Great Decisions Group Profile: Napa Valley Great Decisions Seminar

Founded in 2010, the Napa Valley Great Decisions Seminar has caught the eye of the Foreign Policy Association before as recipients of the Frank W. Cella Memorial Award in 2011. Led by Dr. John Oliver Wilson, a professional economist, the 50-person group has continued to thrive, as evidenced by its 30-person standby list.

“This seminar has become a major ‘institution’ in Napa Valley, and is well recognized in the various communities of the valley,” Wilson told me.

Prior to leading the Napa Valley Great Decisions Seminar, Wilson spent 28 years teaching, 23 of which he spent at the University of California, Berkeley. He’s also the former Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at the Bank of America, and has served three presidential-level appointments in Washington, D.C., at the Office of Economic Opportunity, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and the Atomic Energy Commission.

Wilson chose to start a Great Decisions group after retiring from Berkeley and moving to the valley.

“[There] I found a wealth of experience and knowledge…and a great hunger to engage in enlightened discussion on current global issues. The Great Decisions program, with which I was familiar from my teaching, was a perfect model,” he said.

Like Wilson, a number of members in the Napa group also have strong international and foreign policy experience. Participants make use of their own materials and do extensive homework on their own, but he’s also found other ways to tailor the materials the group uses.

“I use the Great Decisions book, but I supplement the articles each week with a six to eight page memo that I write on each topic,” he noted. “My papers have become ‘best sellers,’ for I supplement the FPA material with international economic and financial analysis.”

Provided program’s success, it’s no wonder it’s had a positive impact both on a local and even a national level. Wilson’s helping to apply the model to a program he’s developing with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, entitled “The Idea of America—Our Values, Our Legacy, Our Future.” He’s also managed to engage one local congressman, Mike Thompson, who’s a participant in the group. Thompson, noted Wilson, weighs in with his own insights from Washington, but he also seeks out of the group’s opinions on various global issues covered in the program.