Born in Pasadena, he grew up in the family home-located less than a mile from Pasadena City College-and attended local schools. Even in high school, before volunteering became as fashionable as it now is, he sought out ways to help others. One of these was by serving as a "Big Brother" to a young boy who needed his companionship and mentoring. With the approval of the thenSuperintendent of Schools, Ramon Cortines, Kevin addressed the Board of Trustees about the idea and then helped implement an Alternative Classes program at Blair High School that responded to the needs of those students whose needs were not being effectively 9 met by the regular program. At his church, he was responsible for starting a youth group that continued long after he had left Pasadena to continue his education.

After graduation cum Laude from Georgetown University, he went to work for a summer in a shanty town in Barranquilla, Colombia, returning to spend the following year in Colombia working with these impoverished campesinos . nos. He provided assistance there through Federacion Hogares juveniles Campesinos, a group of eighty-five education centers for small farmers.

Returning to the United States, Murphy sought to prepare himself to assist impoverished persons throughout the world to have a better life. Accepted at Harvard, he pursued two graduate degrees-one in business and one in government-so that he would have the education, the background, and the tools to achieve some measure of success in changing the lives of people who saw little for which to hope. In addition to English, he became fluent in French and Spanish.

Much of his career in the international field has been devoted to assisting impoverished people to

become a part of the economy instead of victims of it by teaching them how to set up and manage their own businesses. In his work in fifty-eight countries throughout the world, he has moved from poverty alleviation at the grass-roots levels to working with individuals at the highest levels of leadership to change the policies that institutionalize poverty replacing them with programs that alleviate poverty and lead to sustainable economic and social growth. Most recently, after his work in Uganda, he personally briefed President Museveni on economic reform strategies relevant to that country.

Murphy is married, has two children, and lives in McLean, Virginia.