Director
U.S. Department of Justice, Community Relations Service (CRS)
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Paul Monteiro is the son of immigrants and a proud product of the Prince George’s County Public Schools. He credits his classmates and the excellent educators and staff for helping give him a foundation to find a career in public service. He attended Adelphi Elementary, Buck Lodge Middle, and High Point High School.
While in elementary school he served in the AAA School Safety Patrol under the leadership of P.E. teacher Elaine Murray with the support of his 5th grade teacher Andrea Mark. While in middle school, he picked up playing trumpet in Harvey Beaver’s 8th grade band class. At High Point High, Paul served as a class officer, played in the band all four years, and became president of the school’s “It’s Academic” Club with his AP English teacher Eileen Dibler and her husband Jack Dibler as coaches. Local/State/National Government teacher John Sibert inspired Paul to learn more about how our government works. AP U.S. History teacher Norm Schwartz cultivated a deep interest in learning more about American history leading Paul to choose the subject as his major in college.
In April 2023, Governor Wes Moore nominated Paul as the state’s first Secretary of Service & Civic Innovation, and he was successfully confirmed by the Maryland Senate on April 7, 2023.
In December 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Paul as the Director of the Department of Justice Community Relations Service (CRS), and the United States Senate confirmed his appointment on April 28, 2022. In this role, Paul oversaw CRS’s work supporting communities roiled by tensions based on race, religion, sexual orientation, and other jurisdictional conflicts or as they recovered from bias incidents and/or hate crimes. He previously served as Acting Director from December 2015 to January 2017.
From 2017 - 2022, Paul worked at Howard University as Chief of Staff to President Wayne Frederick and as assistant vice president of external affairs.
In 2014, President Barack Obama appointed Mr. Monteiro as national director of AmeriCorps Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), the federal anti-poverty program established in 1965 as the domestic counterpart to the Peace Corps.
After working on Senator Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign as the deputy director for religious affairs, Paul joined the White House staff from 2009 – 2013 as an associate director in the Office of Public Engagement. In that role, he worked on President Obama’s Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Initiative, the My Brother’s Keeper mentorship program for young men, and as a liaison to religious and secular belief communities as well as ethnic groups, including Arab American and Afghan American groups.
Mr. Monteiro also served as an at-large member of the Prince George’s County (Maryland) Public Schools Board of Education. He holds a B.A. in history from the University of Maryland and a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law.
Disclosure information not submitted.
Saturday, October 14, 2023
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM PST
