Born July 9, 1945 in Highland Park, Ill...His family moved to Concord, California in the very early 1950s and he now calls Concord his hometown of record although he has lived in the Los Angeles area for the past 20 plus years.

Artis spent 10 years in the US Army as an Airborne Medic serving with various units of the 82nd Airborne Division. He saw combat in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam and was decorated for Valor and Wounds received in Action.

His commercial career after leaving the military has included Real Estate Sales, Mortgage Banking and Television and Film Production.

He has received numerous citations, accolades and awards for his more than 35 years of humanitarian efforts, including an Honorary, Ph.D., and Knighthoods in the following organizations, A Self-styled Non-Catholic Order of the Knights of Malta (Russia 1993), The OSMTH Templar Knights (US 1999), The Knights of Rizal (Philippines 2005), The Order of St Mary of Zion (Ethiopia 2005) The Order of Saint Gregory the Great (The Vatican 2005)

He continues to serve as Chairman and CEO of Knightsbridge International on a full-time basis. He and Dr Sir James Laws formed Knightsbridge International in 1995 after their first relief mission together. That first mission was to Rwanda during the Genocide...

He is a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine in Dayton, Ohio the Chief of the Cardiology Departments of Grandview and South Hospitals, and a founding member of Knightsbridge International. Dr. Laws has been involved in the Knightsbridge International work since inception.

He has been involved in bringing medical aid and equipment DIRECTLY to the people and places that are in need in Russia, Rwanda,, Zaire, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, Albania, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Thai-Burma, the Philippines, and Ski Lanka. Knightsbridge has brought more than seventy-four (74) extremely sick children to the United States for what is often life-saving FREE medical care. Knightsbridge members are proud of the fact that they take the aid that they bring DIRECTLY to the clinic, school, hospital, etc that needs it. They go at their own risk to health and life and at their own cost to do this work. ALL monies from KI are donated and go directly for aid.

He was a Senior Vice President for projects with Foley Electric, Inc. (one of America’s largest electrical contractors) for fifteen years. He subsequently founded TRC Electrical Construction Services, a commercial electrical contracting firm installing solar PV systems in Pennsylvania and Maryland. In 2003 Walt was one of the first PV installers to pass the rigorous North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) certification exam. He earned a Master of Science degree in Renewable Energy from Murdoch University in Australia, and has extensive renewable energy design and installation experience internationally. He is currently Chief Project Officer & Director of Sun Energy Power Corporation http://www.sunenergypower.com

Walt’s hands-on PV experience includes residential and commercial PV installations in the eastern U.S., as well as rural solar PV installations in the Galapagos Islands, southern Ecuador, Arunachal Pradesh in India, Nicaragua, Peru, Thailand, and Burma with the NGO organizations Knightsbridge International (www.kbi.org) and Green Empowerment (www.greenempowerment.org) where he was Program Director. A Commissioner of the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation (www.tzuchi.org), Walt has participated in humanitarian relief efforts in other diverse developing nations including Afghanistan, Philippines, and Cambodia.