Introducing Cory Atwood, our 83-year old Third Act Maryland member, who participates in bank protests in the DMV area. He drives to the events from Silver Spring, arrives at the site with walking sticks and settles into a rocking chair.
Cory is a Ph.D. mathematician and statistician, who has analyzed safety data on nuclear power plants for the Department of Energy at the Idaho National Laboratory. This followed years of teaching at several universities, including Haile Selassie I University in Ethiopia, where he taught for four years and became head of the mathematics department.
As grandchildren started arriving, Cory and his wife retired officially from their Idaho positions in 2000 and moved to Silver Spring to be near their daughter and family. Cory continued working as a consultant, however, often for the same customers. Finally, at age 80, he really retired.
Cory is not new to climate change activism. In fact, he has been investing his retirement savings in what he calls “transformative investments,” and has created a website, greenira.org, to explain transformative green investing to others. But there’s more underlying Cory’s efforts than you might think. As he explains, “Ever since the protests of the sixties, my models and mentors have been Martin Luther King, Jesus, and Gandhi, and I have wanted to do more in a nonviolent way.”
Several years ago, Cory happened upon an article by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, in which she cautioned activists not to go solo in their climate work, but to join with others. When Third Act arrived on the scene, Cory heeded the call. “I went to my first bank protest in this area and discovered that IT WAS FUN. I liked the singing, the chanting, the camaraderie. I like the opportunity to get to know other people, working on something together.”
In addition to serving on the Third Act Maryland Steering Committee, Cory is an Advance Fossil-Free Finance liaison between Third Act Central and Third Act Maryland. He is also preparing to advise Third Actors in switching their accounts and credit cards from dirty banks to green banks.
With all his experience and enthusiasm, we are lucky to have Cory on our team.