2026 Peace Corps Week: Volunteer Arthur Mersereau transitioned to PC trainer, learned a thing or two about leadership
As a Peace Corps trainer, Arthur Mersereau learned that most of what we think we know is provisional, open to challenge, and that the most effective leaders are those who listen before they decide.
This story is by University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo Professor of Political Science Su-Mi Lee as part of a series of stories to be published here at UH Hilo Stories this week celebrating 2026 Peace Corps Week, March 2-6, each day featuring a returned Peace Corps volunteer and new theme. Professor Lee’s research activity includes a years-long project documenting returned volunteers who have ties to UH Hilo and/or Hawaiʻi Island that includes written biographies as well as video and audio interviews.
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer: Arthur Mersereau
First Thailand as a Volunteer, then Hawaiʻi Island as a Trainer
Today’s Theme: Lessons I Brought Home
In the winter of his final year as a physics undergraduate in Boston, Arthur Mersereau had a clear plan to pursue a graduate fellowship. However, a walk through the student union during a snowstorm changed his trajectory. He encountered a Peace Corps recruiting table featuring posters of tropical landscapes, and on a whim, he filled out an application to lift his spirits. A few weeks later, he received a phone call offering him a placement in the Malaria Eradication Program in Thailand.
Arthur initially questioned his qualifications, as his background was in physics rather than biology or public health. The recruiter assured him that a six-week World Health Organization (WHO) training course in Manila, preceded by an orientation in Hilo, Hawaiʻi, would provide the necessary technical foundation. Enticed by the opportunity to travel, Arthur accepted the offer and pivoted from his graduate studies.
At the training center in Hilo, Arthur struggled significantly with the language requirements and was so convinced he would be deselected from the program that he packed his bags after his final examination. To his surprise, he was selected and proceeded to his assignment in Thailand. The training proved effective, and Arthur’s service was successful enough that he was eventually offered a staff position in Thailand to oversee volunteer involvement in the Malaria Project. This role led to a professional appointment at the Peace Corps Training Center in Hilo, where he moved from being a trainee to a member of the training staff.
Working as a staff member in Hilo provided Arthur with the most enduring lessons of his career. He worked alongside a talented and creative team dedicated to preparing new volunteers for service. The training staff operated with a rare humility. They never assumed they had a “magic formula” for preparation. Instead, they lived in a constant state of assessment and analysis. Arthur spent countless nights in deep discussion with his colleagues, grappling with the idea that a training plan should never be cast in stone. It had to be malleable, adapting to the unique energy of each new group of trainees.
He learned that most of what we think we know is provisional, open to challenge and that the most effective leaders are those who listen before they decide. The “gang” at the Hilo site taught him that a rigid adherence to a plan is often less effective than a collaborative, dynamic response to the present moment.
Decades later, Arthur views his Peace Corps years as the ultimate preparation for life. The technical skills of physics may have been his starting point, but the Peace Corps gave him a high tolerance for ambiguity. He returned to the United States with the understanding that rigid plans often fail in complex environments and that success depends on a willingness to adapt. Life, like a training program, is a series of tweaks and adaptations. For Arthur, the greatest lesson brought home wasn’t found in a textbook or a laboratory, but in the collaborative spirit of a group of people dedicated to the idea that there is always a better way to listen and learn.
Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Project
This week’s stories on returned Peace Corps volunteers is part of a larger project headed by Su-Mi Lee, a professor of political science, who along with her poli-sci students and members of the local community for years have been collecting biographical stories of returned volunteers who have ties to Hawaiʻi Island. Learn more about Prof. Lee’s Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Project (2023), and see more stories about it.
