Michael C. Mitchell

As part of their work on international social issues Mitchell was asked to create a celebration for the United Nations International Day for Tolerance in 1999. The International Day for Tolerance is an annual observation declared by UNESCO in 1995 to generate public awareness of the dangers of intolerance.

Mitchell organized the 1999 event honoring Mikhail Gorbachev, former leader of the Soviet Union and Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor, politician and Chairman of the USC Schwarzenegger Institute of State and Global Policy. Keynote speakers included John Kerry, U.S. Senator and U.S. Secretary of State.

Information and undercover video derived from their investigation were used to create a GSN written report, "Crime & Servitude" and a video documentary, "Bought & Sold." The film was released in 1997 and received widespread media coverage in the US and abroad, including specials on ABC Primetime Live, CNN, and BBC.

In order to strengthen the Sanctuary efforts to stop poaching, Mitchell worked with Steve Galster conducting undercover video interviews with the poachers. Through these undercover meetings, he and Galster discovered a link between animal poachers and human traffickers. What began as an effort to preserve habitat became an international exposé on trafficking. From 1995-1997 they undertook a two-year undercover investigation personally holding meetings with traffickers and trafficked women to expose the international relationship between animal and human trafficking.

While undertaking those projects in conjunction with local wildlife scientists Mitchell convinced the Prime Minister of Russia, Viktor Chernomyrdin, to establish the Amur Tiger Sanctuary in 1993, which was initially funded through the Global Survival Network (GSN), an environmental organization he co-founded with Steve Galster now of Freeland Foundation.

Mitchell served as the founding board chairman in 1991 and L. Ronald Scheman (co-founder of the Pan American Development Foundation, where his work included providing financial assistance to low-income rural communities), served as the first President. Past President Richard M. Nixon served as the honorary chairman of the Fund.

From 1991 to 1994 the Fund is credited with channeling 240 million dollars worth of staples and food supplies to the former Soviet Union. As gratitude for the contributions of the Fund, the Russian government commissioned a monument park to reflect American goodwill.

During the dissolution of the Soviet Union starting in 1990, Russia and Ukraine experienced a severe shortage of medical and food supplies. Working throughout both countries witnessing first-hand the growing crisis, Mitchell and his close friend, Yankel Ginzburg, an American artist and humanitarian, who had family in Tver, Russia, responded to requests by Russia's leadership for assistance, co-founding the "Fund for Democracy and Development" to provide aid to alleviate the crisis.

Mitchell continued his contributions to social and education programs by accepting an appointment to the Board of the National Education Association's Foundation for the Improvement of Education (NFIE), serving on the board from 1987 – 1997. Since its beginning in 1969, the Foundation has served as a laboratory of learning, offering funding and other resources to public school educators, their schools, and districts to solve complex teaching and learning challenges.

In the Spring of 1985, Mitchell was contacted by Bob Geldof, an Irish rock musician, that had been working on issues of drought and famine in Africa. Geldof asked Mitchell to produce a worldwide televised music show to raise funds to help alleviate the catastrophic consequences of the worst African famine in a century.

The July 13, 1985 broadcast was the world's first large globally interactive show seen by 1.5 billion viewers in 150 countries. Whereas the 1984 Olympics utilized three satellites to beam from one location around the world, Live Aid utilized thirteen satellites sending and receiving concerts from seven locations from around the world and producing one international feed back to the 150 nations. Despite 1985 being at the height of the Cold War, Mitchell established a global broadcast with a live concert from the Soviet Union featuring Autograph, and a delayed Live Aid showing in China.

Beginning in 1985, Mitchell began an association with Irving Sarnoff, the Executive Director of Friends of the United Nations (FOTUN), and his co-Founder, Dr. Noel Brown, Director of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), North America. The Friends of the United Nations is an NGO dedicated to advocating support for programs of the United Nations.

MCM Group is an international planning and design firm headquartered in Los Angeles. Founded in 1984 by Michael C. Mitchell after the close of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, where he served as the head of planning and operations, the firm has sought to expand those planning techniques as a model to address prominent social problems. MCM Group provides feasibility consulting, planning, architecture, landscape design and sustainable engineering services. Mitchell has developed offices in Tokyo, Moscow, Middle East offices in Doha, Qatar, an African base in Nairobi, Kenya and currently four offices in China, with its headquarters in Beijing.

As head of the close-out operations after the completion of the Los Angeles 1984 Summer Olympics, Mitchell oversaw the creation of the LA84 Foundation which was formed out of the $225 million surplus from the operations of the Games. The Foundation is now a national leader in supporting youth programs, providing recreation and learning opportunities to disadvantaged youth, training youth coaches and convening national conferences on youth sports issues.

In the early 1980s Mitchell was recruited by the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, where he served as the Group Vice-President of Planning and Control (Finance). Among his duties included overseeing the planning of the Olympic venues and supervising the architectural department's venue planning. During the Olympics he was responsible for the Games Operations Center and oversaw the closeout of the Games after their completion.

At Portland State University, Mitchell became one of the organizers of the First Earth Day in 1970, coordinating universities throughout America's northwest states. After his work on the First Earth Day, he was one of ten university students selected from across the nation by President Richard Nixon's Administration to form a national Youth Advisory Board on environmental matters, S.C.O.P.E (Student Council on Pollution and the Environment) was assigned to the U.S. Department of Interior where Mitchell was a reviewer on the creation of the first Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

Michael C. Mitchell (born January 4, 1946 in Portland, Oregon) is an American planner, designer, lecturer and environmentalist. His work focuses primarily on the planning and design of destinations, attractions, leisure and rural development.