Turning point: FMS alum working to bring attention to plight of children in foster care

George Riggs III ’81 arrived at Fishburne Military School after a three-year stint in foster care that shaped the future course of his life.

“I was an orphan at the age of 14. Coming out of that, I was like a deer in the headlights,” said Riggs, now a successful investment banker and business consultant in South Florida who has been working in recent years with the Miami-based Voices for Children Foundation, which provides guardian ad litem advocates for children in children in abuse and neglect cases.

“I became an advocate because I wanted to give back to kids at risk. I know firsthand the risks that those kids face, because I faced those risks as well,” said Riggs, who was in foster care as a teen before his grandparents took him in and eventually enrolled him at Fishburne, where he blossomed both academically and athletically, graduating third in his class in 1981 while lettering in football, wrestling and tennis.

“It was in part due to my family and in part due to the structure that Fishburne provided that I was able to get the focus that I needed to excel,” Riggs said.

Riggs has lobbied the Florida legislature for more funding for the state’s cash-strapped guardian ad litem system, which serves more than 23,000 Florida children annually, but still falls well short of the need in the system.

“The focus of my presentation to the legislature was, We just can’t leave kids in the foster-care system to whatever fate my befall them,” Riggs said. “I was lucky. I had relatives who pulled me out of foster care. I was lucky that I was able to go to Fishburne. That was really a turning point for me.”

Riggs, a James Madison University alum, started an engineering consulting firm in 1998 before moving into investment banking. He is currently working to form a nonprofit that will raise money and raise awareness to the plight of children in the foster-care system nationwide.

“Ninety percent of the kids who come into the foster-care system do not graduate from high school,” Riggs said. “In my own experience, I was bounced around a lot. It’s not hard to figure out why it’s so hard for kids who are in those situations to succeed.

“I want to focus on attitude. I want to focus on commitment, discipline. You can achieve, but it takes some work,” Riggs said.