Norie Huddle

Center for New National Security
664 Cherry Run Road, Harpers Ferry, WV 25425
(304) 876-9400
nhuddle@intrepid.net
http://www.bestgame.org/

Norie Huddle is a published author of seven books and numerous articles on environment, education, new concepts of national security and new possibilities for humanity.She is also a professional TV interviewer, workshop presenter, popular and highly respected public speaker and an organizational and creative consultant to private industry, government, NGOs and academia. She is the Chairman of the Board and Executive Director of the Center for New National Security, a nonprofit corporation established in Washington, D.C. in 1979.

Huddle is actively committed to designing and supporting projects in peacemaking on a local to global scale. In the early 1960s, she was an exchange student in Italy for a year, under the auspices of the American Field Service. Since her graduation from Brown University (1966), she has been establishing a network of cooperative working relationships with government officials, leaders in private industry, the media and academia, and creative strategists and problem-solvers around the world.

In her endeavors as a "peacemaker," Huddle has lived and traveled abroad extensively. A former Peace Corps Volunteer from Colombia, South America, Huddle worked for two years at the community level, designing and implementing training programs for women. Huddle lived in Japan for four years while she researched and wrote, with Michael Reich, Island of Dreams: Environmental Crisis in Japan. She worked closely with Japanese environmental and consumer groups, and helped organize the nonpartisan group, "Japan Plus 20." to look at long range social, political and environmental issues and trends in Japan and Southeast Asia. Huddle has also visited the Soviet Union frequently, to attend conferences and conduct interviews with a wide range of Soviet citizens concerning their perspectives on national and global security, and to meet with Soviet entrepreneurs and design joint ventures.

Huddle "retired" (with virtually no financial resources) at age 25, to do "only what makes absolute sense to me for the rest of my life." A graduate of Brown University, Huddle has lived on four continents, speaks five languages fluently, was active in citizen diplomacy in the USSR, and was active in the antinuclear movement. Then, in 1978, Huddle realized that the path to global peace and justice required transformation at a more core level of structures, beliefs and experience.

A lifelong student of America and the American people, Huddle has also traveled throughout the United States. In 1977, she wrote Travels with Hope, the account of "Project America 1976," a crosscountry bicycle trip which she organized upon her return from Japan in 1975. Project America involved a dozen Americans and Japanese who spent nine months bicycling across the United States from Santa Barbara to Philadelphia, during the American Bicentennial. It was during this time that Huddle began asking Americans about their lives and work, their hopes and ideas for creating a positive future.

From 1979-83, Huddle interviewed over 400 people from all walks of life about their positive visions of the future and their ideas for how to make America and the world more secure. Surviving: The Best Game on Earth, published by Schocken Books, is a compendium of 30 of these interviews. It has been widely reviewed and well received. One reviewer commented, "This is the first time I have weighed the issues of global survival without feeling futility or despair. If this book, and others like it, were introduced into the curricula of school systems worldwide, a shift toward more planetary cooperation might well occur." Library Journal selected Surviving as one of the top 100 books in the United States in the area of science and technology (1984); Surviving also was on the New York Time's longer bestseller list.

Huddle has shared her skills and thought-provoking perspectives on television and radio in the United States, Japan (in Japanese) and the Soviet Union (in Russian). In Japan, she has spoken to radio and television audiences of over 10 million and to live audiences of up to 10,000. She has been interviewed for and has written feature articles for all the leading Japanese daily newspapers and many of their weekly and monthly magazines, as well as for several leading Soviet publications. She has led seminars or made presentations to such diverse organizations as the United Nation's Conference on Population (NGO Forum) held in Bucharest, the Commonwealth Club (San Francisco), the Women's Executive Club (Washington, D.C.), the National Organization of Women, the United States Army, Lorton Prison, the Whole Life Expo (New York and San Francisco), Princeton University, Villanova, the University of California (Riverside), Catholic University and The American University (Washington, D.C.), and to a variety of church congregations and schools (first through 12th grades). She is a warm, humorous and genuine individual who inspires her audiences with her enthusiasm, intelligence and determination to contribute to the wellbeing of all. She gives presentations in a variety of languages including Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Italian.

In March of 1990, Huddle set up Huddle Books as the publishing division of CNNS, for the purpose of publishing future works related to national and global security. On Earth Day 1990, she published her fourth book, Butterfly, a tiny tale of great transformation to "help usher in the Butterfly Era of Global Civilization." by setting forth a global myth for our times. Butterfly is beautifully illustrated by artist Charlene Madland. In June of 1991, Huddle Books published Huggles, an environmental coloring book for children, also written by Huddle and illustrated by Madland. Huddle is currently completing Money, Power and Purpose, which presents bold new ideas for redesigning economic and social systems.

A committed peacemaker, Huddle has interviewed people from all over the world on their ideas for creating global peace, health, prosperity and justice. Many of these ideas have been incorporated into The Best Game on Earth, a new global "life game" which Huddle has been designing since 1980. Huddle says The Best Game on Earth, is an experiment in "electronic democracy" designed to support collaborative and innovative approaches to solving global problems. Her newest book, Money, Power and Purpose, began as an effort to design the new economic system for Players of The Best Game on Earth.

Norie's butterfly metaphor was featured in the Institute of Noetic Science Magazine - IONS - Issue 52, June - August 2000 in an article entitled What the Butterfly Knows/Wired for wings. Please visit www.noetic.org/Ions/publications/butterfly1.htm