Samuel Gresham Jr. is a native of Greenwood, Mississippi and migrated to Chicago, Illinois, where he was educated during his formative years. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and received a Bachelor of Arts or Science in Urban and Regional Planning. He attended the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania for advanced training.

He is the owner and Principal of Samuel Gresham International (SGI), a firm established in 2009 that provides services in three broad categories; public policy, media, and information services. SGI assists clients in launching strategies that engage public policy stakeholders in compelling ways.

Mr Gresham currently serves as Chairman of Common Cause Ohio and previously served as the organization’s Executive Director for approximately three years. Mr Gresham led the campaign for Ohio constitutional amendments, Issues 2, 3, 4, and 5, in 2005. One of the successes of that campaign was no-fault absentee voting, which remains in effect today. He also led Common Cause Ohio in numerous court cases to protect and improve election administration in Ohio.

Before joining Common Cause Ohio, Mr Gresham served for 20 years as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Columbus Urban League. There, he completed the construction of a new headquarters building at the cost of $2.3 million, equipped with state-of-the-art computer systems. In 1999, the Columbus Urban League, Inc., was selected in a national competition for a $3.1 million grant from the Department of Labor to serve “hard to serve individuals” in a welfare-to-work program. While at the Urban League, Gresham became nationally recognized for his creative and innovative approach to problem-solving for African Americans.

Mr Gresham has also served as Executive Director of the Ohio Commission on African-American Males (OCAAM). In his tenure, Gresham conducted public hearings in 15 communities, retrieving information that produced a ten-year plan entitled “The Ohio Campaign for African-American Males 2020.” OCAAM sponsored a report titled “The State of Black Ohio” published by the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. State of Black Ohio is the first document of its type to be published by a significant land-grant research university. OCAAM also published “Select Indicators on African-American Males in Ohio.” This report is a compilation of narrative and statistical information identifying characteristics and disparities of the African-American male population in Ohio. “Select Indicators on African-American Males in Ohio” is the first document published by a significant land-grant research university.

Most recently, Mr Gresham served as Chief of Staff for the Treasure of Franklin County, Cheryl Brooks Sullivan. His responsibilities included the management of office operations.

Mr Gresham’s extensive background involves television. He had the honor of producing the longest-running black talk show in television history, the first black soap opera, and the first African-American history lecture series on network television.

Mr. Gresham serves as a political analyst on several local radios and television shows; All Sides Would and Fisher on NPR, The Spectrum on Channel 4, and State Channel 10.

Earlier in Gresham’s career, he served as chief of Single Family Loan Management at the Department of Housing and Urban Development/Columbus office. While at HUD, he received the agency’s second-highest award, the Certificate of Merit in 1984, and four special achievement awards.

His volunteer civic involvement involves primarily two organizations. Common Cause/Ohio, where he serves as chairman of the State Board of Directors, and AARP, where he serves as a member of the executive committee until 2014. Gresham has numerous awards, and with all of his achievements, he is the proudest of his family, especially his wife Sandra Moody Gresham and his children, Samuel Gresham III, Ryan Edmund Gresham, W. Shawna Gibbs, Jhanna Appleby, Destiny Moody, and Charles Philip Gresham.