Letitia Chambers | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | American |
Spouse | Peter Plympton Smith |
Letitia Pearl Caroline Chambers (born 1943 in Oklahoma) was the first woman to head the staff of a major standing committee of the U.S. Senate. [1] Chambers was also a U.S. representative to the United Nations, [2] the founder and chief executive officer of a Washington, D.C., public policy and consulting firm and was the director of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona from 2009 [3] to 2012. [4]
As the CEO and founder of Chambers Associates Inc., she made numerous contributions to public policy in a period of three decades. [5] She has often testified as an expert witness, both before the U.S. Congress and in the U.S. court system.
Chambers resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has a daughter, Melissa, and is married to Peter Plympton Smith, former member of the United States House of Representatives from the State of Vermont.
Chambers grew up in Enid, Oklahoma, the daughter of E. Wade and Anita M. Chambers. A graduate of the University of Oklahoma, she holds a doctorate in educational research and curriculum development from Oklahoma State University. [6]
Early in her career, Chambers served as the staff director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, which had jurisdiction over education, labor law, and social service programs. Prior to that she had served as a senior staff member on the Senate Budget Committee and as Minority Staff Director of the Senate Special Committee on Aging. In 1981, she founded the Public Policy firm Chambers Associates. In 1992, she served on the Clinton/Gore transition team as Chief Budget Adviser, leading the Budget Policy Group and developing drafts of the President's Economic Plan. [7] Chambers was nominated in 1996 by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate to be U.S. Representative to the United Nations General Assembly, a position of ambassadorial rank. In that capacity she served as a member of the Management and Budget Committee of the General Assembly.
In 2004 and 2005, Chambers headed up the system of higher education for the State of New Mexico where she worked to revamp and reform key aspects of the system. She led the agency responsible for oversight of all public colleges, universities, and community colleges in the state. Dr. Chambers also chaired the New Mexico Educational Trust Board, served as a Board Member of the New Mexico Student Loan and Guarantee Corp, and became a Commissioner of the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education. In 2005, Chambers returned to consulting as a Managing Director of Navigant Consulting Inc.
Chambers has served on corporate boards, particularly in the financial sector. She has also served on numerous educational and philanthropic boards, many of which have focused on the arts and American Indian arts and cultures. She spent a decade on the board of the Institute of American Indian Arts and Culture (IAIA), which oversees both the College and the Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico and served on the board of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. [2] She Chaired the Trustees Development and Facilities Committee that raised funds for and oversaw the building of the new campus. Chambers currently serves as a member of the NACF National Leadership Council. [8] She was the director of the Heard Museum, the second woman (after museum founder Maie Bartlett Heard) and the first person of Native American heritage to lead the institution. [3]
Donald Lee Nickles is an American politician and lobbyist who was a Republican United States Senator from Oklahoma from 1981 to 2005. He was considered both a fiscal and social conservative. After retiring from the Senate as the longest-serving senator from Oklahoma up until that point, he founded the Nickles Group, a lobbying firm.
Robert Edward Rubin is an American retired banking executive, lawyer, and former government official. He served as the 70th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration. Before his government service, he spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs, eventually serving as a member of the board and co-chairman from 1990 to 1992.
Leon Edward Panetta is an American retired politician and government official who has served under several Democratic administrations as secretary of defense (2011–2013), director of the CIA (2009–2011), White House chief of staff (1994–1997), director of the Office of Management and Budget (1993–1994), as well as a U.S. representative from California (1977–1993).
The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitions of traditional and contemporary art by American Indian artists and artists influenced by American Indian art.
David Lyle Boren is a retired American lawyer and politician from Oklahoma. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as 21st governor of Oklahoma from 1975 to 1979 and three terms in the United States Senate from 1979 to 1994. A conservative Democrat, to date, he is the last in his party to have served as U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. He was the 13th and second-longest serving president of the University of Oklahoma from 1994 to 2018. He was the longest serving chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. On September 20, 2017, Boren officially announced his retirement as president of the University of Oklahoma, effective June 30, 2018.
Sylvia Mary Burwell is an American government and non-profit executive who was the 15th president of American University from June 1, 2017 to June 30, 2024. Burwell is the first woman to serve as the university's president. Burwell earlier served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. President Barack Obama nominated Burwell on April 11, 2014. Burwell's nomination was confirmed by the Senate on June 5, 2014, by a vote of 78–17. She served as Secretary until the end of the Obama administration. Previously, she had been the Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2013 to 2014.
David Keith McCurdy is an American lobbyist, lawyer, and former politician who was the Democratic U.S. Representative from Oklahoma's 4th congressional district, in office from 1981 to 1995. Described as a moderate or conservative Democrat, McCurdy was a chair the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. In 1994, he ran for the U.S. Senate, but lost to fellow Representative Jim Inhofe.
Leecia Roberta Eve is an American attorney from New York with experience in federal government, state government, and the private sector who currently works as a lobbyist for telecommunications giant Verizon. Born in Buffalo, Eve was a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of New York during the 2006 election. After working for U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, Eve served as a senior advisor during Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. From 2011 to 2013, she was Deputy Secretary for Economic Development in the Executive Chamber of New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. She was appointed to the Board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in July 2017. Eve ran for Attorney General of New York in 2018, but was defeated in the Democratic primary.
Maria Echaveste is a former U.S. presidential advisor to Bill Clinton and White House Deputy Chief of Staff during the second Clinton administration. She is one of the highest-ranking Latinas to have served in a presidential administration. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a co-founder of the Nueva Vista Group, a policy, legislative strategy and advocacy group working with non-profit and corporate clients.
James Robert Jones is an American lawyer, diplomat, Democratic politician, a retired U.S. Congressman from Oklahoma, and a former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico under President Bill Clinton.
Ann C. Frank Lewis is an American Democratic Party strategist. Lewis served as White House Communications Director in the Clinton administration and in senior roles under Hillary Clinton. She is currently the co-chair of the Democratic Majority for Israel.
Kelly D. Johnston is a former Secretary of the United States Senate. He served as the 28th Secretary of the Senate and was nominated by Bob Dole, who was Senate Majority Leader at the time. He was the first Secretary of the Senate from Oklahoma and the second youngest ever chosen.
Teri Greeves is a Native American beadwork artist, living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is enrolled in the Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma.
Della Warrior is the first and only woman to date to serve as chairperson and chief executive officer for the Otoe-Missouria Tribe. She later served as the president of the Institute of American Indian Arts, finding a permanent home for the institution as well as helping to raise more than one hundred million dollars for the institution over 12 years. Warrior was inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 2007.
Katherine L. Archuleta is an American teacher and a political executive. She was the director of the United States Office of Personnel Management. President Barack Obama appointed her on May 23, 2013. She was sworn in on November 4, 2013. She had previously served as National Political Director for Obama's 2012 reelection campaign. Prior to that, she had been executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation in New Mexico, had co-founded the Latina Initiative, had worked at a Denver law firm, and had worked in the Clinton Administration as chief of staff to the Secretary of Transportation, Federico Peña. She became embroiled in controversy after the disclosure of a massive national security breach in June 2015. The hack involved the theft of millions of federal employee records and included security-clearance details dating back 15 years, which prompted lawmakers from both political parties to demand that she resign. On July 10, 2015, Archuleta tendered her resignation.
Mary Isenhour is an American political strategist, campaign manager, and government official. She was the Chief of Staff for Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. Prior to the Wolf administration, Isenhour served executive director of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, was state director of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, and assisted with the successful campaigns of U.S. Senator Bob Casey, Jr. and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell. She now serves with the firm Rooney Novak Isenhour, LLC and is a member of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board.
Lloyd Henri Kiva New was a pioneer of modern Native American fashion design and a cofounder and president emeritus of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Rosita Kaaháni Worl is an American anthropologist and Alaska Native cultural, business and political leader. She is president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute, a Juneau-based nonprofit organization that preserves and advances the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Native cultures of Southeast Alaska, and has held that position since 1997. She also served on the board of directors of the Sealaska regional Native corporation for 30 years, beginning in 1987, including as board vice president. The corporation, with more than 22,000 shareholders, founded the heritage institute and provides substantial funding.
Jeri Ah-be-hill was a Kiowa fashion expert and art dealer. She owned and operated a trading post on the Wind River Indian Reservation for more than twenty years before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico where she became the curator of the annual Native American Clothing Contest held at the Santa Fe Indian Market. She also worked as a docent at both the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. Considered an expert on Native American fashion, she traveled nationally presenting educational information about tribal clothing.
Valjean McCarty Hessing was a Choctaw painter, who worked in the Bacone flatstyle. Throughout her career, she won 9- awards for her work and was designated a Master Artist by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in 1976. Her artworks are in collections of the Heard Museum of Phoenix, Arizona; the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Oklahoma; and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian of Santa Fe, New Mexico, among others.