Thomas Daschle: “Leadership In and Out of Government”

03/08/16 • 30 min

Thomas Daschle, Former Senator Majority Leader and Founder of The Daschle Group, spoke on “Leadership In and Out of Government” on Tuesday, March 8. Daschle discussed the need for bipartisanship in the U.S. Congress.

Senator Daschle is the Founder and CEO of The Daschle Group, A Public Policy Advisory of Baker Donelson. The Daschle Group is a full-service strategic advisory firm that advises clients on a broad array of economic, policy and political issues. Senator Daschle has participated in the development and debate of almost every major public policy issue of the last three decades. He served in the US House of Representatives for eight years, and later was elected to the US Senate and was chosen as Senate Democratic Leader in 1994. Senator Daschle is one of the longest serving Senate Democratic leaders in history and one of only two to serve twice as both Majority and Minority Leader. During his tenure, Senator Daschle navigated the Senate through some of its most historic economic and national security challenges. Since leaving the Senate, Senator Daschle has remained an active and learned voice among policy-makers. Senator Daschle has also emerged as a leading thinker on climate change, food security and renewable energy policy. He serves on both advisory and governing boards of a number of corporate and non-profit organizations and currently co-chairs The Cuba Consortium, an organization dedicated to an improved relationship with the people of Cuba.

In 2007, Senator Daschle joined with former Majority Leaders George Mitchell, Bob Dole and Howard Baker to create the Bipartisan Policy Center, an organization dedicated to finding common ground on some of the pressing public policy challenges of our time. Senator Daschle is Chair of the Board of Directors at the Center for American Progress and Vice-Chair for the National Democratic Institute. He serves on the board of Edward M. Kennedy Institute and the LBJ Foundation. He also is a member of the Health Policy and Management Executive Council at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and the Council of Foreign Relations.

Senator Daschle attended South Dakota State University, and then served for three years as an intelligence officer in the US Air Force Strategic Command. Following his military service, he spent five years as an aide to South Dakota Senator James Abourezk. After leaving the Senate in 2005, Senator Daschle joined Alston & Bird LLP as a special policy advisor and then went on to work in the same role at DLA Piper before establishing The Daschle Group in 2014.

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Gina McCarthy: “A Leadership Career in Government: EPA Chief Speaks”

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy spoke in the Voices in Leadership series on Monday, February 29, 2016. Watch the on-demand video of her talk entitled “A Leadership Career in Government: EPA Chief Speaks.” McCarthy discussed the importance of communicating clearly and honestly around complicated scientific issues, and how she views EPA as essentially a public health prevention entity, among other topics.

Gina McCarthy is the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Appointed by President Obama in 2009 as Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, Gina McCarthy has been a leading advocate for common-sense strategies to protect public health and the environment. Previously, McCarthy served as the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. During her career, which spans over 30 years, she has worked at both the state and local levels on critical environmental issues and helped coordinate policies on economic growth, energy, transportation and the environment. McCarthy received a Bachelor of Arts in Social Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts at Boston and a joint Master of Science in Environmental Health Engineering and Planning and Policy from Tufts University.

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Donna Shalala: “At the Helm of Leadership in Government, Academia, and Foundations”

Donna Shalala, President of the Clinton Foundation, spoke on Thursday, March 24, 2016. Her talk was entitled “At the Helm of Leadership in Government, Academia, and Foundations,” and she discussed the problem-solving skill set one must have when managing complex institutions.

Donna E. Shalala is the president of the Clinton Foundation. Previously, she served as president of the University of Miami and Professor of Political Science. Donna received her A.B. in history from Western College for Women and her Ph.D. from Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. She served as President of Hunter College of CUNY from 1980 to 1987, and as Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1987 to 1993. In 1993, President Clinton nominated her as Secretary for Health and Human Services (HHS) where she served for eight years. In 2008, President Bush presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation’s highest civilian award. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran from 1962-1964. In 2010, she received the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights recognizing her dedication to improving the health and life chances of disadvantaged populations in South Africa and internationally.