Legislator Details
Vital Records Information:
Marital Information:
married then divorced; children: Michael; 2nd marriage to Judith Hollister; she drowned in 2006; married Julianne Fletcher in about 2009
Number of Children: 1
Background
Education:
graduated from University High School, Los Angeles, 1956; BA, Reed College, Portland, OR, 1960; PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 1967.
Biographical Sketch:
Assoc. prof., Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, 1967-72 and later taught at Michigan State University and Universtiy of Michigan Institute of Public Policy Studies; and as a Visiting Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program of the Brookings Institution, as a Woodrow Wilson Center Public Policy Scholar, and as a consultant to the World Bank and to the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. State Department. Served as a member of the Kalamazoo City Commission. He was regional representative to U.S. Senator Donald Riegle of Michigan, 1976-78. A resident of Lansing, MI as of 1996. He played a key role in the 1986 passage of the federal anti-apartheid act that imposed economic sanctions on South Africa. As special envoy to Africa's Great Lakes Region under President Clinton, Wolpe supported peace talks that helped bring an end to long-standing civil wars in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo; served as director of the Africa program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. Member of the Jaycees.
Notable Facts:
Elected to 7 consecutive Congresses 1979-1993; chairman of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa for 10 years. Unsuccessful candidate for Dem. for gov., 1994.