Long before the November election, sensing that something historic was in the offing, Earl Stafford (OPM 26, 1998) decided that wounded veterans, the disadvantaged, the terminally ill, and others unlikely to be part of the presidential inauguration should have a chance to experience it. When the JW Marriott on Pennsylvania Avenue offered a $1 million package deal that included 300 hotel rooms, suites, meals, and priceless parade-route views for the event, Stafford, the founder and CEO of a Virginia technology company, snapped it up through his Stafford Foundation.

“We’ve gotten away from the core values that made America great,” Stafford told the Washington Post (December 4, 2008). “We just need to get back to caring about each other.” Working with the Urban League and social service organizations, Stafford, who grew up as one of twelve children of a Baptist minister, invited his guests from all over the country and provided beauty treatments and formal evening wear for two gala balls he organized for his “People’s Inaugural.”

In the late 1980s, Stafford, an Air Force veteran, founded Universal Systems and Technology. The $150 million firm has 475 employees and makes military-training and weapons-simulation devices.

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