June 4, 2026
The Search for Common Ground family is deeply saddened by the passing of Randolph Wright – Randy to everyone who knew him – a former board member, a tireless advocate for peace, and one of the finest human beings ever to be part of this organization’s story.
Randy came to Search in its earliest days. A University of Michigan graduate, a lawyer, and a Vietnam War veteran, he arrived at Search through a mutual friend who recognized that he and Search’s founder John Marks were on the same wavelength. Both had served in Vietnam, John with the Foreign Service, Randy with the military, and both had come home with the same conviction: that there had to be a better way to deal with conflict.
“He just got it,” recalls fellow board member Tom Manley, who served alongside Randy for decades. “Right from the get-go.” That instinctive alignment with Search’s mission, finding common ground across the deepest of divides, never wavered.
What set Randy apart was not just his belief in the mission, but his insistence on being part of it. At a time when Search was run on little more than tenacity and audacity (and personal credit cards), Randy led from the front. He eventually became Chairman of the Board, a role that demanded enormous time from a man running a demanding law practice outside Detroit. Four board meetings a year, every year — flights, hotels, preparation, and Randy showed up every time, uncomplainingly, because he genuinely cared. “He just kept showing up. Relentlessly,” recalls Jo-Anne Hart, a fellow board member whom Randy himself recruited.
He made around a dozen trips to lead programs on Search’s behalf, mostly to the former Soviet Union, where Search was doing some of its earliest and most ambitious work. He wasn’t a traditional board member that governed from afar. He wanted to be in it.
Those trips produced stories that his friends and colleagues still tell with laughter and affection. There was the retired Soviet general who invited Randy and Tom to his apartment for a Sunday lunch; an occasion that ended with the dawning realization that their host had spent the afternoon trying to sell them old Soviet fighter aircraft. There was the journey to the Komi Republic, deep in the Russian Arctic, where Randy and Tom found themselves invited to a five or six-hour traditional tea ceremony by local woodsmen; people with no connection to politics or peacebuilding, who simply fell in love with the man sitting across from them.
“He could get you into a mess,” Tom says, “but he could usually get you out, too.”
That warmth was not solely reserved for his adventures. Susan Collin Marks, Search’s co-founder, remembers meeting Randy later in Search’s journey and being immediately struck by his presence. “He was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life,” she says. “He would sit on the board and bring light into the room just by smiling.” In moments of tension, and every organization has them, Randy was the steady, reassuring presence that reminded people of what they were there for.
John Marks puts it simply: “He was a good human being.”
Shamil Idriss, CEO of Search for Common Ground, echoes that sentiment: “Randy had the gentlest soul yet a commanding presence. His was the quiet confidence of someone who had emerged from difficult life experience, even war, with unwavering principles. All of us at Search were blessed by the fact that high among Randy’s principles was a profound commitment to prevent war and build peace. We miss him dearly and honor his legacy.”
Perhaps nothing captures it better than a moment Jo-Anne shared from a Washington DC board meeting, years ago. She and Randy both had late flights, and with an afternoon free, they walked together to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Jo-Anne had been to the Wall before, but never with a veteran. Randy found the names of men from his own platoon. Men who had shown enormous valor and one who had, at a critical moment, tried to save Randy’s life.
“Going to the Wall under those circumstances, and seeing Randy find those names,” Jo-Anne says, “was something I will never forget.”
Randy was a man who had seen conflict at its most brutal and personal; who had lived it, commanded through it, and carried it, and had chosen to spend his life working against it. Randy found purpose in Search for Common Ground’s mission, to which he gave decades of his time, his energy, his resources, and his unshakeable belief that people, across every divide, could find common ground.
Tom, reflecting on what Randy would say to Search today, offered: “Nothing really works quite like optimistic perseverance. Keep your eyes on the prize. Keep the team strong, plunge in, go for it, and never give up.”
That was Randy and that is Search.
Our deepest condolences go to his wife Cathy, their sons John and Mark, John’s wife Celina and their daughter Evie, and Mark’s wife Jess.
Randy Wright believed in this work before most people knew it existed, and we are immeasurably grateful that he did.
