Don’t take our word for it… here’s what others have to say about Marty.

Congressional Record tribute

Upon Marty’s retirement from UNICEF in 2018, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) issued this tribute into the Congressional Record:

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer my thanks and to honor Martin “Marty” Rendon on the occasion of his retirement from UNICEF USA, where he worked for 25 years as Vice President for Public Policy and Advocacy. In this capacity, Marty worked with me and with my staff to advance a wide range of funding and policy measures that have improved the lives of vulnerable children around the world, focusing particularly on global child health and child survival. Marty has also been an invaluable resource to the work my colleagues and I do through the House Global Health Caucus.

While many of us may know him best from his advocacy work, prior to working at UNICEF, Marty had a 25-year career on Capitol Hill working on child survival and human rights issues. Marty worked with four Members of Congress, including 14 years of service to former Congressman Tony P. Hall (D-Ohio), where he helped implement the child health revolution in U.S. foreign policy and was on the ground floor of the 1986 bipartisan Congressional initiative for child survival funding. He capped his career on Capitol Hill as Staff Director of the House Select Committee on Hunger.

A well-known leader on a wide range of global health and human rights initiatives, Marty was invited to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in 1996 for his work on East Timor (Timor Leste). Marty’s work on the Hill and at UNICEF has literally saved the lives of millions of children.

Members of Congress and the organizations working on global health constitute a close-knit community, of which Marty has been a leading voice and champion for 50 years. We thank him for his service, for the efforts he has made for the least among us, and for his persistent advocacy. We wish him well as he continues with the next chapter of his life.