Former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen will be joined in the discussion by Ambassador Marc Grossman, former undersecretary of state for political affairs, and Andrew H. Card Jr., former chief of staff to President George W. Bush. Moderating the discussion will be Felicia Knight, president of the Knight Canney Group.
The event at the Collins Center for the Arts, the 11th in the William S. Cohen Lecture Series was presented by UMaine’s Cohen Institute for Leadership and Public Service.
Cohen, a Bangor native who represented Maine in Congress for 24 years before joining President Clinton’s cabinet, established the series when he donated a collection of his Congressional papers to UMaine’s Fogler Library. In 2001, he also donated his papers from his tenure as secretary of defense.
Cohen is CEO and chair of the Cohen Group in Washington, D.C., which provides global business consulting.
Card has served in three administrations. He had various roles in the Reagan administration, including deputy assistant to the president. From 1988–92, Card was assistant to President George H.W. Bush and deputy chief of staff, then served a year as the 11th secretary of transportation.
He was the White House chief of staff in the George W. Bush administration from 2001–06.
Grossman served as the undersecretary of state for political affairs, the State Department’s third ranking official, until his retirement in 2005 after 29 years in the Foreign Service. He was assistant secretary for European affairs from 1997–2000, and the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, 1994–97.
Grossman was a vice chairman of the Cohen Group for nearly six years when, in 2011, he was back to service as the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He returned to the Cohen Group in 2013.
UMaine’s Cohen Institute for Leadership and Public Service models, promotes, and teaches leadership and civic engagement through programs that reflect and honor the legacy of Secretary Cohen’s public service. The Institute trains future generations destined for leadership roles in a variety of disciplines to be ethical, visionary, innovative, civil, thoughtful and independent-minded in the service of Maine, the nation and the world. A particular focus is sponsoring initiatives that bring together academic experts and civic leaders from diverse political backgrounds to forge informed consensus on a range of contemporary policy challenges.