Submit a tip
Do you have info to share with HuffPost reporters? Here’s how.
Joel L. A. Peterson is a mixed-race, adoptee from Korea, who rose to senior executive levels in global business and recently became an award-winning author of the book, Dreams of My Mothers, an Amazon Best Seller in 3 categories.
He was born to an extremely destitute Korean mother, made pregnant by an unknown American GI. He lived with his alcoholic birth mother in starving, desperate circumstances that at times left him and his mother sleeping and begging on the streets.
Peterson’s birth mother placed him for international adoption and was adopted at the age of 7. He was placed with an American family, who already had four biological children, in rural Minnesota.
A National Merit Scholar, he attended college on a full Navy ROTC scholarship. Peterson served 7 years as a U.S. Navy officer. After the Navy, he entered the business world and successfully rose to become a top executive at several global corporations.
Dreams of My Mothers has received critical acclaim, deeply touching and engaging a wide range of readers, and offering new insights into timely social issues.
Although a rare, niche slice of human experience, adoption contains within it all the most relevant, timeless, and deeply felt – and held – human themes, passions, values, insecurities, tragedies, and judgments. And loves.
A first-time author, writing is not Peterson's primary profession. Peterson is currently CEO of Education Support Services, LLC, a national provider of comprehensive educational support services provided as an employee benefit through corporate employees. Concurrently, he is Managing Partner and CEO of Pintoresco Advisors, LLC. Pintoresco’s advisory services include merger & acquisition, complex project management, and business strategy development.
His past professional experiences include — former U.S. Navy officer, senior executive with global Fortune 100 corporations, and an insider in the world of global finance and mergers and acquisitions.
Peterson is a PhD pre-doc in education policy evaluation at Claremont Graduate University. He earned his MBA from The R. B. Pamplin School of Business at Virginia Tech and his BA in economics from the University of Virginia.
