The Dole Institute of Politics’ Senior Fellow Jennifer Schmidt interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Schultz is the author of Life Happens and ..And His Lovely Wife, about her year on the campaign trail with her husband Sherrod Brown, who was elected to the U.S. Senate from Ohio in 2006.

Her other awards include the Scripps-Howard National Journalism Award, the National Headliners Award, the James Batten Medal, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award for social-justice reporting. Her narrative series “The Burden of Innocence,” which chronicled the life of a man wrongly incarcerated for rape, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

WATCH PROGRAM HERE

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 April 4, 2007

 Michael Brown

Former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
“Hurricane Katrina: An Insider Tells His Side of the Story”

Nominated by President George W. Bush to several Homeland Security positions, Michael D. Brown was twice confirmed by the United States Senate.   President Bush nominated Mr. Brown as the first Under Secretary in the Department of Homeland Security.  That nomination was preceded by his unique experience as the President’s appointee to lead a White House Transition Planning Office team for the newly created Department, making him the only Presidential nominee to work in a legacy agency (FEMA), on the transition team to the new department, and as one of the four senior leaders of the new department.

 Prior to his nomination as Under Secretary, President Bush appointed him as General Counsel to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  Shortly after the September 11th terrorist attacks, the President nominated Mr. Brown as the Deputy Director of FEMA. 

 Following the September 11th attacks President Bush named Mr. Brown to the President’s Consequence Management Principal’s Committee, which served as the White House policy coordination group for the federal response to the attacks.  The President later asked him to lead the Consequence Management Working Group to identify and resolve key issues regarding the federal response to future incidents of terrorism. 

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Spring 2007 Study Group: “The Politics of Disasters” with Scott Morris Wednesday, March 7th Study Group Topic: Life Cycle of Disasters with special guest Bill Carwile, Adjunct Professor at Naval Postgraduate School and one of the pre-eminent response experts in the nation Click here for Bill Carwile’s Power Point presentation on the Life Cycle of Disasters!