The Honorable Don Ritter, Sc. D. is the current President and CEO of the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce (AACC) and a member of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors. Since 2002, he has worked full time on Afghanistan and has been back to the country 22 times. Dr. Ritter represented Pennsylvania’s 15th district, the “Lehigh Valley”, from 1979 to 1993 in the U.S. House of Representatives, and has a near 30-year history in Afghanistan. As ranking member on the Congressional Helsinki Commission, he fought for liberty and human rights in the former Soviet Union, serving also as the founding chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Baltic States and Ukraine. No other Congressional body even came close to the number of hearings the Helsinki Commission held on Afghanistan under Ritter’s guidance.

As one of the leading congressional proponents of U.S. assistance to the people of Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion and occupation as prime author of the “Material Assistance legislation” and founder and Chairman of the “Congressional Task Force on Afghanistan”, Dr. Ritter continues his effort today via the economy and private sector to find solutions to Afghanistan’s challenges of insurgency and drug trade. He is founder and former Chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Afghanistan Foundation, later known as the Afghanistan-America Foundation and a founder of the Afghan American Chamber of Commerce (AACC) in 2002.

He also served as Senior Advisor to the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce and the Afghan International Chamber of Commerce (AICC) in Kabul during the creation and development years of AICC, 2004 and 2005 under a USAID grant. Dr. Ritter was a major architect of the AICC, the first independent, free-market oriented Chamber in the history of Afghanistan, now merged with the Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI). Dr. Ritter presently seeks to continue AACC’s seminal role in assisting the development of the Afghan market economy to bring stability and prosperity to Afghanistan.

He also wears the hat of private businessman and investor in Afghanistan and is active in businesses involving consumer services, construction and carpets. Dr. Ritter holds a B.S. in Engineering from Lehigh University and an engineering doctorate from M.I.T. He was a NAS Scientific Exchange fellow in the former Soviet Union for a year and speaks fluent Russian. He was a member of the faculty and administration at Lehigh University for 10 years, a consultant to industry, and, after 7 terms and 14 years in the US Congress, was founder and President of the National Environmental Policy Institute (NEPI) for 10 years. Don also serves on the Board of Directors of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and is Chairman of their Development Committee.