Tim Gray
“Documentary filmmaker Tim Gray is America’s preeminent storyteller of those Tom Brokaw famously called “The Greatest Generation” — the American women and men of World War II who, at the cost of much blood and treasure, helped defeat fascism, the despicable movement responsible for an estimated 60 million or more deaths, including 6 million in the Holocaust.”
-G. Wayne Miller, The Providence Journal
Tim Gray, Founder and President of The World War II Foundation, has won 5 Regional Emmy Awards for documentary film writing and outstanding documentary film. The Foundation has also captured 4 Indie Film Fest Awards in that international competition and 2 Impact Doc Awards. Most prestigiously, the World War II Foundation and Tim Gray Media have also been recognized with American Public Television’s National Programming Excellence Award.
Tim Gray has completed 38 documentaries to date (and is in production & post-production on an additional eight films). Tim has written, produced, and directed each film, ranging from 60 to 90 minutes. These documentaries have taken the WWII Foundation to film in locations such as Guadalcanal, Corregidor, Bataan, Manila, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, the Russell Islands, Banika, Peleliu, Japan, Guam, and the Republic of Palau. Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (15 times), Normandy, France (19 trips), Switzerland, Holland, England, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland (including the Auschwitz and Treblinka Concentration and Death Camp locations), the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, and all over the United States, including the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, where Tim met the President and presented him with 2 of his films.
In addition, Tim visited Iwo Jima and revisited Peleliu in 2023.
The WWII Foundation/Tim Gray Media has another eight films in various forms of production.
World War II Foundation/Tim Gray Media films consistently rank nationally in the top 5 of most requested programs by PBS and Public Television affiliates.
On June 6, 2012, the World War II Foundation dedicated the Richard D. Winters Leadership Monument in Normandy, France, which has become one of the most visited monuments in Normandy. The 13-foot statue recognizes the leadership of all American junior officers on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
Tim is also the founder of the Normandie-World War II International Film & Media Festival in Saint-Come-du-Mont, France. It’s the only film festival in the world focused strictly on documentaries and short films centered on the stories of World War II. 2022 marked the festival’s 6th and final year, attracting some of the world’s top actors and authors as speakers and veterans of WWII. It’s held at the beautiful D-Day Experience, which features a unique IMAX theater.
In 2018, Tim founded the International Museum of World War II in Rhode Island. The museum, filled with roughly 6,000 original and rare WWII artifacts, hosts school groups around Southern New England. It also has over 600 books related to WWII and a small theatre. The education center has been called one of the best small WWII museums in the world.
In addition, Tim hosts a Zoom Video Podcast titled From the Front to the Films that features well-known actors, authors, filmmakers, veterans, and others connected to World War II.
Tim has also been a frequent guest on FOX News’ national program The Story with Martha MacCallum, where he contributes to the network’s coverage of WWII events, issues, and stories.
On October 23, 2021, Tim Gray was inducted into the Rhode Island Hall of Fame. The RI Heritage Hall of Fame was established in 1965.
Tim is honored to sit on the Advisory Board of Patriots’ Hall of Dripping Springs, a foundation established by Emmy Award-winning actor Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights, Bloodline, Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, King Kong) and his wife Kathryn. Patriots’ Hall of Dripping Springs’ mission is to create a permanent retreat and resource base for Veterans of all ages and military branches to connect and find support.
Academically, Tim works with history and film students from Davidson College in North Carolina, San Diego State University, Colby College, the University of Georgia, the University of Rhode Island, and Syracuse University.
Before Tim Gray’s Documentary Film Work:
Tim worked as a television sports and news anchor and reporter for over 15 years in several states and U.S. markets, including Michigan, Washington State, Florida (Fort Myers and Orlando), New York, and Providence, Rhode Island. In 2000, Tim was appointed weekend sports anchor and sports/news reporter at Ch. 10 in Providence, another NBC affiliate. He held that job until 2004. While in Ft. Myers, FL, Tim was designated sportscaster of the year by the Florida Sportscaster’s Association and a top feature reporter.
Tim is a University of Rhode Island graduate with a degree in Journalism.
Through various initiatives, Tim Gray and his project work have appeared in and been featured on: The Today Show, MSNBC, Fox News, Discovery Channel, CNN, C-Span, PBS stations around the country and world, the United States Armed Forces Radio Network, the Associated Press, and in national and global newspapers and magazines.
Brian Youse
Brian is Vice President of Multi-Man Publishing, a Maryland based strategic board game company founded in 1994. Mr. Youse is an avid World War II historian and attended the dedication of the Richard D. Winters monument in Normandy, France in June of 2012.
John C. McManus
John C. McManus is a Curators’ Distinguished Professor of U.S. military history at the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). The University of Missouri Board of Curators bestows this professorship on the most outstanding scholars in the University of Missouri system. McManus is the first Missouri S&T faculty member in the humanities to be named Curators’ Distinguished Professor. As one of the nation’s leading military historians and the author of fifteen well-received books, he is frequently demanded as a speaker and expert commentator.
In addition to dozens of local and national radio programs, he has appeared on CNN.com, Fox News, C-Span, the Military Channel, the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel, Netflix, the Smithsonian Network, the History Channel, and PBS, among others. He also served as historical advisor for the bestselling book and documentary Salinger, the latter appearing nationwide in theaters and on PBS’s American Masters Series. During the 2018-2019 academic year, he was in residence at the U.S. Naval Academy as the Leo A. Shifrin Chair of Naval and Military History, a distinguished visiting professorship.
Chiké Okonkwo
Chiké Okonkwo, most known for his role in “The Birth Of A Nation”, is an award-winning international star on the rise.
This fall, he stars for a second season in the NBC drama series “La Brea”, a high-concept disaster series that begins when a massive sinkhole opens in the middle of Los Angeles, pulling in a disparate group of people who find themselves in a mysterious primeval land and have no choice but to band together to survive. The new hit show will once again have a highly coveted slot on the network in prime time.
Chike was most recently seen leading the film “Death Saved My Life” opposite Meagan Good and on BET’s hit show “Being Mary Jane” with Gabrielle Union. He also starred in the British Indie film “Genesis”.
Jon D’Allessandro
In April of 1987, Jon founded D’Allessandro Corp. During his time as President, Jon has realized his thirty year old vision, experiencing great success along the way due to his continuous commitment to excellence, paired with his passion for finding sustainable, community-improving infrastructural solutions. Jon is a past president of the Utility Contractors of New England, also serving on the organization’s board. Jon is an avid World War II enthusiast and has traveled the world visiting WWII sites in Europe and the Pacific.
Tom Curry
Tom Curry is a Senior Vice President, Portfolio Manager, and Senior Financial Advisor who joined Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in 1997. Tom holds the Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC) designation. Additionally, Tom has a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from the University of Rhode Island (1987 graduate) and a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from Bryant College (1996 graduate).
Kara Sundlun
Kara Sundlun is a three-time Emmy Award-winning journalist at WFSB in Hartford, CT.
Kara anchors Eyewitness News at Noon and the Afternoon Rush at 4 o’clock.
Kara joined WFSB Channel 3 in 2000 and has covered many of the biggest stories of our time. Kara covered the War in Iraq from the nation’s capital and reported live from Ground Zero after terror attacks on 9-11, even traveling to Bosnia to cover our local troops fighting the war on terror. She also delivered the first live reports of the horrific school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.
Kara’s father, Bruce, was a Jewish-American B-17 pilot in World War II, who was shot down over Belgium and made his escape through Europe with the help of the Resistance. Kara returned to Europe to retrace her father’s footsteps in a film produced by The World War II Foundation titled Above and Beyond.
Dr. Mark Jacobson
Dr. Mark Jacobson has over thirty-years of experience in the U.S. government, international organizations, the non-profit sector, and academia. He has worked on some of the most politically sensitive national security issues facing the United States, has led small and large teams, and transformed academic organizations and non-profit programs to make them more competitive and impactful. Jacobson currently a Senior Fellow at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy where he focuses on political warfare and propaganda in its historic and current contexts.
Most recently, Jacobson served as the Vice President for Research, Evaluation, and Modernizing Government at the Partnership for Public Service and prior to that as the Assistant Dean for Washington Programs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. From 2018-20 Jacobson was the John J. McCloy ’16 Visiting Professor for American Institutions and International Diplomacy at Amherst College where he taught courses on the American experience of war in literature and film and the Second World War as a global conflict. He has also taught at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Jacobson’s government service includes appointments as the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense and the Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. From 2009-2011 he served in Kabul, Afghanistan as the first Deputy Senior Civilian NATO Representative-Afghanistan and in that role Jacobson served as the foreign policy advisor to three International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commanders Earlier in his career Jacobson worked on Capitol Hill for the late Senator Carl Levin on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee and in various civil service roles at the Department of Defense. Jacobson also served for over 26 years as a military reservist including seven years in the Army as an enlisted psychological operations specialist and 20 years in the Navy as a human intelligence officer, with deployments to Bosnia and Afghanistan in support of U.S. and NATO Special Operations Forces. Jacobson is an avid supporter of public service as well as expanding civic and historic literacy for citizens of all ages. He currently serves on the boards of the Pritzker Military Museum and Library and Villanova’s Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest.
Jacobson grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan and holds degrees from the University of Michigan, King’s College, University of London, and a PhD in Military History from The Ohio State University. He lives with his family in Washington DC.
Andy Jones
Andy Jones is a retired finance professional and lifelong historian of WWI and WWII. Originally from the United Kingdom, he emigrated to the United States after completing a business degree at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and spent his career working in Software and Business Service companies in Boston and New York. Now retired, he recently completed a master’s degree in World War II Studies. The degree program was a collaboration between Arizona State University and The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, of which Andy is a Patriots Circle member and regular visitor.