Last evening General Colin Powell 65th U.S. Secretary of State, 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was honored by the Sons of Italy Foundation with The 2013 Sons of Italy Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award for Public Service.

The son of Jamaican Immigrants, General Colin L. Powell was born in Harlem; educated in New York City public schools and attended the City College of New York where he earned a B.S. in Geology. After he joined the Army ROTC program at college, he was commissioned as an Army Second Lieutenant in 1958 where he served for 35 years, retiring as a four-star general.

He then launched a second career in Public Service, serving as President Ronald Reagan’s national Security Advisor; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for both President George H.W. Bush and for President Bill Clinton and under President George W. Bush, the 65th Secretary of State.

Among his many U.S. Military awards and decorations, he holds the Defense Distinguished Service Medal (with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters), the Army Distinguished Service Medal (with Oak Leaf Clusters), a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. His civil awards include two Presidential Medals of Freed, the Congressional Gold Medal and the Secretary of Energy Distinguished Service Medal and awards from over two-dozen countries.

General Powell is the founder of the Colin L. Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at this alma mater, the City College of New York. The School will stand alongside the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture and the Grove School of Engineering as CCNY’s premier, named schools. He also is founder and Chairman Emeritus of the America’s Promise Alliance, dedicated to helping children succeed.

Currently Powell is a strategic limited partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the renowned Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and serves on a number of boards that promote education and leadership. He also serves on the board of the Smithsonian Institute’s African American Museum of History and Culture.

His autobiography, My American Journey, was a Best seller and has been published in more than a dozen different languages. Powell’s second book, the best seller, It Worked for Me, reveals the lessons that shaped his life and career. Powell is married to the former Alma Vivian Johnson of Birmingham, Alabama. They live in McLean, Virginia and have three children and four grandchildren.