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A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel has been able to inspire and educate from the comfort of his Fort Washington home by producing live online talk shows each week that have gained both local and international attention.

Looking to provide a positive outlet during rough economic waters, Paul Lawrence Vann launched his Internet call-in talk show April 1, and he has been traveling throughout Prince George's County and the nation giving motivational speeches to high school and college students and professionals since his retirement in 2002.

Each Wednesday, Vann produces the show, Paul Vann Live, with inspirational interviews, personal stories and music and comedy clips. The show is streamed live and then archived for viewers to watch at a later date.

In less than one month, the show has had a total of more than 5,000 viewers in the United States and abroad, including callers from Hungary, the United Kingdom and the Philippines.

"What I find interesting is people still want to come here" in spite of these hard times, Vann said. "The U.S. is setting the table establishing economic stability for the world."

Vann said he constantly hears new stories of people faced with economic challenges, including debt and layoffs.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the national unemployment rate rose to 8.5 percent in March, with more than 13 million people out of work.

Vann tries to educate the unemployed to look to training in three of the fastest growing fields in the country: education, health services and energy.

"Giving up is the easiest thing people can do, but it's the wrong thing," Vann said.

Vann knows what it is like to live a challenging life. Growing up in North Carolina as the oldest of nine children, Vann said money was tight for the family. Neither his parents nor grandparents had ever graduated from high school, let along college.

He met with a high school guidance counselor who told him he would never be able to graduate from college. "That scared me," Vann said.

Vann was determined to succeed. He tightened up his act, he said, and went on to Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C., where he earned an undergraduate degree in business and later went on to join the Air Force and earn his master's degree in business administration.

"Especially now, people need motivation," he said. "The quickest way to help someone is to talk to them."

Vann also offers workshops to train others in public and motivational speaking.

C.J. Gross, a life coach in Forestville and a student of Vann's, said the two met a year ago at a workshop Vann was hosting.

Since that time, Gross said Vann has helped him develop his public speaking abilities and find events to speak at.

Gross remembers Vann telling him how to ease his nerves. "He said, ‘It's about getting your butterflies to fly in the same direction when you're nervous,'" Gross said.

When Vann speaks, he gives listeners strategies to change their lives, Gross said.

"It's inspirational," he said. "Motivation lasts a few hours, but inspiration lasts a lifetime."