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Bob Eaton
Executive Director
Takoma Park, MD

Main Responsiblities

As Executive Director, Bob is responsible for all program and administrative aspects of the global program to coordinate and raise funds for Landmine Impact Surveys for SAC program countries. In addition to mobilizing roughly $7 million per year in support of the global landmine survey and representing SAC at major international conferences and Standing Committees of the Landmine Ban Treaty, he also serves on SAC’s international Board of Directors and liaises closely with UN agencies.

Background

Bob is a development specialist with over twenty-five years experience (ten years in the field) in planning and managing innovative rehabilitation programs for war-devastated countries for both the United Nations and major voluntary organizations.

His experience ranges from monitoring the delivery and distribution of emergency relief supplies during the Cambodian famine following the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime in Phnom Penh in 1980, leading a public education effort in the U.S. to enhance understanding of post-war Indochina as well as developing the first lobbying initiative to improve U.S. trade and investment with the countries of Indochina between 1986 and 1989, to establishing and managing a $45 million UNOPS operation based in Islamabad, Pakistan from 1989 through 1994 that provided rehabilitation assistance to rural Afghanistan during an on-going civil war there. And in 1995, he established the Humanitarian Department at the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) whose mission included developing funding sources and programs in Vietnam, Cambodia, Angola and El Salvador.

In 1998, while Director for Humanitarian Affairs at VVAF, Bob initiated the Global Landmine Survey Program and the Survey Action Center. He was responsible for mobilizing the resources necessary to conduct the Global Landmine Survey, maintaining close working relations with the wider NGO community, United Nations Foundation and UN system.

Education

Bob received a B.A. in Economics with a focus on International Development from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.

All the rest

He is married to Wendy Batson and they are parents of four children ranging in ages from 15 to 23.