With his dad George Joseph David and adoptive father Ross Aldridge, Jr. both having served in the US Army, George envisioned being a military officer or diplomat since early elementary school days. In the late 1960s, his family moved to Belton, Texas near Ft. Hood. the largest military base in the United States. Here, he would become Belton High School’s “most outstanding student” in 1971, president of the National Honor Society, an all-conference basketball player, and the local hometown newspaper’s sports writer. After attending Texas Lutheran College on a basketball scholarship his freshman year, George transferred to Howard Payne University where he graduated summa cum laude in December 1975.
George taught social studies and math courses for several years before earning his masters in comparative politics at East Texas State University. In the early 1980s George was a doctoral teaching fellow in comparative politics and international relations at the University of North Texas. During this period, he got to know many Middle Eastern students, notably doctoral chemistry teaching fellow Ali Safa from Nabatiyeh. It was Ali who implored George to become active on behalf of the Arab American community and to refute erroneous stereotypes of Lebanese and Palestinians.
From January 1986 to late June 1990, George was the director of the southwest office of the National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) while also teaching American and Texas government classes at three area community colleges. Alongside his American-Arab Anti-Discrimination (ADC) counterpart in Houston, Ruth Ann Skaff, George organized numerous outreach events to highlight our community’s contributions to America and he often explained in public forums and in the media (print, radio, and television) how and why the arbitrary partition of Palestine generated so much conflict in the Levant. In 1988 George was chosen for Who’s Who Among Young American Men.
During his subsequent State Department career lasting over 27 years, George had nine overseas postings (Jamaica, Denmark, Ethiopia, Belize, Morocco, Kenya, Tunisia, Sudan, and Lebanon) and two assignments at the State Department, among them as program officer for Palestinian refugees and liaison to UNRWA. He was deputy political-economic counselor and labor officer in Tunis during the Arab Spring. His last assignment as a US Foreign Service Officer was as the director of the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) office in Beirut. He garnered three Superior Honor Awards and eight Meritorious Honor Awards as an American diplomat.
George is married and has three young adult children attending university.
