To Americans, Valdas Adamkus is known for cleaning up pollution in Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes; to Lithuanians, as a president who brought new western standards to the country, thus changing the face of Lithuania in perpetuity.

It would be possible to write an entire volume of Lithuanian history according to Valdas Adamkus’ biography. He grew up in Kaunas, an interwar capital of Lithuania. Growing up, his best friends included the son of the third Lithuanian president, Kazys Grinius, and the brother of Vytautas Landsbergis, the first Lithuanian leader after Soviet control. During the Nazi occupation, they began publishing an underground, anti-German newspaper titled, ‘Youth, be on duty!’ Adamkus fought alongside insurrectionists against Soviet rule, though later he was forced to leave the homeland. Nevertheless, he persistentlycontinued his activities abroad. In 1948, Adamkus contributed significantly while competing at the Olympic Games of the Enslaved Nations. Winning two gold and two silver medals in track and field events, Adamkus is now regarded as the fastest president in the world, with a time of 10.8 seconds in the 100-metre dash. In the summer of 1949, Adamkus went to the United States with his family, and settled into a Lithuanian-American community in Chicago. His life journey, in many ways, mirrors that of the hopeful American Dream – Adamkus started off with just five dollars in his pocket before finding work in a car parts factory. Eventually, he earned a degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology and began working at the newly established US Environmental Protection Agency.