Whirlpool, Xerox, West Point, the U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Federal Academies Honor Conference, U.S. Federal Training Center and the Young Presidents Organization. He has worked with leaders from Abbott Laboratories, NASA, Caterpillar Mexico, ENOVIA, Franklin Investments, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak, Nestle, NORAD, Pfizer, Stora Enso, U.S. Department of Homeland Defense, Whirlpool and Xerox. Other keynote addresses have included regional and national business, professional and educational conferences, university and college commencements and convocations and addresses to faith-based organizations and churches. He has encouraged character development programs, character-based business operations and supported library, literacy and writing programs. |
Gus has been a corporate executive vice president, a chief operating officer, government senior executive, been the legal educator for California's 140,000 attorneys, the chief of training for California's 4,000 prosecutors, a supervising deputy district attorney, acting deputy attorney general, Army JAG officer, ethics whistleblower, paratrooper, and legal counsel for international U.S. Senate ethics investigations. He develops deployable high core values and leadership academies for corporations. He grew up in an immigrant family in an African American ghetto, was raised by a team of YMCA boxers and mentored by H. Norman Schwarzkopf at West Point, by Nuremberg prosecutor and Holocaust refugee Edgar Bodenheimer at the UCD King Hall School of Law and by Yenching scholar K. C. Liu in graduate school at UC Davis.
He is a thought leader for Development Dimensions International, the Kansas City Police Academy, Trilogy Venture Search and the Praevius Group and has been an adjunct for the Center for Creative Leadership, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the USC Marshall School of Business, the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI. He was former legal educator for the State of California and the executive trainer of California's prosecutors.
Gus has written six best-selling books including a New York Times best, a Chicago Tribune best, an American Library Association Best, a One City/One Book selection and an ALA Book To Be Read Before College; optioned three for film; written forTime magazine and the Encyclopedia Britannica; spoken on CBS This Morning, CNN, National Public Radio and Voice of America; performed more than two hundred criminal jury trials; and won many military and civilian awards. Happily married since 1979, he and his wife Diane, a former member of the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs faculty and clinical nurse specialist at UCSF and UCD Medical Centers, collaborated on the best-seller, Courage: The Backbone of Leadership, a true-stories-based text on how to own and deploy the observable, measurable, learnable and teachable behaviors of moral courage and principled leadership in the successful solving of moral, organizational, corporate, relational and business-case problems.
Gus believes that if he, an original coward, could learn courageous leadership and character-centric living, so can you - with much greater ease and grace.
COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES: He has delivered commencements and convocations; lectured at Colorado College, Colby College, Denver University, Duke School of Business, Fuller Seminary, Georgetown, Harvard, Harvard Law, Haverford, NYU, SMU, SNU, USC, Otterbein, S.F. State, Southwestern, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Davis Law, California State University Monterey Bay College of Business, California State University San Francisco, U. of Colorado, U. of Kansas, U. of Tampa School of Business, U. of Wisconsin, U.S. Air Force Academy's Center for Character Development, UCCS, Virginia Tech, West Point, Whitworth, Wittenberg and many other schools, school districts from L.A. and S.F. to Chicago and Maine and inner city schools and many NAIS private schools and is Chair of Character Development, Simon Center for the Professional Military Ethic at West Point and works with St. Mark's to develop strategic, longitudinal character development/transformation programs.
MEDIA He has appeared on "CBS This Morning," "Sonya Live," CNN with Bernard Shaw, National Public Radio with Terry Gross and Diane Rehm, Monitor TV, WGN Chicago, Voice of America and PBS and has been interviewed and reviewed by major national and overseas media, including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and Time magazine. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America and has three new works in progress.
TEACHING AND ASSOCIATIONS He was adjunct faculty for the USC Graduate School of Business (now the Marshall School), keynoted the National Federal Academies Honor Conference, has been a part of West Point’s National Conference on Ethics in America since 1995, coaches executives and delivers integrity and leadership clinics. He is a consultant and thought leader for Development Dimensions International, an adjunct and has been a platform instructor and feedback coach for the Center for Creative Leadership, OPM and U.S. Department of Justice and is guiding St. Mark’s Character Development Program. He, Diane and their courageous adult children volunteer in community and church and raised a teen from a hard-pressed immigrant family who has won a full college scholarship. Their daughter is executive director of a non-profit which is building 1000 Wells in ten African nations; their son is an active duty Army officer.
MENTORING Mentoring is the intentional and focused development of character. Gus was mentored by H. Norman Schwarzkopf at West Point; Nuremberg prosecutor and Holocaust refugee Edgar Bodenheimer at King Hall, UC Davis and by Yenching scholar and graduate advisor Dr. Kwang-ching Liu in graduate school at UC Davis. He has mentored executives from every continent across fifty professions and industries, seeking to develop character before improving technical skills.
BACKGROUND He grew up in an immigrant family in the inner city streets of the Panhandle/Western Addition of San Francisco and was raised, from the age of seven, by the City's Central YMCA boxing faculty. He has been a drill sergeant, paratrooper, University of California assistant dean working for low-income and minority students, JAGC command judge advocate and legal counsel to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee’s worldwide ethics Connelly Investigation. He is a four-times ethics whistle blower, has resigned from boards to protest ethical misconduct and has advised corporations through values integration, change management, departmental and executive conflicts and has coached CEOs and other C-level executives in character and leadership skills development. He was a supervising deputy district attorney for Sacramento County, an acting deputy attorney general and an FBI and arresting agencies trainer. He has done over 200 jury trials and has been involved in education and training in every professional position he has held. As Deputy Director of the California District Attorneys Association, he designed and delivered continuing education for the state's 4000 prosecutors. As the Senior Executive for Legal Education for the State of California, he managed continuing education for its 140,000 lawyers with a focus on ethics and client relationships. As vice president of Endur, he helped design a character-centric team corporate culture; as EVP/COO of Memorial Health System, he led the design of a high-core values culture that focused on patient safety, quality of care and clinical teamwork; as chief learning and education officer for Integware, he supports the organization's transformational movement to principles-centric partnering, hiring and operations.
AWARDS He has been awarded the University of California at Davis Citation for Excellence, Outstanding Instructor Awards from California District Attorneys and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the Meritorious Service Medal with first Oak Leaf cluster, Korean Defense Service Medal, Army Commendation and Achievement Medals, Parachutist Badge, many commander and unit medallions, awards from the California State Legislature, State Bar, National Association of Supreme Court Justices, FBI, Department of Justice, police agencies, District Attorney Order of the Silk Purse, honorary PhDs, PACE-setter award, Lincoln Wall of Fame, YMCA service pin, CSCCI recognition, and, with his wife Diane, received the 2007 Golden Quill Award; library, publishing and community awards; been guest lecturer/visiting scholar and writer at many colleges, is represented by national speaker bureaus and is a member of the Association of Graduates, U.S. Military Academy and the Writers Guild of America. He has received medallions from the Superintendent, Commandant and Sergeant Major of the U.S. Military Academy; the US Air Force Academy; Virginia Tech; and many military units, been granted honorary doctorates and served on non-profit boards.
A NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED AUTHOR His first novel, China Boy (Dutton 1991) was a six-month best-seller, Literary Guild Selection, Random House AudioBook, New York Times Best Book, American Library Association Best for the last 50 years, was an ALA Book to Read Before College, Signet & Plume paperbacks, selected for San Francisco’s One City/One Book and became a best-seller again, 16 years after its first publication. In its 23rd printing, was optioned by the producers of Tender Mercies and by Lee Mendelson, 40-year producer of Peanuts and the winner of 17 Emmys and 4 Peabodies. Honor and Duty (Knopf 1994) was a best-seller, Book of the Month Club pick, Random House AudioBook, Chicago Tribune Best Novel, Ballantine paperback, was optioned for film by Steven Haft, producer of the Dead Poets Society, and was required reading at West Point. Tiger's Tail (Knopf 1996) was a best-seller and AudioScope book. No Physical Evidence (Ballantine 1998) was a best-selling legal thriller, a Book of the Month Club selection, a Brilliance audio book, an Ivy paperback, was optioned for film by Fox 2000, the producers of Glory and Courage Under Fire, and was winner of a Publisher Book Award. Best-selling Chasing Hepburn was published by Random/Harmony in January 2003 and is now a Random/Three Rivers quality paperback. He has contributed to numerous anthologies and written for Time magazine and Encyclopedia Britannica. His sixth book, best-seller Courage: The Backbone of Leadership, written with his wife Diane, has been endorsed by H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Warren Bennis, Amy Tan, ethicists, CEOs, FBI agents, leading educators, board chairs, non-profit leaders and general officers. It won the 2007 Golden Quill Award for advancing the quality of life and has been adopted by DDI, corporations, law enforcement trainining centers, Army units and schools and is required reading at West Point, Lockheed Martin, St. Marks and the Kansas City Police Department's Police and Leadership Academy as well as many other organizations.