In the late 1970s, Al Jubitz helped organize meetings in living rooms to educate people about the excesses of the Cold War arms race. Jubitz, a graduate of Yale University, calls that his “formal education in peacemaking.”

Today, the member of the Rotary Club of Portland, Ore., USA, is doing work with a much wider reach, pledging $300,000 to endow five Rotary World Peace Fellowships, which will fund aspiring peacemakers as they pursue master’s degrees.

“Rotary World Peace Fellows deserve a boost financially to follow their passion,” says Jubitz, 63, a retired trucking magnate. “You’ve got to trust that if we plant seeds in these young people, good things will happen. That’s why I support the program.”

Today, he’s particularly interested in fostering peace in Cyprus, where a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone separates Greek and Turkish Cypriots. “If we can create peace in Cyprus, we probably have all the ingredients for doing it in the Middle East,” he says. Jubitz, who visited Cyprus in 2005, has helped fund Portland State University’s Peace Initiatives Project, which aims to find a solution to the longstanding conflict on the Mediterranean island.

Through the Jubitz Family Foundation, he and his daughters have supported other peace-building efforts by awarding grants to Portland State University’s conflict resolution graduate program, the Wholistic Peace Institute, and the Oregon Peace Institute, which Jubitz chaired in the 1970s.