Keynote Speakers
Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski
Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, has served as President of UMBC (The University of Maryland, Baltimore County) since May, 1992. His research and publications focus on science and math education, with special emphasis on minority participation and performance. Born in 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. Hrabowski graduated at 19 from Hampton Institute with highest honors in mathematics. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he received his M.A. (mathematics) one year later and his Ph.D. (higher education administration/statistics) at age 24. He serves as a consultant to the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Education, and universities and school systems nationally. He also sits on numerous corporate and civic boards (e.g., American Association of Colleges & Universities, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Marguerite Casey Foundation, McCormick & Company, Inc., University of Maryland Medical System). Examples of recent awards or honors include election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, receiving the McGraw Prize in Education, being listed among Fast Company magazine’s first “Fast 50 Champions of Innovation” in business and technology, being named Marylander of the Year by the editors of the Baltimore Sun, and receiving the Council on Chemical Research’s first Diversity Award, the BETA Award (Baltimore’s Extraordinary Technology Advocate), NSF’s Educator Achievement Award, and the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. He also holds honorary degrees from the Medical University of South Carolina, Binghamton University, Brooklyn College (City University of New York), and Mercy College. Dr. Hrabowski is co-author of two books published by Oxford University Press: Beating the Odds (1998), focusing on parenting and high-achieving African American males in science; and Overcoming the Odds (2002), on successful African American females in science. A child-leader in the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Hrabowski was prominently featured in Spike Lee’s 1997 documentary, Four Little Girls, on the racially motivated bombing in 1963 of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
Ambassador Ellen Sauerbrey
(click on photo for QuickTime video of Ambassador Sauerbrey's talk)
Ellen Sauerbrey is U.S. Representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), with the rank of Ambassador. President Bush appointed her to represent the United States to the March – April 2001 of the UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR). She served on the U.S. delegations to the July 2002 and 2003 Economic and Social Council substantive session (EOCOSOC) and the fall 2002 and 2003 UN General Assembly (UNGA). This year, she led the negotiations for a U.S. resolution on the Political Participation of Women. In the past year, she headed a U.S. Delegation to the Baltic Sea Conference on Women and Democracy in Estonia and has spoken at women’s conferences in Belarus, Latvia the Republic of Georgia and Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was a representative of the United States at the 2003 World Family Policy Forum in Provo Utah. Ambassador Sauerbrey is the former Minority Leader of the Maryland House of Delegates and the 1994 and 1998 Republican nominee for Governor of Maryland. She represented her northern Baltimore County district in the House of Delegates from 1978-1994, serving as Minority Leader from 1986-1994. An expert in economic, budget, and fiscal issues, she served on the Economic Matters, Ways and Means, and Appropriations committees. From 1990-91, she was National Chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the largest voluntary membership organization of state legislators. As ALEC Chairman, she launched Project Freedom, an effort to carry American ideals of personal and economic freedom to emerging democracies. In 1970 she was a district manager of the U.S. Census, supervising over 300 people. Ambassador Sauerbrey was the first recipient of the prestigious National Federation of Republican Women’s Margaret Chase Smith Award. She has won awards and recognitions from Western Maryland College; ALEC; Maryland Red Cross; Maryland Coalition against Crime; Advocates for the Handicapped; Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors, Associated Builders, and Contractors; National Federation of Independent Businesses, Maryland Chemical Council, and Disabled American Veterans.
(click on photo for QuickTime video of Ms. Sullivan's talk)
Marguerite Hoxie Sullivan is the executive director of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. Upon the re-entry of the U.S. to UNESCO, she joined the U.S. Department of State to set up and manage a hundred-person Commission and the Executive Secretariat staff of the Commission. She has extensive experience as a journalist, a public affairs and public relations practitioner, and an executive in government and international nongovernmental organizations (NGO) as well as a background working in communications, education, cultural, women’s, and democracy issues. Ms. Sullivan is a specialist in media relations. In work supported by the U.S. State Department, World Bank, USAID, and media organizations, she has trained journalists, government and NGO executives and communicators in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and countries in the former Soviet Union – as well as in the U.S. -- on issues of freedom of the press, transparency, ethics and being effective communicators. For the U.S. State Department, she wrote A Responsible Press Office: An Insider’s Guide on running an effective press office. The book, which was based on her extensive work overseas, has been translated into 24 languages and received awards from the National Association of Government Communicators, Public Relations Society of America, and Women in Communications, Inc. Most recently, she was a vice president of the International Republican Institute (IRI), an NGO that does work advancing democracy around the world. Ms. Sullivan began her professional career as a journalist, working for newspapers in Boston and California before moving to Washington, D.C., where she was a reporter and columnist for Copley News Service and newspapers. She covered Congress, federal agencies and departments, including the State Department, and wrote a column and analyses. She also served as president of the Washington Press Club, now the National Press Club, and was executive editor of The Washington Woman magazine. Ms. Sullivan left journalism to head up communications at the National Endowment for Humanities under NEH Chairman Lynne V. Cheney. Ms. Sullivan later worked in the White House as assistant to Vice President Dan Quayle and chief of staff to Marilyn Quayle. She subsequently was a member of the Cabinet of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and directed the state’s Washington office and its relations before the federal government. During the 2000 presidential campaign, she was chief of staff to Lynne Cheney and deputy director of vice presidential operations for the Inauguration. She was appointed to the National Council on the Humanities, and she has served on the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C., and several committees at Stanford University, including the Stanford Alumni Association, as well as chairing the committee to select alumni members of the Stanford Board of Trustees. She has lectured at universities and institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution, authored a number of freelance articles, and served as executive director of the Washington office of Harvard University’s Kennedy School and was a fellow at its Institute of Politics. A native of California, Ms. Sullivan has a bachelor degree in history and a master degree in journalism from Stanford University. She is married and has two grown daughters.
Frank Miller is vice president for Dell’s Public Sales Operations, which serves K-12, Higher Education, Healthcare, State and Local Government and Federal Government customers. His responsibilities include management of sales support operations and all contracts, bids, proposals and custom bids that service Dell's Public customers. He also leads the customer experience initiatives and the articulation of infrastructure requirements within Public. Prior to his current position, Mr. Miller, 59, served as the vice president and general manager for the Federal Civilian sales team. Mr. Miller also served as the vice president of Dell's custom factory integration business and as director for the Federal segments sales support operations. Before joining Dell in December 1996, Mr. Miller served 32 years in the United States Army in various command and staff positions. He is a highly decorated soldier, who rose through the ranks from private to major general. Mr. Miller earned his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Washington and a master’s degree in systems management from Troy State University.
Barbara Waugh is the author of The Soul in the Computer: The Story of a Corporate Revolutionary. A longtime radical activist, she joined Hewlett-Packard 20 years ago, and used her successive positions as company recruiting manager, and personnel director and worldwide change manager for the renowned HP Labs to transform HP’s corporate culture. Along the way she invented and discovered a set of “radical tools” for introducing practical change and energizing altruism at all levels of the organization. The book has received enthusiastic reviews from Dow-Jones to Fast Company to the San Francisco Chronicle; and has been the subject of dozens of talk shows and interviews. It is now available online for free at www.barbwaugh.com. Determined from the beginning to put teeth into the idea of "doing well by doing good," Barbara developed HP’s breakthrough programs for women and minority recruiting, mentored outstanding people throughout HP, and received Management Legacy awards from both the HP Technical Women’s Conference and the HP Deaf and Hard of Hearing Forum. She co-founded HP’s Sustainability Network, as well as e-inclusion, a business initiative and program to provide the four billion people at the bottom of the global economic pyramid access to the social and economic opportunities of technology. Barbara is currently a director for strategy and change in University Relations. Among her early accomplishments, Barbara wrote the first feminist newspaper column in the United States. She directed the Center for Women and Religion of the Graduate Theological Union; directed a campus of Cogswell Technical College; taught English, German, Psychology, Sociology and Philosophy in various universities and colleges; and worked as a machinist, an Equal Rights investigator, and actress and a therapist. Barbara has a PhD in Psychology and Organizational Behavior from the Wright Institute in Berkeley (with honors), an MA in Theology and Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago (as a Danforth/Kent Fellow), and an MA in German Literature from Florida State University (Phi Beta Kappa). She has served on the Board of Directors for the State of World Forum, the Board of Directors for the Pacific Cultural Conservancy International, the Board of Advisers for the Global Fund for Women, and is currently in the founders’ circle of Corporation 2020, on the Board of Engineers for a Sustainable World, and a member of the Oxfam Leadership Circle. She lives in Northern California with her partner, their two teenagers, and their grandchild.