John M. (Jack) Rendler was raised and educated in the Boston area. He holds degrees from Boston University and San Francisco State. He has been an active volunteer for Amnesty International since 1978, initially serving as the regional membership coordinator for California. In 1982, he joined the Los Angeles staff of Amnesty, responsible for organizing Amnesty’s presence in the thirteen western states. He then served as AIUSA’s national campaign director until 1994, leading actions to protect and promote human rights in over forty countries.
In the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Mr. Rendler worked with Unicef in eastern Congo, resettling children orphaned by the mass killings. For ten years, he spent four months each year in Burma, teaching Buddhist monks English and human rights. He has trained human rights activists in Nepal, South Korea, and the Caribbean.Â
Jack has been executive director of Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways in San Francisco, and The Advocates for Human Rights in Minneapolis. He has served on the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, World Without Genocide, and the International Campaign for the Rohingya. For eight years he was the AmnestyUSA country specialist on North Korea. He continues his local activism in the Napa Valley of California.