Clay Pell

Last updated

Clay Pell
Clay Pell Official DoED Photograph 2013.jpg
Personal details
Born
Herbert Claiborne Pell IV

(1981-11-17) November 17, 1981 (age 42)
Tucson, Arizona, U.S.
Political party Democratic
Spouse
​
​
(m. 2013;div. 2017)​
Education Harvard University (BA)
Georgetown University (JD)
Stanford University (MBA)
Military service
AllegianceFlag of the United States.svg  United States
Branch/serviceFlag of the United States Coast Guard.svg  United States Coast Guard
Years of service2009–2011 (active)
2011–present (reserve)
Rank Commander
Unit Southeastern New England
United States Coast Guard Reserve

Herbert Claiborne Pell IV (born November 17, 1981) [1] is an American lawyer, military officer, and politician. He is a commander and judge advocate in the United States Coast Guard Reserve, and served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International and Foreign Language Education in the United States Department of Education. He is the grandson of the late Senator Claiborne Pell. Pell ran for the 2014 Democratic Party nomination for Governor of Rhode Island in a competitive three-way race ultimately won by Rhode Island State Treasurer Gina Raimondo.

Contents

Early life and education

Pell was born to Herbert C. Pell III and Eugenia Stillman Diehl Pell on November 17, 1981, in Tucson, Arizona.[ citation needed ] Pell is the grandson of Senator Claiborne Pell and Nuala Pell (a great-granddaughter of A&P grocery chain founder George Huntington Hartford and granddaughter of his son Edward V. Hartford). [2] Through his grandfather, he is a direct descendant of Wampage I, a Siwanoy chieftain. [3]

Pell attended The Thacher School and graduated in 2000. He also attended the School Year Abroad (SYA) in Zaragoza, Spain (1999) and Beijing, China (2001). [4] He graduated from Harvard College in 2005 with high honors and a bachelor's degree in social studies. Pell also received a Citation in Modern Standard Arabic from Harvard. Pell went on to graduate from Georgetown University Law Center with a J.D. in 2008. [5] [6]

Career

In 2009, Pell joined the United States Coast Guard and graduated first in his class from the Coast Guard Direct Commission Officer School. He served on active duty as a judge advocate from 2009 to 2011. [7] He currently is a commander and judge advocate in the United States Coast Guard Reserve. [8]

Pell served as Director for Strategic Planning on the National Security Staff, [5] and was a White House Fellow from 2011 to 2012. [6]

In 2013, Pell served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Office of International and Foreign Language Education at the United States Department of Education. [6] [9] His support for language education and cultural proficiency was recognized by the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages which presented him with its Advocacy Award in 2014—an award Pell's grandfather received in 1988. [10]

On January 27, 2014, Pell confirmed he would run for Governor of Rhode Island in the 2014 election [11] His then-wife, Michelle Kwan, appeared in TV ads on his behalf to garner support among female voters before the September 9th, 2014 primary. [12] Pell placed third in the Democratic primary, which was won by Gina Raimondo.

In 2016, Pell was elected as a presidential elector from Rhode Island and served as President of the Rhode Island Electoral College.

In 2020, Stanford University awarded Pell the Sloan Fellowship at its Graduate School of Business.

Personal life

In January 2013, Pell married five-time world figure skating champion and two-time Olympic medalist Michelle Kwan. The two first met in April 2011. [13] In 2017, Pell announced in a statement that he had filed for divorce from Kwan. [14]

Pell speaks English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, [15] Arabic, and some Russian. [5] [16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claiborne Pell</span> American politician (1918–2009)

Claiborne de Borda Pell was an American politician and writer who served as a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island for six terms from 1961 to 1997. He was the sponsor of the 1972 bill that reformed the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant, which provides financial aid funding to American college students; the grant was given Pell's name in 1980 in honor of his work in education legislation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lincoln Chafee</span> American politician (born 1953)

Lincoln Davenport Chafee is an American politician. He was mayor of Warwick, Rhode Island, from 1993 to 1999, a United States Senator from 1999 to 2007, and the 74th Governor of Rhode Island from 2011 to 2015. He was a Democrat from 2013 to 2019; in June 2019, The Boston Globe reported that he became a Libertarian, having previously been a Republican until September 2007 and an independent and then a Democrat in the interim. He is the last non-Democrat to hold statewide and/or Congressional office in Rhode Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert Pell</span> American politician

Herbert Claiborne Pell Jr. was a United States representative from New York, U.S. Minister to Portugal, U.S. Minister to Hungary, and a creator and member of the United Nations War Crimes Commission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge</span> Bridge in Between Jamestown and Newport, Rhode Island

The Claiborne Pell Bridge, commonly known as the Newport Bridge, is a suspension bridge operated by the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority that spans the East Passage of the Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. The bridge, part of RI 138, connects the city of Newport on Aquidneck Island and the Town of Jamestown on Conanicut Island, and is named for longtime Rhode Island U.S. senator Claiborne Pell who lived in Newport. The Pell Bridge is in turn connected to the mainland by the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Myrth York</span> American politician

Myrth York is an American attorney and politician who served as a member of the Rhode Island Senate from 1991 to 1994. She ran unsuccessfully for governor of Rhode Island in 1994, 1998, and 2002.

The Claiborne-Dallas-Pell family is a family of politicians from the United States. Below is a list of members:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan McKee</span> Governor of Rhode Island since 2021

Daniel J. McKee is an American politician and businessman serving as the 76th governor of Rhode Island since March 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he also served as Rhode Island's 69th lieutenant governor from 2015 to 2021.

Since the Great Depression, Rhode Island politics have been dominated by the Rhode Island Democratic Party, and the state is considered part of the Democrats' "Blue Wall." Democrats have won all but four presidential elections since 1928, with the exceptions being 1952, 1956, 1972, and 1984. The Rhode Island Republican Party, although virtually non-existent in the Rhode Island General Assembly, has remained competitive in gubernatorial elections, having won one as recently as 2006. Until 2014, Democrats had not won a gubernatorial election in the state since 1992, and it was not until 2018 that they won one by double digits. The Rhode Island General Assembly has continuously been under Democratic control since 1959.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicholas Mattiello</span> American politician

Nicholas A. Mattiello is an American politician and Democratic former member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, who represented the 15th District from 2007 to 2021. He served as the Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives from March 25, 2014 to 2021. In 2020, he was defeated in an upset by Republican Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung, the wife of Cranston mayor Allan Fung.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angel Taveras</span> American lawyer and politician

Angel Taveras is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 37th mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, from 2011 to 2015. Taveras was the first Hispanic mayor of the city and the third elected and fourth serving Dominican-American mayor in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gina Raimondo</span> American politician and venture capitalist (born 1971)

Gina Marie Raimondo is an American businesswoman, lawyer, politician, and venture capitalist who has served since 2021 as the 40th United States secretary of commerce. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as the 75th governor of Rhode Island from 2015 to 2021, and was the first woman to serve in the role.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 Rhode Island gubernatorial election</span>

The 2014 Rhode Island gubernatorial election took place on November 4, 2014, to elect the Governor of Rhode Island, concurrently with the election of Rhode Island's Class II U.S. Senate seat, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allan Fung</span> American politician (born 1970)

Allan Wai-Ket Fung is an American attorney and politician who served as Mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island from 2009 to 2021. He was the Republican nominee for Governor of Rhode Island in the 2014 and 2018 elections as well as the Republican nominee for U.S. representative for Rhode Island's 2nd congressional district in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 Rhode Island elections</span>

A general election was held in the U.S. state of Rhode Island on November 4, 2014. All of Rhode Island's executive officers went up for election as well as a United States Senate seat and both of Rhode Island's two seats in the United States House of Representatives. Primary elections were held on September 9, 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2018 Rhode Island elections</span>

A general election was held in the U.S. state of Rhode Island on November 6, 2018. The party primaries for the election occurred on September 12, 2018. All of Rhode Island's executive officers went up for election as well as Rhode Island's Class I U.S. Senate seat and both of Rhode Island's two seats in the United States House of Representatives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 pandemic in Rhode Island</span>

The COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. state of Rhode Island is part of an ongoing worldwide viral pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019, a novel infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. As of August 18, 2022, there has been 414,931 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Rhode Island, 89 of which are currently hospitalized, and 3,636 reported deaths. Rhode Island's COVID-19 case rate and death rate per capita are the highest and twentieth highest, respectively, of the fifty states since the start of the pandemic.

This is a list of protests in Rhode Island related to the murder of George Floyd.

Melissa Austin Long is an American lawyer who has served as an associate justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court since 2021. She previously served as an associate justice of the Rhode Island Superior Court from 2017 to 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mayoral elections in Providence, Rhode Island</span>

Elections are held in Providence, Rhode Island to elect the city's mayor. Such elections are regularly scheduled to be held in United States midterm election years.

References

  1. ↑ Fitzpatrick, Edward (December 14, 2013). "Edward Fitzpatrick: In governor's race, would Clay Pell be David or Goliath?". Providence Journal . Archived from the original on December 17, 2013. Retrieved December 16, 2013.
  2. ↑ G. Wayne Miller. "Nuala Pell, 89, was an advocate for the arts and humanities". providencejournal.com. Retrieved January 21, 2016.
  3. ↑ 1966 Congressional Record , Vol. 112, Page S606 (1966-01-19)
  4. ↑ "The Thacher School ~ Pell-Mell: House of Stone to White House". Thacher.org. September 22, 2011. Retrieved January 27, 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 "Clay Pell moves from White House post to U.S. Dept. Ed. | Breaking News | providencejournal.com | The Providence Journal". News.providencejournal.com. May 7, 2013. Retrieved October 17, 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 Clay Pell confirms he may seek Democratic nomination for RI governor in 2014 Archived October 29, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  7. ↑ "2011-2012 Class of White House Fellows". The White House. Archived from the original on February 16, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2014.
  8. ↑ Steinberg, Jacques (February 3, 2010). "A Personal Perspective on Obama's Pell Grant Infusion".
  9. ↑ Lee, Karen (January 19, 2013). "Democratic Party chairman: Clay Pell, late senator's grandson, weighing run for R.I. governor | Breaking News | providencejournal.com". The Providence Journal. Retrieved October 17, 2013.
  10. ↑ "The James W. Dodge Foreign Language Advocate Award". Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Archived from the original on August 21, 2014. Retrieved August 28, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Political heir Pell, Kwan spouse, runs for RI gov". January 27, 2014.
  12. ↑ Shepard, Steven (July 24, 2014). "Kwan Leaps into R.I. Gov Race". www.politico.com. Politico. Retrieved July 29, 2014.
  13. ↑ "Michelle Kwan Is Engaged". People . September 11, 2011. Retrieved September 11, 2011.
  14. ↑ "Clay Pell files for divorce from Michelle Kwan". Providence Journal. March 29, 2017. Retrieved March 29, 2017.
  15. ↑ "Clay Pell's résumé comes under closer scrutiny". WPRI. August 12, 2014. Retrieved September 15, 2017. "Pell spent a year abroad ... at Princeton University’s Beijing campus"
  16. ↑ "Language Magazine Interview with Clay Pell - Language Magazine". Language Magazine. Retrieved January 21, 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.