Speaker Bios
Pillar Award for Leadership
The Honorable Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
U.S. Senate
Daniel K. Inouye, the most senior member of the U.S. Senate and the President Pro-Tempore, is known for his distinguished record as a legislative leader, and as a World War II combat veteran with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, who earned the nation’s highest award for military valor, the Medal of Honor.
Although he was thrust into the limelight in the 1970s as a member of the Watergate Committee and in 1987 as Chairman of the Iran-Contra Committee, he has also made his mark as a respected legislator able to work in a bipartisan fashion to enact meaningful legislation.
As Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Inouye has been able to focus on defense matters that strengthen national security, and enhance the quality of life for military personnel and their families. This reflects his hope for a more secure world, and his desire to provide the best possible assistance to the men and women who put their lives at risk to protect the United States. In addition, he is the Ranking Democrat on the Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee and the Indian Affairs Committee and sits on the Rules Committee.
Senator Inouye has championed the interest of Hawaii’s people throughout his career. With his support, Hawaii’s infrastructure has been strengthened, its economy diversified, and its natural resources protected and restored. For local residents, particularly Native Hawaiians, whose history and welcoming culture give the state its defining characteristics, Senator Inouye has increased job training and employment opportunities, provided more community healthcare, and provided support services and research to help small businesses and diverse sectors, from agriculture to high technology.
Senator Inouye got his start in politics in 1954 when he was elected to the Territorial House of Representatives. Soon after his election, his Democratic colleagues, well aware of Inouye’s leadership abilities, selected him as their Majority Leader. In 1958 he was elected to the Territorial Senate. When Hawaii became a state in 1959, he was elected the first Congressman from the new state, and was re-elected to a full term in 1960. He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962 and is now serving his ninth consecutive term.
On May 24, 2008, Senator Inouye married Irene Hirano, who is president of the U.S.-Japan Council. He was married for nearly 57 years to Margaret Awamura Inouye, a former instructor at the University of Hawaii, who passed away on March 13, 2006.
He has a son, Ken, who is married to Jessica Carroll from Rochester, New York, and a granddaughter, Mary Margaret “Maggie” Inouye.
Pillar Award for Professional Achievement
The Honorable Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)
Majority Whip
U.S. House of Representatives
Congressman Kevin McCarthy represents the 22nd District of California, which covers most of Kern and San Luis Obispo Counties, and northeastern Los Angeles County. First elected in 2006, he is committed to policies that give small businesses and entrepreneurs the confidence they need to hire, expand, invest and innovate. After the 2010 midterm elections, Rep. McCarthy was elected by his colleagues to serve as Majority Whip of the United States House of Representatives.
The young Kevin McCarthy started his own small business before the age of 21. He opened Kevin O's Deli from the ground up, building the deli's counter in their garage. He worked hard, hired employees and enjoyed success in his community. When Kevin sold his business, he used the profits to put himself through college and graduate school. He received both his undergraduate degree and his Masters in Business Administration from California State University, Bakersfield.
During college, McCarthy accepted an internship with then-Congressman Bill Thomas, and soon became a member of Rep. Thomas's staff. McCarthy won his first election in 2000 as Trustee to the Kern Community College District. In 2002, he was elected to represent the 32nd Assembly District in the California State Assembly. As a freshman legislator, he was selected unanimously by his Republican colleagues to serve as the Assembly Republican Leader, becoming the first freshman legislator and the first legislator from Kern County to assume the top Republican post in the California State Assembly. McCarthy worked with his colleagues in the Assembly and Senate and with the Governor to reduce California's budget deficit, overhaul the state worker's compensation system and enhance California's business climate to create more opportunities for California workers and businesses until he ran for Congress in 2006.
Rep. McCarthy brings his personal experience as a small business owner and as an effective leader in the statehouse to Washington, D.C. In his role as Majority Whip, he leads the effort in Congress to advance common sense policies toward economic prosperity. Since gaining control of the House in November 2010, Rep. McCarthy and his Republican colleagues have passed legislation to help create jobs, support small businesses, increase the country’s energy security by promoting domestic energy production, promote access to capital, and help increase certainty for the private sector.
When Rep. McCarthy is not in Washington representing his constituents in California's 22nd District, he is home in Bakersfield with his wife Judy and two children Connor and Meghan.
Pillar Award for Civic Engagement
Nancy Jacobson
Founder & CEO
No Labels
Since 1984 Nancy Jacobson has worked in Washington, D.C. as a strategic advisor, entrepreneur, executive, fundraiser and relationship/network cultivator. In 2009, she founded No Labels and currently runs the organization as its CEO.
After working for both Gary Hart and Al Gore’s 1988 Presidential Campaigns, Nancy worked for Senator John Kerry at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. She was the third person hired in September of 1991 to serve as the Mid-Atlantic Finance Director for then-governor Bill Clinton’s 1992 Presidential Campaign. She became his top fundraiser, reporting directly to Rahm Emanuel and moving on to run the finance operation of the Presidential Inaugural Committee. On her own initiative, she put together the “Inaugural Fact Book,” helping the new president and his staff understand how to execute the first Democratic inauguration since 1976. Following the inauguration, she was asked to be the Finance Director of the Democratic National Committee after President Clinton assumed office.
From 1995 to 2010, Nancy ran her own consulting business advising political candidates and causes. For over 15 years, she worked with Senator Evan Bayh and was responsible for managing and running all of his Washington and National fundraising activities. For over 13 years she served as a senior advisor to the Democratic Leadership Council and in 2004 helped to found Third Way, a centrist think tank committed to providing the best ideas to policy makers.
She has enjoyed success in creating political groups during her 28 year career. While at the Democratic National Committee she founded the Women’s Leadership Forum, a group that continues to bring together women donors through substantive forums. She also founded the Saxophone Club, the first ever young professional donor club at the DNC.
In 1998, she founded and served as Executive Director of Next Gen PAC. She created this group with several Wall Street executives who wanted to support moderates running for Senate. The group became well known amongst the Senators as a place where thoughtful and committed business people convened to make a difference.
She chaired and ran the finance operation for Senator Evan Bayh’s 2008 exploratory bid for the Presidency. After he ended his bid for president, she was personally recruited by Hillary Clinton to work on her presidential campaign. During that campaign, she created and founded the “Women’s Summit Series,” bringing together thousands of women in fundraising summits and raising millions of dollars for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Nancy has been featured in numerous publications such as Elle, Marie Claire and the Washingtonian. In 2008, she was listed in GQ as one of the 50 most powerful people in D.C.
She is married to Mark Penn, former pollster to President Bill Clinton and currently the CEO of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide. They reside in Washington, D.C. with their ten-year-old daughter Blair, who is the younger sister to Nancy’s three terrific stepchildren Jackie, Miles and Margot Penn.
Master of Ceremonies
Cokie Roberts
Poltical Analyst
ABC News
Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News, providing analysis for all network news programming. From 1996-2002 she and Sam Donaldson co-anchored the weekly ABC interview program This Week. Roberts also serves as Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio. In her more than forty years in broadcasting, she has won countless awards, including three Emmys. She has been inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame, and was cited by the American Women in Radio and Television as one of the fifty greatest women in the history of broadcasting.
In addition to her appearances on the airwaves, Roberts, along with her husband, Steven V. Roberts, writes a weekly column syndicated in newspapers around the country by United Media. The Roberts are also contributing editors to USA Weekend Magazine, and in 2011 they published Our Haggadah, Uniting Traditions for Interfaith Families. Their earlier collaboration, From this Day Forward, an account of their more than forty year marriage and other marriages in American history, immediately went onto The New York Times bestseller list. All of Cokie Roberts’s other books have also been best-sellers, including the number one bestseller, We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters, an account of women’s roles and relationships throughout American history. Her other bestselling books -- Founding Mothers, published in 2004 and Ladies of Liberty in 2008 -- are histories of women in America’s founding era.
Cokie Roberts holds more than twenty-five honorary degrees, serves on the boards of several non-profit institutions and was on President Bush’s Commission on Service and Civic Participation. In 2008 the Library of Congress named her a “Living Legend,” one of the very few Americans to have attained that honor. She is the mother of two and grandmother of six.
Honorary Dinner Co-Chair
The Honorable Norman Y. Mineta
Former Secretary of Transportation
Norman Y. Mineta is currently vice chair of public policy at Hill & Knowlton Strategies. He became the 14th U.S. Secretary of Transportation on January 25, 2001. In nominating him, President Bush said, "Norm made a reputation in the halls of Congress as someone who understands that a sound infrastructure in America will lead to economic opportunity for all Americans."
As Secretary of Transportation, Mr. Mineta oversaw an agency with 60,000 employees and a $56.3 billion budget. The U.S. transportation system includes 3.9 million miles of public roads and 2 million miles of oil and natural gas pipelines. There are networks consisting of 120,000 miles of major railroads, more than 25,000 miles of commercially navigable waterways and more than 5,000 public-use airports. The transportation system also includes more than 500 major urban public transit operators and more than 300 ports on the coasts, Great Lakes and inland waterways.
As a result of September 11, 2001, President Bush signed into law on November 19, 2001, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA), which among other things established the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) within the Department of Transportation (DOT). Secretary Mineta undertook the earth-moving efforts to transform, in the course of only a year, the TSA from a piece of paper into a fully operational agency with extensively trained new federal employees and numerous congressional deadlines met. On March 1, 2003, the TSA was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security as a fully-operational agency.
Prior to joining President Bush’s administration as Secretary of Transportation, Mr. Mineta served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Clinton, becoming the first Asian Pacific American to serve in the cabinet. He is the first Secretary of Transportation to have previously served in a cabinet position.
Prior to joining the Commerce Department, he was a vice president at Lockheed Martin Corporation.
From 1975 to 1995 he served as a member of U.S. House of Representatives, representing the heart of California’s Silicon Valley. As a member of Congress, Mr. Mineta was known for his dedication to the people of his district, for consensus building among his colleagues and for forging public-private partnerships. Mr. Mineta's legislative and policy agenda was wide and varied, including major projects in the areas of economic development, science and technology policy, trade, transportation, the environment, intelligence, the budget and civil rights. He co-founded the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and served as its first chair.
While in Congress, Mr. Mineta was the driving force behind passage of H.R. 442, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which officially apologized for and redressed the injustices endured by Japanese Americans during World War II. In 1995, George Washington University awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Medal to Mr. Mineta for his contributions to the field of civil rights.
Secretary Mineta and his family were among the 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry forced from their homes and into internment camps during World War II. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, Mr. Mineta joined the Army in 1953 and served as an intelligence officer in Japan and Korea. He joined his father in the Mineta Insurance Agency before entering politics in San Jose, serving as a member of its City Council from 1967 to 1971 and mayor from 1971 to 1974, becoming the first Asian Pacific American mayor of a major U.S. city. As mayor, he favored greater control of transportation decisions by local government, a position he later championed in ISTEA.
Secretary Mineta is married to Danealia (Deni) Mineta. He has two sons, David and Stuart Mineta, and two stepsons, Robert and Mark Brantner.
Honorary Dinner Co-Chair
William Clay Ford, Jr.
Executive Chairman
Ford Motor Company
As Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company, William Clay Ford, Jr. is leading the company that put the world on wheels into the 21st century.
Bill Ford, Jr. joined the Board of Directors in 1988 and has been its chairman since January 1999. He serves as chairman of the board's Finance Committee and as a member of the Sustainability Committee. He also served as chief executive officer of the company from October 2001 to September 2006, when he was named executive chairman.
As CEO, Mr. Ford improved quality, lowered costs and delivered exciting new products. During his time in that position he took the company from a $5.5 billion loss in 2001 to three straight years of profitability.
Mr. Ford joined Ford Motor Company in 1979 as a product planning analyst and subsequently held a variety of positions in manufacturing, sales, marketing, product development and finance. In 1983 he began a 12-month course of study as an Alfred P. Sloan fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was elected chairman and managing director of Ford Switzerland in 1987. As head of Business Strategy for the Ford Automotive Group in 1990, Mr. Ford helped develop guidelines for establishing low-volume manufacturing plants in emerging markets. After being appointed general manager of Climate Control Division in 1992, he led a profit turnaround and a major improvement in product quality. Mr. Ford was elected company vice president and head of the company’s Commercial Truck Vehicle Center in 1994. He left that position in order to assume the chairmanship of the Board of Directors’ Finance Committee in 1995.
A lifelong environmentalist, Mr. Ford is committed to increasing shareholder value by developing products that please customers and benefit society. Under his leadership, in 2000 Ford Motor Company published its first corporate citizenship report outlining the economic, environmental and social impact of company products and operations around the world. In 2004, the company completed the world’s largest brownfield reclamation project, the restoration of its Ford Rouge Center in metropolitan Detroit. Mr. Ford also championed the Ford Escape Hybrid, the world’s first hybrid-electric sport utility vehicle, which was named North American Truck of the Year in 2005.
Mr. Ford’s charitable, volunteer and business efforts are highlighted by his commitment to the city of Detroit. As vice chairman of the Detroit Lions professional football team, Mr. Ford led efforts to build a new, environmentally friendly stadium in Detroit that was the site of Super Bowl XL. Through Detroit Lions Charities, he helped develop the Detroit Police Athletic League youth football program into one of the largest in the country.
Mr. Ford is Chairman of the Board of the Detroit Economic Club, a member of the Board of Trustees of both Henry Ford Health System and The Henry Ford, member of the Board of Directors of eBay Inc., and Chairman of the New Michigan Initiative of Business Leaders for Michigan. He also is a founding partner of Fontinalis Partners, LLC, a Michigan-based investment firm that acts as a strategic operating partner to transportation infrastructure technology companies around the world.
Mr. Ford was born in Detroit in 1957. He is an avid fly fisherman and car enthusiast, enjoys playing hockey and tennis, and is a black belt in the martial art of Tae Kwon Do. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University, a Master of Science degree in management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of Michigan.
