2012 Alumni Trustee Candidates

Nathaniel C. Fick '99

Nate Fick is the chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), an independent nonprofit organization specializing in national security policy research. He is also an operating partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm.

Nate graduated from Dartmouth in 1999, where he majored in classics and government and won a national championship title in cycling. After graduation, he served in the United States Marine Corps as an infantry and reconnaissance officer, including combat deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. Nate received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a master’s degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government, both in 2008.

He is the author of the 2005 New York Times bestseller One Bullet Away, recognized as one of the “Best Books of the Year” by The Washington Post and one of the “Best Military Books of the Decade” by The Military Times. The commanding general of U.S. Marines in the Middle East made it required reading for officers deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq, and it has been assigned to every student in Stanford University's Class of 2015. Nate's writing has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and Forbes.

Nate serves on the boards of the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy at Dartmouth, the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation (dedicated to funding the college educations of the children of Marines killed in action), and Praescient Analytics, a data analysis firm. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders.

Nate is an avid fly fisherman and a certified sailboat charter captain. He lives with his family in Washington, DC.

Statement

Four years at Dartmouth had a transformative impact on my life. As is true for so many of us fortunate enough to have come to Hanover, it's where I made some of my closest friends and discovered many of my enduring interests. I believe that we all owe something to the people and institutions that have shaped us, and so I'm honored to have been nominated to run for a seat on the Dartmouth Board of Trustees.

Dartmouth is wonderfully positioned to thrive in the decades to come, but it will have to do so in a volatile and changing world. Two of the most significant, and inter-related, issues affecting Dartmouth today are the continued globalization of competition for talent, especially in technology and the sciences, and the potential implications if we are at the threshold of a period of sustained economic austerity.

Dartmouth is a talent organization whose most valuable assets all return to their homes and dorm rooms at night. We can expect that Dartmouth will increasingly go head-to-head not only with its traditional competitors, but also with emerging schools and companies across the globe in the never-ending quest to attract the best faculty, administrators, and students. A relentless focus on recruiting and retaining the most promising talent globally, both on the faculty and in the student body, is the single most important thing Dartmouth must do in order to maintain and improve its position. It's entirely possible that this talent competition will take place against a backdrop of sustained austerity. President Kim and the trustees did an admirable job of balancing the College budget in a way that gained the support of most of Dartmouth's constituents. But this storm is not over, and the challenge for Dartmouth's leadership will be to keep a steady hand on the tiller and to keep doing what the College does best—providing a world-class liberal arts education—while sustaining the richness and diversity of people and programs necessary to maintaining its preeminence.

I love Dartmouth. If elected, I would do my utmost to steward the interests of the College community as a whole, to embrace our traditions while innovating constantly, and to leave Dartmouth in some way a bit better even than the fine institution I first encountered as a high school student in 1993.

For more information, view the Trustees for Dartmouth site.

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