Service to ACOR: Trustee (1988–2020)
Mohammed Asfour (1935–2020) was a business leader residing in Amman, Jordan, and member of ACOR’s board of trustees from 1988 until his passing in 2020. He was a graduate of Eastern Michigan University, where he earned a BA in business administration (1959) and an MS in economics (1961). He served as the chairman of Comcent Company and served on the board of directors of the Mithkahl Shawkat and Sami Asfour Company. He served the Amman Chamber of Commerce as chair from 1988 to 2020 and belonged to the Board of Directors of Royal Jordanian Airline from 1989 to 2020. He was also chairman of international traders (Jordan’s American Express agent) and member of the Civil Service Board, the Higher Supply Council, the Committee for Encouragement of Investment, the World Affairs Council, and the Jordan Gulf Real Estate investment company. He previously served as minister of trade and industry in the Jordanian Cabinet from 1999 to 2000.
“H.E. Mohammed Asfour was born into a family that cared deeply about Jordan… In 1982, ACOR’s vice president, H.R.H. Prince Raad Bin Zeid, asked Mohammed, who was a close friend, to join ACOR’s effort to expand the organization’s role in Jordan by constructing a building that could house its library, rooms for visiting scholars, and laboratories to analyze collections… The team of Prince Raad, David McCreery, Ed Harrell, and Mohammed made it happen. Mohammed, in addition, continued to arrange donations for ACOR’s benefit for a period of thirty-eight years. Mohammed showed his devotion to ACOR in many ways: by attending lectures, taking care of ACOR when the staff had to be evacuated due to the political situation, and generally being there when he was needed. He felt strongly about ACOR’s mission and pushed to make it happen, using his community strengths. While we will miss him as a board member, surely, we will most of all miss him as a friend, and a man who personified the warm Jordanian welcome of ‘my house is your house.‘”
—Randy Old (excerpt from ACOR Newsletter 32.1, p. 11)
