ANTHEM Foundation President Board of Directors

As a U.S. Army Colonel (Retired), Fareed has spent over 13 years in the Middle East serving on active duty, business, and humanitarian work assignments. During Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and while on active duty, Fareed commanded a detachment of Arabic linguists from the Utah National Guard and deployed with his unit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to support U.S. Army ground forces in Saudi Arabia and to provide liaison with Saudi military personnel and government officials.

After the war, Fareed was hired by TRW Systems Overseas as a civilian contractor to work in Saudi Arabia as part of a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract to support the Royal Saudi Infantry Corps and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle modernization program. Fareed provided administrative support for his U.S. teammates and provided liaison between his company and military staff personnel. Fareed later provided support to the Royal Saudi Infantry Corps on the same FMS contract as the Director of Translation Services for a local Saudi logistics and support company and managed the work of 40 native speaking Arabic translators.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Fareed was called back to active duty with the U.S. Army and served as a senior Middle East advisor to the Director of Security Affairs for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) headquartered in Baghdad. Fareed provided critical mission support and planned, organized, and executed a $250 Million program to provide the officers and soldiers of the former Iraqi military a monthly stipend or living allowance. This program was widely recognized within the CPA as a highly successful program and helped to stabilize relations between coalition forces and many communities inside Iraqi where former Iraqi military forces were located.

From his experiences in Iraq, Fareed and his wife, Mrs. Joan Betros, established a USA based charity organization to support Iraqi women and their families. Over a period of 10 years, they taught the Iraqi women an organizational model based on volunteerism that promotes self-reliance, family unity, and community service. Together, they planned, organized, and executed numerous cross-cultural and educational visits of Iraqi women to the United States and visits of USA women and Gold Star Moms to Iraq. Their trips to Iraq focused on teaching the organizational model to Iraqi women and on holding memorial services for the children of the Gold Star Moms killed during the war. Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish women joined in the memorial services to honor their family members who also died.

In late 2015, Fareed returned to Saudi Arabia and worked in Riyadh with Honeywell as the Director of Government Strategic Partnerships. In this capacity, Fareed provided strong business development support and liaison between 9 Honeywell business units and multiple Saudi ministries, government officials, the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, and many commercial companies inside the Kingdom.

Fareed returned to the USA in2021 and is working to plan, organize, and execute educational and music cultural exchanges between the United States, Saudi Arabia, and other countries to bridge cultures and to promote good will among nations through the power of music.