About Pete

An expert on high-performance leadership, organizational culture, and ethics, Pete Bowen has been practicing and teaching leadership for more than 30 years in business, education and the military.

Since 2021, Pete has served as the CEO of Giving Children Hope (GCH), an Orange County non-profit that helps housing-unstable children-families break out of the cycle of need into success and happiness. Every week, GCH distributes tens of thousands of pounds of food to 3,000 children and their families through local schools; distributes tens of thousands of pounds of household goods to families in need; and provides leadership development to help families progress socio-economically.

From 2004 through 2018, Pete served as the President/CEO of Servite High School, a private leadership/college prep school in Anaheim, California. Pete introduced leadership and formation programs that revolutionized the development of next-generation leaders. As CEO, Pete led creation a Servite culture, brand, story, and ethos that resulted in increased enrollment, fundraising, and revenue.

For 25 years, Pete has taught, consulted, and coached advanced/strategic leadership, culture, and ethics to business, military, education and law enforcement throughout the nation.  He teaches high-performance leadership and ethics to police executives at Command College (California Commission on POST) and at the Criminal Justice Training Center at Golden West College.

Pete taught leadership, military history, and ethics at Duke University where he was a visiting assistant professor and the officer-in-charge for the Department of Naval Science. He also taught at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and North Carolina State University.

Pete was an AV-8B Harrier pilot and instructor in the US Marine Corps where he retired after serving 24 years including 11 years on active duty and 13 years in the Marine Corps Reserves.

Pete served as the first ethics officer for the Los Angeles Unified School District where he created the first ethics program in the nation for a public education agency. He established leadership and ethics training, lobbyist registration, public accountability programs, and programs that improved the ethics, efficiency and effectiveness of the district.

During his career, Pete has led departments in communications/public relations, IT systems, logistics, operations and training, human resources, facilities management, aircraft maintenance and substance abuse counseling.

Pete received his M.A. from Duke University and his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame, concentrating his interdisciplinary studies at both schools on leadership, ethics, intellectual history and culture.

Pete serves on the Board of Directors for the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum and St. Catherine’s Academy.

A partial list of Pete’s clients and speaking appearances include: Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics (JSCOPE) at National Defense University; US Naval Postgraduate School; US Department of Defense; California Police Chiefs Assoc; Sacramento County Sheriff; California League of Cities; Duke University, Sacramento Police; University of Notre Dame; University of San Diego; Chapman University; and Anaheim Police.

Pete has been married to his wife, Angie, for more than 35 years and has three adult daughters. He has lived throughout the United States including Orange, Laguna Beach and Tustin, California; South Bend and Indianapolis, Indiana; Pensacola and Jacksonville, Florida; Cary and Havelock, North Carolina; and Kingsville and Beeville, Texas.