Daniel
Armstrong is a motivational speaker, author
of the book “How to Live Your Dreams:
Find A Tree and Get Started,” and creator
of the Find A Tree program. Find A Tree is
a national educational program which has been
credited with transforming many incarcerated
gang members and underachieving students throughout
Los Angeles. According to Roosevelt High School
teacher Randy Fong, “From the perspective
of one who has taught in the [Los Angeles
Unified School] District for more than 25
years…[Find A Tree] is the most effective
day-to-day program I’ve seen in terms
of encouraging students to develop meaningful
goals and then relating the importance of
education to achievement of those goals.”
Raised in Compton, California, Armstrong earned
his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science
from Columbia University, where he organized
a campaign that led to the withdrawal of the
school’s multimillion- dollar investment
in apartheid South Africa. Armstrong also
holds a Juris Doctorate and a Master in Business
Administration degree, both from UCLA. While
at UCLA, Armstrong founded the International
Black MBA Student Association. Armstrong was
a Ford Foundation Fellow in 1984, when he
received a grant to study youth development
in Zimbabwe. While in Zimbabwe, Armstrong
organized a national tour of the country by
the Harlem Magicians basketball team, led
by former Harlem Globetrotter Marques Haynes.
This tour resulted in the largest multi-racial
social gathering at that point in the young
nation’s history, following nearly 20
years of civil war. Of the tour, American
diplomat and Olympic champion Mal Whitfield,
wrote in 2004 “[It] is still remembered
as one of [the] greatest America/Africa cultural/sports
events.”
Armstrong
began Find
A Tree in 1999 after spending nearly two
years working in Ghana, West Africa.
