Re: Who are you?

Description: Growing up in Baltimore.

Transcript:

Robert Hormats

Baltimore, Maryland.

It shapes me in part because as I was growing up when I was very young, Baltimore was still

a segregated city. The schools were segregated, and it was only when I was in primary school

that they began desegregated. So I learned a lot about social transition during that period. And

I also was cognizant of the fact that growing up in Baltimore I was really in a relatively

narrow social environment. So my parents fortunately were also aware of that, and they sent me

to a camp in the Pocono’s that was populated in large measure by children of U.N. diplomats.

And therefore at a very early age I got to know people from all over the world. I think that had

an influence on me. And I also decided that once I finished high school I wanted to go

somewhere else to school. So I went to school in Boston which further broadened my social,

and economic, and political horizons.

As a young person I was influenced by teachers, particularly teachers in my high school;

my parents who liked to travel. They enjoyed travel. They gave me and my sister a very

strong grounding in education. We were constantly told that you not only have to study, but

you have to develop a thirst for knowledge. And they talked at the dinner table about

various current events and various issues, and made a real point of trying to encourage us to

read, to inquire, to expand beyond our normal life to understand the world and a lot of the

issues that were contemporary at the time.

I had a number of things – several things that went through my mind at various points and

times. One, I was at one point interested in medicine and still am, although I didn’t pursue

that. My uncle was in business, and he encouraged me to go into business. I, when I went

to college, began to take courses in international politics, domestic politics,

international economics, domestic economics. So over a period of time I began to become

more aware of the world and more interested in it. And I think in the end it was the opportunity

to travel; it was the opportunity to understand other cultures; the opportunity to see the world

and all it had to offer which caused me to go into international economics. And then after

Recorded On: 7/25/07