Presidential Panels

Race, Reparations and Remedies: Perspectives from a Nervous Area of Government

Saturday, March 18 | 10:45 am – 12:15 pm

Moderator: Mary Guy, University of Colorado—Denver

Mary E. Guy is a faculty member in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research focuses on the human processes involved in public service delivery and on the translation of democratic theory to street-level services, winning multiple awards for work that advances both theory and practice. President of ASPA in 1997-1998, she is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Panelists:

Samuel Myers, Jr. (University of Minnesota)
Samuel L. Myers, Jr., is the Director and Professor, Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. His research has focused on racial earnings inequality, racial disparities in crime, discrimination in home mortgage lending and consumer credit markets, racial and ethnic disproportionality in child welfare systems, faculty underrepresentation in STEM fields, and racial disparities in government contracting. At the University of Minnesota, Myers holds concurrent appointments in the Applied Economics Ph.D. Program and the graduate minor in population studies. He maintains an affiliation with the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Beijing, China) where he was in residence in 2008-2009 and is a visiting lecturer at the National Law School of India University (Bangalore, India). He received his Ph.D. in economics from MIT and his undergraduate degree from Morgan State University.

Julie Nelson (University of California-Berkeley)
Julie Nelson is the Senior Vice President at the Center for Social Inclusion and Director of the Government Alliance for Race and Equity (GARE). She is also a Senior Fellow at the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at the University of California, Berkeley. GARE is a national network of government working to achieve racial equity and advance opportunities for all. Nelson is the former Director of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, where she provided vision and hands-on leadership for Seattle’s Race and Social Justice Initiative. She has 25 years of experience working for local, regional and federal government, including with Seattle’s Human Services Department, Administrative Services and the utilities; Housing and Urban Development; and Pima County Community Services in Tucson, Ariz. She has a Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Washington and has served on the boards of many nonprofits and is involved with groups working for racial equity.

Brian Williams (University of Georgia)
Brian N. Williams, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Public Administration & Policy in the School of Public & International Affairs at The University of Georgia, after previous faculty appointments at Florida State University and Vanderbilt University. His research centers on issues related to demographic diversity, local law enforcement and public governance, with special attention devoted to the co-production of public safety and public order, inclusive of how the experiences and perceptions of individuals affect the formation and functioning of working partnerships between local law enforcement and community residents. Williams has served as a trainer, consultant or subject matter expert with police departments or public safety related agencies and other governmental and nongovernmental entities, including the San Diego (CA) Police Department, the Metropolitan Nashville (TN) Human Relations Commission, Hopkinsville (KY) Police Department, the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board Executive Institute and the Spartanburg (SC) Public Safety Department. Williams has published in leading journals in public administration, community psychology, education and police studies. He is the author of Citizen Perspectives on Community Policing: A Case Study in Athens, GA (State University of New York Press) and currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Public Management & Social Policy. He has served on the editorial board of Police Quarterly, and as a reviewer for other academic journals and university and commercial presses, including Oxford University Press, Sage Publications, Bartlett and Jones Publishers, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Justice System Quarterly, Public Performance and Management Review, Public Management Research, Journal of Public Management & Social Policy, Social Science Quarterly, Public Administration Review, Crime & Delinquency, Political Research Quarterly and Qualitative Sociology. In November 2012, Williams was designated as a Kavli Fellow during the National Academy of Sciences 24th Annual Kavli Frontiers of Science Symposium, hosted on the campus of the University of California in Irvine, Calif. In the fall of 2014, Williams was one of 40 participants from across the United States who was invited and participated in the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) National Policy Summit on Community-Police Relations. Most recently Williams was an invited speaker for the Trending Issues in Policing Summit hosted by the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Glynco, Ga., and was an invited participant in the Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science (LEADS) Agencies Program Development Roundtable hosted by the National Institute of Justice in Washington, DC.

Governance Around the Globe in an Era of Populism

Saturday, March 18 | 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Moderator: Meredith Newman, Florida International University

Meredith A. Newman is Vice Provost for Faculty and Global Affairs at Florida International University. In this role she works directly with the Provost to oversee all initiatives that support faculty, including recruitment, promotion and retention of faculty and other areas that relate to a professionalized faculty and career progression. Newman also oversees FIU Global, which centralizes the university’s global initiatives in regards to planning, facilitating, coordinating and initiating partnerships with international institutions and organizations. She serves as Chair of an FIU Global Council, made up of multidisciplinary representatives, whose mission includes facilitating the expansion of global learning programs and strategic global initiatives for FIU. Newman joined the faculty as Director of the School of Public Administration and Professor in Public Administration in 2006. She subsequently served as Chair of the Department of Public Administration before joining the Dean’s office at the College of Arts & Sciences in January 2013 as Senior Associate Dean and subsequently as Vice Dean. Her successful academic career includes appointments at the University of Illinois Springfield and at Washington State University Vancouver. Prior to her career in academia, Newman served with the Australian Foreign Service, the U.S. Department of State, and the World Bank, including tours of duty in France, Viet Nam, Senegal, Malaysia, and Republic of Singapore. Newman is recognized as one of the leading experts in the field of public management and the emotive aspects of work. Newman’s books have won numerous awards. Her contributions to the profession have been recognized by a series of awards, such as the Lifetime Achievement in Public Human Resources Scholarship Award of the American Society for Public Administration. Newman is past Chair of the Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation of the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs and Administration; and Past President of the American Society for Public Administration. She is Vice President for Regional and International Cooperation, the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration; and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Panelists:

Kaye Husbands Fealing (Georgia Tech)
Kaye Husbands Fealing is an economist who comes to the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts from the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. During the course of her career, she has built a distinguished record of achievements in scholarship and education, as well as in national and international leadership and service. Her areas of expertise include international trade policy; science, technology, and innovation policy in specific contexts; knowledge generation and the development of networks. Husbands Fealing developed models to measure science innovation and to measure the impacts of market forces and policy on the access of women and minorities to employment and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas. She has held named professorships at two institutions and served as president of the National Economic Association. She developed the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Science of Science and Innovation Policy program and co-chaired the Science of Science Policy Interagency Task Group. At NSF, she also served as an economics program director. She was a visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Technology Policy and Industrial Development, where she conducted research on NAFTA's impact on the Mexican and Canadian automotive industries and research on strategic alliances between aircraft contractors and their subcontractors.

Rolet Loretan (International Institute of Administrative Sciences)
Mr. Rolet Loretan was born in 1952 and is a Swiss citizen. Trained as a lawyer at the University of Freiburg (Switzerland), he is also a graduate of the Swiss Graduate Institute of Public Administration (IDHEAP), University of Lausanne. He started his professional career within the Swiss Federal Government in Berne. He began as a legal expert in the Central Office of General Defence. In 1987 he became Head of the Army Affairs Section and later Deputy Head of the Military Policy Division within the General Secretariat of the Swiss Ministry of Defence. In 1996 and for 10 years after he was appointed Head of the Press and Radio Division (DIPRA), Headquarters of the Federal Council (Swiss Government), in charge of information related to extraordinary situations. In 2006, he became 1st Rapporteur for Strategic Planning and Actions at Headquarters for the Swiss Federal Council Delegation for Security when called upon to take up the management of IIAS in Brussels. Loretan has also carried out a parallel career as an officer in the Swiss Army where he has the grade of Colonel within both the Mountain Infantry and the Swiss Military Court of Appeals where he served for 24 years as Senior Judge. Before IIAS, he was involved at the international level since 1992 within the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War, an NGO whose seat is in Brussels, where he is Honorary Vice-President. Loretan officially took up his duties as Director General of IIAS on Nov. 1, 2006.

Jae Moon (Yonsei University)
Professor Moon is Underwood Distinguished Professor of the Department of Public Administration of Yonsei University. He currently serves as the International Director of ASPA as well as Vice President of the Korean Association of Public Administration. His research interests include public management, information technology/environmental policy and comparative public administration. He was Editor-in-Chief for the International Review of Public Administration and Book Review Editor for Public Administration Review. He is the recipient of Mosher Award for the best article in Public Administration Review as well as the Peter Boorsma Award in 2009. He has been a Fellow of National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) since 2012.

Allan Rosenbaum (Florida International University)
Allan Rosenbaum was the 2014-2015 President of the American Society for Public Administration. He has served as Director of the Institute for Public Management and Community Service and Professor of Public Administration at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, Fla. The Institute is FIU’s principal vehicle for working internationally in the areas of governance reform, decentralization, legislative development, strengthening local government and democratic institution-building. Rosenbaum served for six years as Dean of the School of Public Affairs and Services at FIU. Prior to that time, he was Associate Professor of Policy Sciences at the University of Maryland, Baltimore Graduate School, where he directed the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research, a state government-oriented public policy research institute. He served in the U.S. federal government dealing with executive branch-congressional relationships in the area of educational policy during on the faculty at the Universities of Connecticut and Wisconsin, Madison and held a research position at the University of Chicago. He has also worked in state government in Illinois as Assistant to the Senate Minority Leader and, subsequently, as Administrative Assistant to the Lieutenant Governor, and, for one year, served as acting budget administrator of the City of Miami, Florida. Rosenbaum has been heavily engaged in international public administration and democratic development technical assistance, consulting and research. He has written on governance reform, decentralization issues and legislative relations in various countries, including Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Sierra Leone and Ukraine. He has consulted, worked or spoken in more than 80 countries around the world. He has authored, co-authored or co-edited a number of publications for the United Nations, as well as prepared papers on issues of decentralization, democracy and civil society for major United Nations Conferences in Bucharest, Marrakech, New York, Windhoek and Rio de Janeiro. Rosenbaum served as President of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA) from 2001-04 and 2007-10, and on the Executive Committee of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS). He received a B.A. in History from the University of Miami and a Master’s Degree in Higher Education Administration from Southern Illinois University, as well as a Master’s Degree in Political Science and Public Administration from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 1976.

Anastase Shyaka (Rwanda Governance Board)
Professor Anastase Shyaka is the CEO of Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) since 2011. Prior to this, he was the executive secretary of the Rwanda Governance Advisory Council (2008-2011). As part of his advisory role, he created the Rwanda Governance Scorecard, an index to accurately gauge the country’s governance and development status. Before joining the government, he was a professor of political science and the director of the Center for Conflict Management (CCM) at the National University of Rwanda. While at the university, he initiated two ongoing Masters programs: MA, Peace and Conflict Transformation, and MA, Genocide Prevention Studies. Shyaka is a former Fulbright Scholar in Residence (2007) at George Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College, where he taught Social and Political Change in Contemporary Sub Saharan Africa). He has authored, co-authored and co-edited a number of publications pertaining to governance, democracy, conflict and peace building, African politics and regional studies. Shyaka has participated in a number of national and regional development processes in the Africa’s Great Lakes Region. From 2010 to 2012, he has been appointed by East African Community’s Heads of States to the regional Team of Experts to conduct a prospective study of the East African Political Federation. Between 2004 and 2005 he was also a member of the Peace and Security Technical Task Force for the United Nations African Union-led International Conference on the peace process in the 11 Africa’s Great Lakes nations. He currently serves on various governing boards of trustees for national and international organizations. He is a member of the board of the UN Global Center for Public Service Excellence (GCPSE) based in Singapore. He is also a member of the Global Academic Advisory Board of World Learning, a U.S. based organization working in more than 100 countries; and Chairman of the governing board of the University of Technology and Arts of Byumba (UTAB), Rwanda. He is a member of the Public Administration Review editorial board. Shyaka received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Gdansk (Poland) in 2001.

Sexual Orientation and the Public Sector: Human Resources Management and Public Policy

Saturday, March 18 | 4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Moderator: Erik Bergrud, Park University

Erik Bergrud serves currently as Park University’s associate vice president for external relations, which encompasses the areas of alumni relations, career development, communications and public relations, government relations and special events. This academic year, he chairs the University’s Year of Inclusion Task Force. During his tenure as ASPA President (2011-12), the Society undertook a major revision of its Code of Ethics and established an LGBT Advocacy Alliance Section, of which he was an inaugural member. His commitment to diversity and inclusion reflects his upbringing as a son of an immigrant and a special education teacher. His appointments to the 2011-12 ASPA leadership team and featured speaker selections for the 2012 ASPA Annual Conference demonstrate both that commitment and his determination to “walk the talk.” A fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, Bergrud has delivered presentations on topics of social equity at numerous national conferences and programs. He remains active in ASPA as coordinator of past president activities and as a member of the ASPA Endowment, Inc., Board of Directors.

Panelists:

Gregory Lewis (Georgia State University)
Gregory B. Lewis is a professor of public management and policy and the chair of the department in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. A National Academy of Public Administration Fellow and winner of the Charles H. Levine Memorial Award from ASPA and NASPAA, he received his Ph.D. from Syracuse University and previously taught at the University of Georgia and American University. He has published widely on the impact of sex, race and sexual orientation on the career patterns of public employees. His research on lesbian and gay rights includes several studies on public opinion, as well as work on the impact of government policies on the employment and pay of lesbians and gay men.

Reggie Mebane (Center for Disease Control)
Reginald R. Mebane, MS, is currently the Director of CDC’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity (OEEO). As Director, Mebane is responsible for advising and counseling CDC′s executive leadership team on a variety of equal employment opportunity, diversity management, civil rights and human resources issues impacting the agency′s complex and diverse global workforce. His key responsibilities include but are not limited to matters related to Affirmative Employment, Disability, Reasonable Accommodation, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Special Emphasis Programs and EEO Complaints Processing and Settlements for all CDC centers, institutes and offices. He is also responsible for the design and direction of programs, policies and procedures based on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s(EEOC) rules, regulations, laws and Executive Orders governing equal opportunity, diversity management, civil rights and human resources that further ensure prevention of individual and systematic discrimination across the enterprise. Mebane joined CDC in February 2005 as Chief Management Officer of CDC′s Coordinating Center for Infectious Diseases (CCID). In this role, he had direct authority for the management of the estimated $4.0B CCID budget which included business operations, human capital, information technology, grants, facilities and administrative services for a variety of programs, assets, people and EEO activities. Prior to working at CDC, Mebane spent more than 23 years at FedEx. After starting his career with the company in 1981, Mebane was promoted from dock worker, to manager, to the Director of International Operations. In 2001, Mebane moved to Buffalo, N.Y., to become the Chief Operating Officer for a $2.0B company that FedEx acquired. In addition to his management duties at FedEx, Mebane was the corporate lead for the Diversity training curriculum for the corporation from 1995 to 1997 where he became part of the critically acclaimed Fed Ex Leadership Institute. While there he taught leadership, diversity and management practices to FedEx employees from around the world.

Norma Riccucci (Rutgers University)
Norma M. Riccucci is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Public Administration at the School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University at Newark. She has published extensively in the areas of public management, social equity and human resources management, including Public Administration: Traditions of Inquiry and Philosophies of Knowledge (Georgetown University Press). She is author of the forthcoming book, Shared Powers and the Making of U.S. Law and Policy (New York University Press). Riccucci has received a number of national awards including the American Society of Public Administration’s Dwight Waldo Award for a lifelong contribution to public administration. She is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA).

Phin Xaypangna (Mecklenburg County)
Phin Xaypangna is an organizational development and learning consultant for Mecklenburg County Government since 2005. She is also the founder and president of Phin Consulting. Xaypangna has expertise in organizational assessments, team development, diversity and inclusion, leadership development, facilitation, succession and strategic planning. She has served as a speaker and presenter at local, state and national conferences on the topics of inclusion and leadership development. She is an active community leader in civic engagement and social change efforts. Currently, she serves as president of the Charlotte Asian Heritage Association and chair of the Charlotte International Women’s Day. She was a former board member of Mecklenburg Ministries, Levine Museum of the New South, Charlotte World Parade and Festival, American Society for Public Administration, Southeast Conference for Public Administration, Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the Y Metro Charlotte and Diversity Council of the Carolinas. Xaypangna is a native of Laos and is fluent in Laotian and Thai. She received her B.A. in Political Science from Western Carolina University and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from UNC Charlotte.

Immigration and Implications for Street-level Bureaucrats

Sunday, March 19 | 8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

Moderator: Steve Condrey, Condrey and Associates, Inc.

Steve Condrey, President of Condrey and Associates, Inc., a national human resources consulting firm, has more than 30 years of professional experience in human resource management. He has consulted nationally and internationally with more than 800 organizations concerning personnel related issues. He is the immediate past Editor-in-Chief of the Review of Public Personnel Administration and is the co-editor of Public Administration in Post-Communist Countries (CRC Press, 2013), editor of the Handbook of Human Resource Management in Government, Jossey-Bass, (1998, 2005 and 2010) and Radical Reform of the Civil Service, Lexington Press, 2001. He is the 1998 recipient of the University of Georgia’s Walter Barnard Hill Award for Distinguished Achievement in Public Service and Outreach and was named Hill Fellow by the University of Georgia in 2004 (the University of Georgia’s highest public service faculty honor). He holds the IPMA-SCP designation from the International Public Management Association for Human Resources. Condrey retired from the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia, in 2010. He was appointed by President Obama as Chairman of the Federal Salary Council in 2010. Condrey was elected as a fellow to the National Academy of Public Administration in 2012 and was president of the American Society for Public Administration for 2013-2014. In 2016, he was awarded ASPA's Elmer Staats Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Public Service. He holds a Ph.D. in public administration from the University of Georgia .

Panelists:

Abraham Benavides (University of North Texas)
Abraham Benavides completed his Ph.D. at Cleveland State University, his Master’s degree at Brigham Young University and his Bachelor’s degree from George Washington University. He joined the faculty at the University of North Texas in the fall of 2002 and is currently an Associate Professor and the Department Chair for Public Administration. His research interests include local government, human resources, cultural competency, ethics and leadership, immigration and age friendly communities. He has published in a number of academic Journals and he consults local municipalities on a number of these issues. He previously worked for county government in Ohio as an accreditation coordinator for a human service agency and for the Department of Human Resource Management for the State of Utah. He currently serves as president of the North Texas Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration and as a civil service commissioner for the City of Denton.

Saltanat Liebert (Virginia Commonwealth University)
Saltanat (Salta) Liebert is Associate Professor at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. Prior to joining VCU, Dr. Liebert taught at American University in Washington, D.C., and worked for the World Bank, the United Nations Refugee Agency, and the International Organization for Migration in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Austria and the U.S. Her research focuses on integration of immigrants in the United States and Europe and immigrants' access to healthcare.

Sarah Rich (Southern Poverty Law Center)
Sarah Rich is a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), based in Atlanta. She works in the Immigrant Justice Project, where she litigates civil rights and employment cases on behalf of immigrants and refugees in the Southeast and advocates for policies and laws that improve immigrants’ working conditions and respect immigrants’ rights. Prior to joining SPLC in 2014, Rich worked at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid in El Paso, representing farmworkers, trafficking victims and other vulnerable Texans in state and federal court. She also clerked for the Honorable Richard A. Paez on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Rich received her law degree from U.C. Berkeley School of Law and her MPP from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, both in 2011. Prior to attending graduate school, Rich served for two years in the Peace Corps in Mali, West Africa, and received her B.A. from Scripps College in 2003.

Public Administration in the New Presidential Administration

Sunday, March 19 | 1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Moderator: Sylvester Murray, Cleveland State University

Sylvester “Sy” Murray is Professor Emeritus of Public Policy and Administration, Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University, Ohio; former President of the American Society of Public Administration; and Fellow, National Academy of Public Administration.

Panelists:

Andra Gillespie (Emory University)
Andra Gillespie is associate professor of political science at Emory University. She earned her BA from the University of Virginia and her Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. Before joining the faculty at Emory, she worked as an analyst for Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. Gillespie’s current research focuses on the political leadership of African Americans born after the Civil Rights Movement. She is the editor of and a contributor to Whose Black Politics? Cases in Post-Racial Black Leadership (Routledge 2010) and the author of The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark and Post-Racial America (NYU Press 2012).

Karen Hult (Virginia Tech)
Karen M. Hult (Ph.D. University of Minnesota) is Professor and Chair of Political Science and core faculty member (and past chair) of the Center for Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Tech. Her primary research emphases are U.S. executive institutions, organizational/institutional design and dynamics, policy dynamics, and social science methodologies. The author of co-author of four books and numerous journal articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries, Hult currently is working on a co-authored volume on White House chiefs of staff and a book on structuring and governance in public organizations and policy networks. Since 2000, she has been a contributing scholar on essays on the White House Counsel’s Office and the Office of Staff Secretary for the White House Transition Project, for which she also serves as a member of the board. Hult is past president of the Presidency Research Group, and she serves on the editorial boards of Administration & Society, Congress & the Presidency, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and Rhetoric & Public Affairs.

Don Kettl (Brookings Institution)
Donald F. Kettl is professor and former dean in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Partnership for Public Service, the Volcker Alliance and the Brookings Institution. He is currently serving as senior advisor on departmental transformation for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Kettl is the author or editor of a many books and monographs, including Little Bites of Big Data for Public Policy (2017); Can Government Earn Our Trust (2017); The Politics of the Administrative Process (7th edition, 2017), Escaping Jurassic Government: Restoring America’s Lost Commitment to Competence (2016), System under Stress: The Challenge to 21st Century American Democracy Homeland Security and American Politics (2014), The Next Government of the United States: Why Our Institutions Fail Us and How to Fix Them (2008) and The Global Public Management Revolution (2005). He has twice won the Louis Brownlow Book Award of the National Academy of Public Administration for the best book published in public administration. In 2008, Kettl won the American Political Science’s John Gaus Award for a lifetime of exemplary scholarship in political science and public administration. He was awarded the Warner W. Stockberger Achievement Award of the International Public Management Association for Human Resources in 2007 for outstanding contributions in the field of public sector personnel management. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. Prior to his appointment at the University of Maryland, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, the University of Virginia, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a fellow of Phi Beta Kappa and the National Academy of Public Administration.

Sean O’Keefe (Syracuse University)
The Honorable Sean O’Keefe is University Professor and the Howard and Louise Phanstiel Chair in Strategic Management and Leadership at the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is the 17th individual in the nearly 150-year Syracuse history to be designated University Professor, the most senior faculty designation bestowed by the institution. Concurrently, he is a Distinguished Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a partner institution with the Maxwell School in Washington, D.C. Previously, O’Keefe was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Airbus Group Inc, the U.S.-based corporate division of the global aerospace corporation. Prior to joining Airbus, O'Keefe was a company officer and Vice President of the General Electric Company, following service as Chancellor of the Louisiana State University. On four separate occasions, O'Keefe served as a presidential appointee when he led NASA, as Secretary of the Navy, as Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget and as Comptroller and CFO at the Defense Department. His first presidential appointment occurred after nearly 10 years on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee staff. Between public service posts at various times in his career, he held faculty appointments at the Pennsylvania State University, LSU and Syracuse. His public service experiences began as a Presidential Management Intern in the first class of the program in 1978.

Fiscal Implications of Emergencies and Natural Disasters: Managing Recovery and Making Communities Whole

Monday, March 20 | 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Moderator: Christine Springer, University of Nevada-Las Vegas

Dr. Springer was appointed on Sept. 1, 2006, to be Director of the Executive Master of Science Degree in Emergency and Crisis Management at UNLV which was created by the Board of Regents in 2003. She is currently a Professor of Public Administration and Director of the ECEM Degree Program. Since that time, she has overseen the restructuring of the academic program which is the only full executive masters in the country on this subject. Three hundred and seventy-five students have graduated as of July 2013. She is currently involved in doing research on regional infrastructure resilience in Nevada and developing and making operational an internal and external stakeholder interaction plan. She has served on congressional panels developing performance metrics for DHS/FEMA grants and a FEMA panel to develop core competencies for college curriculum and degree programs and on the congressional panel evaluating FEMA Post-Katrina (2009) and this year evaluating FEMA’s flood mapping coordination with other federal and state and local agencies. She also serves on the Nevada Citizen Corps Council, InfraGard, The Nevada Community Organizations Active in Disasters, The Southern Nevada Medical Reserve Corps and The World Affairs Board of Directors, as well as the FBI Citizens Academy. She is also a member of The National Preparedness Coalition and the Nevada Commission on Homeland Security. A recognized expert in facilitation, marketing, communications and management processes, she has authored 10 books and numerous articles on those subjects and is a columnist in PA Times on strategic management. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Emergency Management and on the Board of Directors of Infragard. She has served on the Board of Directors of the National Academy of Public Administration - a congressional think tank founded in 1967 and serves on the Board of the World Affairs Council of Las Vegas. She has served as President of the American Society of Public Administration, as a Baldridge Award Examiner, as a State Quality Examiner and as President of a Chamber of Commerce. She is an online and published columnist for numerous professional societies, a contributor to magazines and journals like Public Management, and Public Administration Review. Springer is a graduate of the University of Arizona (BA), the Arizona State University (MPA) and Indiana University (Ph.d).

Panelists:

Mark Bucalo (Hurricane Matthew Cost Recovery)
Mark Bucalo served as a member of the Buffalo Grove, Ill., Police Department from 1984-2010. Bucalo worked in all functions of the police department including patrol, investigations and Staff Services, retiring at the rank of Commander. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Columbia College and is a graduate of the Northwestern University Center for Public Safety's School of Police Staff and Command and Executive Management Program. Bucalo has worked with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies since 2000 and serves as an assessor and team leader. After retiring from Buffalo Grove, Bucalo worked as the administration supervisor and accreditation manager for the Schaumburg, Ill., Police Department until moving to warmer climates in 2013. He currently works for the Chatham County Finance Department as a management analyst and the public safety contract administrator. After Hurricane Matthew struck the coast of Georgia in October 2016, Bucalo was assigned as the project manager for FEMA cost recovery for Chatham County and is still actively working on the completion of this project.

Beverly Cigler (Pennsylvania State University)
Beverly Cigler, distinguished professor of public policy and administration, emerita at Penn State—Harrisburg, specializes in intergovernmental relations, especially state and local policy, politics and management; intermunicipal relations; public financel; alternative service delivery; counties; smart growth; emergency management; and general issues of professionalism and governance. She received the 2015 Whittington Award from NASPAA for her teaching; national awards for her intergovernmental research, scholarship and community building for economic development; a Distinguished Alumni Award from Thiel College; Penn State—Harrisburg's Excellence in Research and Faculty Service Awards; and statewide awards from the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania; the Pennsylvania Women's Commission; and an MS Leadership Award. She received a Legislation Citation for contributions to Pennsylvania and served as a Penn State faculty associate and Visiting Scholar in a legislative research office for 10 years. Her published work includes more than 175 articles/chapters, including 12 in Public Administration Review, dozens of professional reports and nine books/edited collections. Cigler currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Thiel College, boards of the Keystone Research Center (Pa.) and the South Central Assembly (Pa.) and on advisory committees for the County Commissioners Association of Pa.; the Association of Pennsylvania Municipal Managers; the Pa. Budget and Policy Center; the Metropolitan Policy Center (University of Pittsburgh); and the National Center for the Study of Counties. She recently served on a Pa. legislative Local Government Commission study of mandates. Cigler has held numerous leadership positions in public administration organizations and has served on 16 editorial boards. Cigler is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Yilin Hou (Syracuse University)
Yilin Hou is a professor of public administration and international affairs and tenth decade faculty scholar at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Hou’s expertise is public finance. His research interests are fiscal policy, public budgeting and intergovernmental fiscal relations as related to the core of development and governance. Much of his research focuses on the smooth operation of government finance across the boom-bust cycles of the economy. He is particularly interested in researching rules based, time consistent fiscal policies that contribute to the government sector’s capacity to weather the vicissitudes of economic fluctuations and other aspects of the society in order to provide smooth and stable public services and goods. Besides several dozen journal articles in these areas, Hou has published two books on such topics: State Government Budget Stabilization: Policy, Tools and Impacts (2013) and Local Government Budget Stabilization: Explorations and Evidence (ed., 2015), both by Springer (New York). Hou has recently extended his research into several related aspects and areas. One of these is the fiscal impacts of natural disasters on state and local public finance and implications for the design of fiscal policy and intergovernmental fiscal relations. His presentation on this panel is drawn from his recent co-authored papers that use panel vector autoregression to examine the dynamic fiscal responses of state and county governments to disaster shocks. Hou also is studying the design of local property taxes via a comparative approach to draw lessons from the Great Recession in the United States and real estate bubbles in China. Two recent treatises are The Property Tax in China: History, Pilots, and Prospects (with Qiang Ren and Ping Zhang 2014, Springer) and Research in Scheme Design of China’s Local Property Tax (in Chinese, 2016, with Qiang Ren and Haitao Ma; Beijing: Economic Science Press). Hou’s research has been funded by academic institutions, research foundations, and government contracts. Hou is the editor of the Development and Governance book series and the Studies in Public Budgeting (and Fiscal Policy) book series, both by the Springer International.

Jesse Munoz (Federal Emergency Management Agency)
Jesse Munoz is director of the mitigation division for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Region IV office. He manages the region’s mitigation programs including updates to flood maps, mitigation grants, risk analysis, environmental and historic preservation, floodplain management and insurance. Munoz was previously the Region IV recovery director, responsible for programs that deliver assistance to individuals, local governments, tribal nations and private, nonprofit organizations after a disaster. Munoz served from June 2004-November 2007 as one of five federal coordinating officers in Region IV. Before joining FEMA, Munoz was with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for 28 years—on both active and reserve duty—in a variety of assignments. Munoz graduated from the University of Texas.

Data Driven Evidence and Decisionmaking in a Post-Truth World

Monday, March 20 | 3:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.

Moderator: Marc Holzer, Rutgers University—Newark

Marc Holzer, Ph.D. is University Professor and Founding Dean Emeritus of the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University-Newark. He is an ASPA Past President and currently serves as Chair of the ASPA Endowment. Dr. Holzer is a leader in the field of public sector performance and since 1975 has served as Editor in Chief of the Public Performance and Management Review.

Panelists:

Maria Aristigueta (ASPA Immediate Past President, University of Delaware)
Maria Aristigueta is the Charles P. Messick Professor of Public Administration and associate director of the University of Delaware’s School of Public Policy and Administration. Her teaching and research interests are primarily in the areas of performance management and organizational behavior. She has served on the Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation, the accrediting arm of the Network of Associated Schools of Public Policy, Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). She is the author of numerous publications, including Managing for Results in State Government and Civil Society in Cuba, and coauthor of Managing and Measuring Performance in Public and Nonprofit Organizations: An Integrated Approach, Organizational Behavior in the Public and Non-Profit Sectors, and Practice-Based Performance Management: An International Handbook. She is as a Senior Fellow with the UD’s Institute for Public Administration, which addresses policy, planning and management through the integration of applied research, professional development and education. Aristigueta hosted the first Transatlantic Dialogue in the United States with European colleagues at the University of Delaware after serving as a Visiting Professor at KU Leuven in Belgium. She was a Fulbright Specialist to the University of Salerno in Italy in 2013 and served on the Fulbright commission’s review team the following year. Prior to joining the University of Delaware, she was on the faculty at the University of Central Florida. Her doctorate is from the University of Southern California.

Angela Evans (University of Texas—Austin)
Angela Evans joined the faculty of the LBJ School in 2009 as a Clinical Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. On Jan.16, 2016, she assumed the position of dean of the School—the first dean appointed by the current President of the University of Texas Austin, Dr. Gregory Fenves. Since joining the LBJ School, she has earned numerous teaching awards, including the 2012 Texas Exes teaching award; the most valuable class (2010 and 2012) and the most helpful professor (every year since 2010). She teaches graduate courses in policy development, public management, and ethics. Evans has received research grants from the National Science Foundation through which she is developing ways to enhance the exchange of knowledge and expertise between the academic and policy making and policy implementation communities to better inform public policies. She also conducted a special research project with her students, which resulted in a widely distributed report entitled, “The Reclamation of the U.S. Congress,” which presents proposals on how the Congress could adjust its governance and processes to improve legislative deliberations. Prior to joining the faculty Evans worked for the U.S Congress for nearly 40 years, the last 15 of which she served as the Deputy Director of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a legislative branch agency that provides nonpartisan research and public policy analysis to Congress. She led the first agency-wide reorganization in 30 years, developed the first agency-wide interdisciplinary collaborative research framework, secured foundation support for several large research projects, and oversaw a $110 million budget and 700 professional staff representing a broad range of disciplines. She served as the President of the Association of Schools of Public Policy and Administration and is on the executive committee of National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Analysis. Professor Evans also is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Evans has served as an Instructor at the University of Maryland, a Senior Fellow at the University of California at Los Angeles, and as a consultant to Motorola, Citibank, Amoco and Proctor and Gamble.

John Kamensky (The IBM Center for the Business of Government)
John Kamensky is a Senior Fellow with the IBM Center for The Business of Government. During 24 years of public service, he had a significant role in helping pioneer the federal government's performance and results orientation. He is passionate about creating a government that is results oriented, performance based, customer focused and collaborative in nature. Prior to 2001, Kamensky served for eight years as deputy director of Vice President Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government. Before that, he worked at the Government Accountability Office for 16 years, where he played a key role in the development and passage of the Government Performance and Results Act. He has edited or co-authored eight books and writes and speaks extensively on performance management and government reform. He is involved in the IBM Center’s work delivering insights and support as a part of the 2017 presidential transition. Kamensky is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and received a Masters in Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

Benoy Jacob (University of Nevada—Las Vegas)
Benoy Jacob is an Associate Professor at the School of Public Policy and Leadership in the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs. Jacob’s research focuses on the growth and governance of cities; in particular, issues of public finance, state and local relationships and social diversity and equity. Currently, he is working on a project exploring the role of social cohesion in city growth and governance. His work has been featured in Urban Affairs Review, the National Tax Journal and Public Administration Review. Jacob also serves on the editorial board for the Urban Affairs Review and the State and Local Government Review.

Public Administrators: Keepers of Voting Integrity

Tuesday, March 21 | 9:45 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.

Moderator: Carl Stenberg, University of North Carolina

Carl Stenberg joined the University of North Carolina School of Government in 2003. Previously, he served as dean of Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts, University of Baltimore; director of the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, University of Virginia; executive director of the Council of State Governments; and assistant director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. He is co-author of America's Future Work Force. Stenberg is a fellow and former chair of the Board of Directors of the National Academy of Public Administration and an ASPA past president. He served as director of the MPA program at the School of Government from 2006 to 2011. Stenberg holds a BA from Allegheny College and an MPA and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Albany.

Panelists:

Avery Davis-Roberts (Carter Center)
Avery Davis-Roberts manages the Center's Democratic Election Standards Project, which seeks to develop the criteria by which observers assess a democratic process. She also manages the Center’s efforts on the Observability of U.S. elections, as well as the Human Rights and Election Standards project. She has worked on Carter Center election observation missions in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East She gained her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Chris Harvey (State of Georgia)
Chris Harvey currently serves as director of elections for the State of Georgia; he was appointed to this position in 2015 by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp. Prior to this position, he was the chief investigator for the Georgia Secretary of State and consolidated all investigative functions within the Secretary of State’s office into a single division. He has held other investigational positions at the county level within the state of Georgia. Harvey graduated from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, in 1989 with a BA in political science and criminal justice.

Merle King (Kennesaw State University)
Merle King is an Associate Professor Emeritus of Information Systems and the Executive Director for the Center for Election Systems at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Ga. An active researcher in election administration and technologies, King is the 2005 recipient of the National Association of Secretaries of State Medallion Award for his work in Georgia elections. Together with his colleagues at the Center, King has led the development one of the nation's best resources for election administration support. King has worked with the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), National Conference of State Legislatures and various states and organizations to identify and disseminate best practices for election administration and election technology innovation. As moderator for the EAC Roundtables, King has worked with state and local election officials to improve elections throughout the United States. The Center for Election Systems provides voting systems technical support to the Georgia Office of the Secretary of State and to the 159 county election supervisors in the Georgia.

Julie Wise (King County Elections)
Julie Wise was elected as the King County, Wash., Elections Director in November 2015 and will serve during the 2016-2019 term. King County is the 13th largest county in the nation and has approximately 1.24 million registered voters. Prior to her election in 2015, Wise served as the Deputy Director of Elections, managing all day-to-day operations of elections. Wise is a Washington State certified election administrator and is a nationally certified election registration administrator. She has attended leadership courses at both the University of Washington Evans School and Harvard Kennedy School. She has served King County voters for more than 14 years as a champion of best practices in election administration within the County and throughout Washington State. Throughout her time at King County, Wise has been a proponent of significant reforms that have made King County elections a national and international model for voting by mail. Driven by accuracy and transparency, Wise will focus her administration on innovative solutions to expedite vote tabulation, expand voter outreach and education and increase voter access in Washington State's largest county.