Michael R. Wenger
Acting Vice President
Civic Engagement and Governance Institute

Michael R. Wenger, of Mitchellville, Maryland, is the Acting Vice President of the Civic Engagement and Governance Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the nation’s pre-eminent research and public policy analysis institution focusing on issues of race.  He also is an adjunct professor in the Department of Sociology, specializing in race relations, at The George Washington University, and is a consultant on race relations.  

Mr. Wenger came to the Joint Center in October 1998, and was the founder and Director of NABRE (Network of Alliances Bridging Race and Ethnicity), an initiative of the Joint Center. NABRE linked approximately 200 race relations/racial justice organizations across the country for the purpose of facilitating communication and interaction, both electronic and face to face, among leaders of community-based racial reconciliation projects.  The network’s mission was to cultivate and nurture local leaders as they build and sustain alliances that break down and transcend barriers of race and ethnicity in all sectors of civil society and in communities across the country.  Mr. Wenger also has served the Joint Center as Acting Vice President for Governance and Economic Analysis and as Acting Vice President for Communications.

From September 1997 to October 1998, Mr. Wenger served as the Deputy Director for Outreach and Program Development for President Clinton’s Initiative on Race. He was responsible for the development and implementation of programs designed to broaden public support for President Clinton's vision of One America in the 21st Century--a more just, inclusive and unified America that offers opportunity and fairness for all Americans.  Prior to his work with the President’s Initiative on Race, Mr. Wenger served for more than 16 years as the States’ Washington Representative for the Appalachian Regional Commission, a Congressionally-funded agency charged with promoting economic development in the 13-state Appalachian region of the United States.  In this capacity he represented the Governors of the 13 Appalachian states on policy and legislative matters relating to their membership on the Commission.  

Before coming to Washington, D.C. in 1981, Mr. Wenger held several policy-making positions, including Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Welfare and Commissioner of the Department of Employment Security, in the administration of West Virginia Governor John D. Rockefeller IV.  He began his career as a journalist and public school teacher in the New York City area and then held leadership positions in the West Virginia anti-poverty program and with the City of Charleston, WV.  His memoir, My Black Family, My White Privilege: A White Man’s Journey Through the Nation’s Racial Minefield, was published in November, 2012.  He also is the co-author of Window Pane Stories: Vignettes to Help You Look At and Beyond Your Experiences, a frequent speaker on race relations, and the author of numerous articles on race relations and on rural economic development.  

Mr. Wenger was born in New York City and educated at Queens College of the City University of New York, where he was a leader in the civil rights struggles of the early 1960s.  He is married and has three grown children, four grandchildren, and a great grandson.