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Speakers' Biographies
George W. Bush
George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn into office on January 20, 2001, re-elected on November 2, 2004, and sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2005. Prior to his Presidency, President Bush served for 6 years as the 46th Governor of the State of Texas, where he earned a reputation for bipartisanship and as a compassionate conservative who shaped public policy based on the principles of limited government, personal responsibility, strong families, and local control.
President Bush was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut, and grew up in Midland and Houston, Texas. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University in 1968, and then served as an F-102 fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard. President Bush received a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1975. Following graduation, he moved back to Midland and began a career in the energy business. After working on his father’s successful 1988 Presidential campaign, President Bush assembled the group of partners who purchased the Texas Rangers baseball franchise in 1989. On November 8, 1994, President Bush was elected Governor of Texas. He became the first Governor in Texas history to be elected to consecutive 4-year terms when he was re-elected on November 3, 1998.
Since becoming President of the United States in 2001, President Bush has worked with the Congress to create an ownership society and build a future of security, prosperity, and opportunity for all Americans. He signed into law tax relief that helps workers keep more of their hard-earned money, as well as the most comprehensive education reforms in a generation, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This legislation is ushering in a new era of accountability, flexibility, local control, and more choices for parents, affirming our Nation’s fundamental belief in the promise of every child. President Bush has also worked to improve healthcare and modernize Medicare, providing the first-ever prescription drug benefit for seniors; increase homeownership, especially among minorities; conserve our environment; and increase military strength, pay, and benefits. Because President Bush believes the strength of America lies in the hearts and souls of our citizens, he has supported programs that encourage individuals to help their neighbors in need.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked our Nation. Since then, President Bush has taken unprecedented steps to protect our homeland and create a world free from terror. He is grateful for the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform and their families. The President is confident that by helping build free and prosperous societies, our Nation and our friends and allies will succeed in making America more secure and the world more peaceful.
President Bush is married to Laura Welch Bush, a former teacher and librarian, and they have twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna. The Bush family also includes two dogs, Barney and Miss Beazley, and a cat, Willie.
Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi made history in 2007, breaking the marble ceiling to become the first woman to serve as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. As the highest-ranking elected woman in American history, she is second in the line of presidential succession.
Described by congressional expert Norman Ornstein as one of "the most savvy political figures around," Pelosi shepherded though a “100 Hours” effort at the beginning of the 110th Congress that began with the New Direction Agenda to make America safer, restore the American dream, and restore civility and integrity to our government.
Building consensus across the aisle and within the diverse House Democratic Caucus, Speaker Pelosi has proved to be a strong, pragmatic, and effective leader. With Speaker Pelosi at the helm, the 110th Congress has built an impressive record that has focused on the priorities of the American people and brought needed change to Washington and across the country.
Pelosi first made history in November 2002 when House Democrats elected her the first woman to lead a major political party. She brings to the Speaker’s role nearly 20 years of experience in the House, representing the city of San Francisco. Nancy Pelosi has led House Democrats with remarkable effectiveness, building consensus and unifying her Caucus more than any other leader in the last 50 years. Before being elected Leader, she served as House Democratic Whip for one year.
Nancy Pelosi comes from a strong family tradition of public service. Her late father, Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., and her brother, Thomas D’Alesandro III, both served as Mayor of Baltimore. She and her husband Paul have five grown children and seven grandchildren. While raising her five children prior to her election to Congress, Pelosi served in a number of positions including Chair of the California Democratic Party. She has represented California’s Eighth District since 1987, achieving a distinguished record of intelligence and security initiatives, family and child policy, health care, human rights and environmental policy.
Harry Reid
Harry Reid is the Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate, a man who commands the respect of colleagues from both parties, and a powerful advocate for Nevada’s middle-class families. Every day Sen. Reid puts his leadership position to work to deliver meaningful results for Nevadans. Since Nevadans elected him to the Senate in 1986, Harry Reid has developed a reputation as a consensus builder and a skillful legislator. Even his Republican colleagues praise his reasoned, balanced approach. After Nevadans re-elected Reid to a third Senate term in 1998, he was chosen by his colleagues to serve as the Assistant Democratic Leader, also known as the “Whip.” And after he won a fourth term in 2004 by a wide margin, he was unanimously elected Senate Democratic Leader. He has earned the trust of both Democrats and Republicans, and his reputation for integrity and fairness has given the small state of Nevada a powerful voice in Congress.
After high school, some businessmen in Henderson helped him go on to college, an act of generosity that Harry Reid would work hard to repay in the coming years. He graduated from Utah State University in 1961 and went on to get a law degree from George Washington University. During these years as a law student, Reid supported his young family by working nights as a U.S. Capitol police officer. After completing law school, the Reids headed back to Henderson where Harry served as the City Attorney, revising the city charter and working on extending Henderson's boundaries by acquiring federal land. His outstanding record helped him win an election to the Nevada State Assembly in 1968, at age 28.
In Carson City, the young assemblyman introduced the first air pollution legislation in Nevada’s history and also worked on laws to protect consumers. In 1970, at the age of 30, Harry Reid became the youngest Lieutenant Governor in Nevada history, winning election as Governor Mike O’Callaghan’s running mate.
In 1977 he was appointed Chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, where for five years he made headlines with his legendary and unrelenting fight to clean up Nevada's gaming industry.
Reid returned to his private law practice for a few years, then won the first of two terms in the United States House of Representatives in 1982. In the House, he championed issues important to Nevada families, introducing the Taxpayer Bill of Rights as well as legislation to protect Nevada's wilderness.
He was elected to the Senate in 1986, and re-elected in 1992, 1998 and 2004. He has served as the chairman or senior Democratic member on several important committees and subcommittees.
George P. Shultz
Mr. Shultz held two key positions in the Reagan administration: Chairman of the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board (1981-1982) and Secretary of State (1982-1989). As Secretary of State, he played a key role, over a seven-year period, in implementing a foreign policy that led to the successful conclusion of the Cold War and the development of strong relationships between the United States and the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, including China, Japan, and the ASEAN countries. After leaving office, he rejoined the Bechtel Group as Director and Senior Counselor and rejoined Stanford as Professor of International Economics at the Graduate School of Business and Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution. In January 1989, he was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Richard Solomon
Richard H. Solomon has been president of the United States Institute of Peace since 1993 and has overseen its growth into a center of international conflict management analysis and applied programs.
Prior to this assignment, Solomon was assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs from 1989 to 1992. He negotiated the Cambodia peace treaty, the first United Nations "Permanent Five" peacemaking agreement; had a leading role in the dialogue on nuclear issues between the United States and South and North Korea; helped establish the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation initiative; and led U.S. negotiations with Japan, Mongolia, and Vietnam on important bilateral matters. In 1992–93, Solomon served as U.S. ambassador to the Philippines. He coordinated the closure of the U.S. naval bases and developed a new framework for bilateral and regional security cooperation.
Solomon previously served as director of policy planning at the Department of State and as a senior staff member of the National Security Council. In 1995, Solomon was awarded the State Department's Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service, and he has received awards for policy initiatives from the governments of Korea and Thailand. In 2005, he received the American Political Science Association’s Hubert H. Humphrey career award for "notable public service by a political scientist."
Solomon began his career as professor of political science at the University of Michigan, and also served as head of the Political Science Department at the RAND Corporation. Solomon holds a Ph.D. in political science, with a specialization in Chinese politics, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
J. Robinson West
J. Robinson West is Chairman of the Board and Founder of PFC Energy. As founder and chairman, Robin has gained a unique perspective on the international energy industry. He has advised Chief Executives of leading international oil and gas companies and national oil companies on corporate strategy, portfolio management, acquisitions, divestitures, and investor relations.
Before founding PFC Energy in 1984, Robin served in the Reagan Administration as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Policy, Budget and Administration (1981-83), with responsibility for US offshore oil policy. His duties included preparation of the Department's $6 billion budget and general administrative oversight of its 75,000 employees. Robin conceived and implemented the five-year Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Leasing Schedule and managed the $14 billion per year OCS policy, the largest non-financial auction in the world at that time. Between 1977 and 1980, he was a First Vice President of Blyth, Eastman, Dillon & Co., Inc., an investment banking firm and was also a member of the firm's operating committee. Prior to that, he served in the Ford Administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Economic Affairs (1976-77) and on the White House Staff (1974-76). In 1976, he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Civilian Service.
Robin was nominated by the President to be a director of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and the nomination was approved by the Senate. In 2004 he was elected Chairman of the USIP Board. He is also a member of the National Petroleum Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. Robin is President of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art. He also serves as a Trustee of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. and the Nixon Center. Robin is a member of the Board of Directors of Key Energy Services, Inc (KEG) and Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG) He has served as a trustee of the $3 billion Trans-Alaska Pipeline Liability Fund, as a member of the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel, the Industry Policy Advisory Committee on Multilateral Trade Negotiations of the US Trade Representative, and on the National Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children. Robin was appointed by the President to the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere in 1977.
Robin West received a B.A. degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a J.D. from Temple University.
Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh
Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., president emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, continues in a quiet but pivotal way to advance the interests of the University he led for 35 years. Considered one of the most influential figures in higher education in the 20th century, he is now 90 years old.
Father Hesburgh stepped down as head of Notre Dame on June 1, 1987, ending the longest tenure at that time among active presidents of American colleges and universities. After a yearlong sabbatical, he returned to a retirement office on the 13th floor of the newly named Hesburgh Library. One of his first projects was completion of an autobiography, "God, Country, Notre Dame," which was published in November 1990 by Doubleday and became a national best seller.
In July 2000, Father Hesburgh's public service career was recognized when he became the first person from higher education to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Leadership of the Senate and House of Representatives gathered in the rotunda of the Capitol as President Clinton presented the medal. Father Hesburgh has held 16 presidential appointments over the years — most recently to the Commission on Presidential Scholars — and they involved him in virtually all major social issues — civil rights, peaceful uses of atomic energy, campus unrest, treatment of Vietnam offenders, and Third World development and immigration reform, to name only a few. At the same time, he remained a national leader in the field of education, serving on many commissions and study groups. As recently as 1999, he made a fact-finding tour of refugee camps around Kosovo for the United Nations, and he was called on periodically as a member of the Anti-Incitement Committee established by the Wye Plantation Treaty to deal with Palestinian-Israeli tensions in the Middle East.
Within the academy, he served as chairman of the International Federation of Catholic Universities from 1963 to 1970 and led a movement to redefine the nature and mission of the contemporary Catholic university, drawing heavily on the experience of Catholic institutions of higher learning in the United States. His stature as an elder statesman in American higher education is reflected in his 150 honorary degrees (as of May 2004), the most ever awarded to one person. He was the first priest elected to the Board of Overseers at Harvard University and served two years (1994-95) as president of the board. Father Hesburgh also cochaired from 1990 to 1996 the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, an influential advocate for reforms in college sports.
Notre Dame's president emeritus has served four Popes, three as permanent Vatican City representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna from 1956 to 1970. At the request of Pope Paul VI, he built in 1972 the Ecumenical Institute at Tantur, Jerusalem, which Notre Dame continues to operate. Paul VI also appointed him head of the Vatican representatives attending the 20th anniversary of the UN's human rights declaration in Teheran, Iran, in 1968, and six years later a member of the Holy See's United Nations delegation. In 1983 Father Hesburgh was appointed by Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Council for Culture, charged with finding ways in which the saving message of the Gospel could be preached effectively in the world's variegated cultures.
Justice has been the focus of many of his outside involvements. He was a charter member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, created in 1957, and he chaired the commission from 1969 to 1972, when President Nixon replaced him as chairman because of his criticism of the administration's civil rights record. Father Hesburgh was a member of President Ford's Presidential Clemency Board, charged with deciding the fate of various groups of Vietnam offenders. His work on these commissions led to the creation at Notre Dame Law School of the Center of Civil and Human Rights.
In 1971 he joined the board of the Overseas Development Council, a private organization supporting interests of the underdeveloped world, and chaired it until 1982. During this time, he led fund-raising efforts that averted mass starvation in Cambodia in 1979-80. Between 1979 and 1981 he also chaired the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy, the recommendations of which became the basis of Congressional reform legislation five years later. He was involved during the 1980s in a private initiative which sought to unite internationally known scientists and world religious leaders in condemning nuclear weapons. He helped organize a 1982 meeting in Vatican City of 58 world class scientists, from East as well as West, who called for the elimination of nuclear weapons and subsequently brought together in Vienna leaders of six faith traditions who endorsed the view of these scientists. His global perspective was the impetus for the establishment on campus of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.
In addition to the Congressional Gold Medal, Father Hesburgh received the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from President Lyndon Johnson in 1964. He also has received numerous awards from education groups, among them the prestigious Meiklejohn Award of the American Association of University Professors in 1970. This award, which honors those who uphold academic freedom, recognized Father Hesburgh's crucial role in blunting the attempt of the Nixon Administration in 1969 to use federal troops to quell campus disturbances.
On more than one occasion, Father Hesburgh found himself the first Catholic priest to serve in a given position. Such was the case during the years he was a director of the Chase Manhattan Bank and a trustee (later, chairman) of the Rockefeller Foundation. Also, his appointment as ambassador to the 1979 UN Conference on Science and Technology for Development was the first time a priest had served in a formal diplomatic role for the U.S. government.
Notre Dame's president emeritus has written three other books in addition to his autobiography — “The Humane Imperative: A Challenge for the Year 2000,” published in 1974 by the Yale University Press; “The Hesburgh Papers: Higher Values in Higher Education,” published in 1979 by Andrews McMeel, Inc; and "Travels with Ted and Ned," published in 1992 by Doubleday. A consistent theme in these and other writings is a vision of the contemporary Catholic university as touching the moral as well as the intellectual dimensions of scholarly inquiry. "The Catholic University should be a place," he wrote, "where all the great questions are asked, where an exciting conversation is continually in progress, where the mind constantly grows as the values and powers of intelligence and wisdom are cherished and exercised in full freedom."
Father Hesburgh was born May 25, 1917, in Syracuse, N.Y., the son of Anne Murphy Hesburgh and Theodore Bernard Hesburgh, an executive of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. A brother, James, was graduated from Notre Dame in 1955 and now lives in Edwards, Colo. His three sisters, Mary, Betty and Anne, are deceased.
Father Hesburgh was educated at Notre Dame and the Gregorian University in Rome, from which he received a bachelor of philosophy degree in 1939. He was ordained a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross in Sacred Heart Church (now Basilica) on the Notre Dame campus June 24, 1943, by Bishop John F. Noll of Fort Wayne, Ind. Following his ordination, Father Hesburgh continued his study of sacred theology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., receiving his doctorate (S.T.D.) in 1945. He joined the Notre Dame faculty the same year and served as chaplain to World War II veterans on campus in addition to his teaching duties in the Religion Department. He was appointed the head of that department in 1948, and the following year was appointed executive vice president in the administration of Rev. John J. Cavanaugh, C.S.C., University president. At the age of 35 in June 1952, he was named the 15th president of Notre Dame.
The accomplishments of the Hesburgh era at Notre Dame are reflected in statistics comparing the Notre Dame of 1952, when Father Hesburgh became president, with the University he left in 1987. The annual operating budget went from $9.7 million to $176.6 million, the endowment from $9 million to $350 million, and research funding from $735,000 to $15 million. Enrollment increased from 4,979 to 9,600, faculty from 389 to 950, and degrees awarded from 1,212 to 2,500. The two major changes during the Hesburgh era were the transfer of governance from the founding religious community, the Congregation of Holy Cross, to a predominantly lay Board of Trustees in 1967 and the admission of women to the undergraduate program in 1972.
Sidney Lovett
Sidney Lovett, a retired United Church of Christ minister, received his undergraduate education at Yale University and his Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary. Reverend Lovett was senior minister of the First Church of Christ Congregational in West Hartford, Connecticut from 1976 to 1986, and later was interim pastor of Rock Spring Congregational Church (United Church of Christ) in Arlington, Virginia, where he previously had been Senior Pastor. Prior to that time, he served as the conference minister, Central Atlantic Conference (United Church of Christ). Reverend Lovett has been on the Board of Directors of many human services agencies and theological schools, including service as the director and president of the Alban Institute in Washington, D.C.
