Patrick Mendis - International Relations

International Relations

Before attending the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Mendis worked at the Minnesota House of Representatives under Honorable Edward A. Burdick, the chief clerk and parliamentarian of the House. He also served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee under Senator Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minnesota) dealing with the Middle East and Asian affairs.

Mendis obtained his MA in international development and foreign affairs from the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs in 1986. At the graduation ceremony, he received the first Hubert H. Humphrey Alumni Award for Outstanding Leadership. Other three Humphrey Leadership Award recipients were U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale (under President Jimmy Carter), President Ronald Reagan's Ambassador Max Kampelman, and UNEP Executive Director Mustafa Tolba.

With Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala, Mendis represented the Government of Sri Lanka as “Youth Ambassador” at the 1985 UN International Year of the Youth (IYY) in New York. It was a political appointment by the Government of Sri Lanka (at the suggestion of the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa to honor Mendis' service at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Professor Karunasena Koddituwakku, the Vice Chancellor of the University, recommended Mendis to the Minister of Youth and Sports Affairs, Ranil Wickramasinghe, who later became the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. Mendis also worked at the World Bank and served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of State after representing the Government of Sri Lanka at the UN, where he received the UN Medal for the IYY.

In Minnesota, Mendis served as the President of the Society for International Development, the Vice President of the United Nations Association of the United States of America, a public speaker at the Minnesota International Center and the Founding Chairman of The Saint Paul Foundation’s Asian-Pacific Endowment for Community Development.

Ambassador Harlan Cleveland, the President of World Academy of Art and Science, appointed Mendis as an associate fellow of the Academy in 1994. In the same year, he was elected as a member of the Saint Paul-Minneapolis Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2000, Mendis was elected as a fellow of the World Academy. He currently serves as an executive committee member of the Geneva-based World Network of Young Leaders and Entrepreneurs.

For his leadership and scholarship, he received the State of Minnesota’s Asian-Pacific Heritage Award, the Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich's Certificate of Honorary Citizenship, the Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen Award for United Nations Affairs, the University of Minnesota President’s Leadership and Service Award, and the 21st Century Trust Fellowship to attend the Merton College at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. In 2013, he received the prestigious Alumnus of Notable Achievement Award from the University of Minnesota.