Maxim Thorne
Maxim Thorne is a senior leader1 of America’s oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP. He served as a surrogate 2 on the Obama Presidential Campaign 3 and the Campaign's LGBT Leadership Council and the Finance and Policy Committees. He is the current Senior Vice President and Chief Communications and Development Officer.
Early life
Thorne was born in Georgetown, Guyana on November 24, 1964 but spent his early years in Nassau, Bahamas attending St. Thomas Moore's Primary School, until he was 10 and then returned to Guyana where he attended St. Margaret's Primary School and then Queen's College.4 His mother, who is of mixed Indian and Chinese descent, met his father, who is mixed race – Black, Scottish, Indian and Chinese - while in Georgetown, Guyana. He immigrated to the United States in 1984. He is the great grandson of Alfred Athiel Thorne ((A. A. Thorne) Barbados August 14, 1871 - April 23, 1956), one of the first blacks to earn a masters degree from a British University (1892 BAA. of Durham with honours; 1898, M.A., Durham) who founded the first high school (Middle School, Georgetown) for African boys and girls in 1892, and who was instrumental in having Queen's College Secondary School built and expanded in Camp Street in order that more Guyanese future leaders would be groomed. He helped found the League of Colored People and was principal architect behind the formation of the British Guiana Workers Union that helped lead the first anti-colonial and trade union movements in the Caribbean in late 1800 and early 1900s. A.A. Thorne served as Financial Representative and as a member of the Court of Policy, including serving on the 1905 conciliation team which met with the colonial Governor after the 1905 street protests in Georgetown.5
Education
Maxim Thorne holds a bachelor's degree with cum laude honors in economics and political science 67 [http://research.yale.edu/afam/pagedocs/PROGRAM.pdf]from Yale University and a juris doctor from Yale Law School. He received the David C. DeForest Senior Prize for Oratory & Rhetoric (1st Pl. 1989), Townsend Rhetoric Award for Graduating Senior (1st Pl. 1989), Chase F. Coggins Memorial Travel Fellow Award (to France, 1989), Henry James TenEyck Award for Oratory & Rhetoric (2nd Pl. 1988), Yale-Richter (Economics) Award (to UK, Kenya, 1988), Mellon (Soc. Sci.) Fellow (to Kenya, Stanford University, CA 1988) Parker D. Buck & Schulyer B. Jackson Sophomore Prize (1st Pl. 1987), McGuire/Rockefeller Fellow in Soc. Sci. (to Caribbean, NH 1986). He was admitted to the Supreme Court of New Jersey and US District Court (DNJ), December 1992, Certified to NJ Supreme Court (satisfaction of R.1:26) in 1992 and served on the NJ Supreme Court Committee on Complementary Dispute Resolution 2004-2006.
Thorne attended Queens College in Georgetown, Guyana from 1976-1983, for secondary school where he was Head Prefect and Captain of the Debate Team awarded the Sir Lionel Luckoo Cup.8
Career
Thorne was very active in the Obama Presidential Campaign, serving on the Finance and Policy Committees, LGBT Leadership Council and African American Leadership Council. Currently, Thorne is Senior Vice President of the NAACP. Prior to that, he was CEO of Brooklyn Child and Family Services, that provided comprehensive social services to children and families, including early care and education, Head Start and Early Head Start, mentoring programs, homeless services and housing.
Previously he served at Human Rights Campaign and Human Rights Campaign Foundation the nation’s largest LBGT civil rights organization as the Chief Operating Officer and Vice President.
Formerly, Thorne was Executive Director of New Jersey Head Start an association of all the Head Start programs in New Jersey serving over 19000 children and families. While at the NJHSA, he oversaw the implementation of Abbott v. Burke, the New Jersey Supreme Court decision that mandated parity in funding and Whole School Reform. Thorne had represented Head Start, the New Jersey NAACP State Conference and daycare centers in the Supreme Court Abbott v. Burke litigation while he served as Deputy Executive and Litigation Director at Passaic County Legal Aid Society. He is credited with securing billions of dollars in government funding for early childhood centers and Head Start program in low income communities throughout New Jersey so that they could compete with wealthier school districts. He has testified before the US Congress on issues of Head Start and universal preschool funding.
Thorne worked at Goldman Sachs (NY) as a member of SEO. He worked at Wachtel Lipton Rosen and Katz (NY) and then as an associate at Lowenstein Sandler Fisher Kohl and Boylan, one of New Jersey’s largest firms, before heading off to work on United Nations matters related to the Earth Summit including working in the Federated States of Micronesia on External Affairs and serving as representative to the UN Convention on Climate Change, UN Convention on Bio-diversity, UN Convention of Population, UN Convention on Small Island Developing States, and the Law of the Sea Conference.
He served as a bundler for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign , and on the African American Leadership Council as well as LBGT Leadership Council for the 2007-2008 Obama campaign, First Vice President of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan New Jersey, Development Chair of the North Star Fund , and a board member of Barnert Hospital, and New Jersey Childcare Advisory Council membership roster 6-3-04.doc among others. 10
He is the founder of Weekend Renewing America’s Promise (WRAP), the theme of which became that of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. WRAP is a non-partisan training retreat connecting exceptional leaders (and their families) from diverse fields. The mission is to actively live history by bringing together leaders and their families from widely divergent interests, backgrounds and views, and creating a special environment where dynamic discussions, debates and conversations are fostered and where participant's reflections transcend ideologies, politics, economics and religion.
In 1998, Thorne and Passaic County Legal Aid Society received the first ever problem solver award from the American Bar Association for excellence and creativity in representing the poor. In 2000 He was awarded the Humanitarian of the year award from Head Start Region II for his legal advocacy in representing Head Start in Abbott v. Burke. He is a Renaissance Weekend participant.