Speaker Biographies
November 3, 2005
Michael J. Armstrong is a vice president for ICF Consulting, where he specializes in emergency management and homeland security. Mr. Armstrong was formerly the associate director for Mitigation and the Region VIII director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). During his tenure at FEMA, Mr. Armstrong administered the nation’s disaster prevention programs, including pre- and post-disaster local planning, building design, land use, structural rehabilitation, and building removal grants. Mr. Armstrong spent more than a decade in local and state government, where he served as an assistant city attorney specializing in land use and personnel issues, and as deputy director of the Colorado Governor’s Office of Energy Conservation.
Alex Brill is the chief economist for the House Committee on Ways and Means where he is responsible for the economic analysis of all major proposals within the jurisdiction of the Committee. He also closely monitors macroeconomic developments in the U.S. economy. In 2003, he was featured by National Journal in a report of top Congressional aides; one of just fifteen Congressional staffers under the age of 30 and is also profiled in the Almanac of the Unelected. Immediately prior to joining the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Brill was an economist with the White House Council of Economic Advisers where he handled a variety of macroeconomic policy issues including forecasting, financial markets, and tax policy. Previously, he researched tax policy at AEI.
Michael R. Brown has been the mayor of the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota since 2000. He is also chairman of the department of obstetrics/gynecology for Altru Health Systems, an integrated health system headquartered in Grand Forks. Dr. Brown has been on the health care staff of Altru Health System since 1991. Before joining Altru, Dr. Brown served in the medical corps for the United States Air Force as a staff OB/GYN. Additionally, Dr. Brown held a number of leadership positions, including serving as chief of Surgical Services and Obstetric and Gynecologic Services, as well as assistant chief of Hospital Services and director of anesthesia. Dr. Brown completed his residency for Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Wright State University. Before receiving his medical degree, he served in the Air Force as an intercontinental ballistic missile launch control instructor. Dr. Brown is a member of several professional associations, including the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Philip Daddona is a senior managing director in FTI’s Forensic & Litigation Consulting business in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Daddona was formerly the National Partner in Charge of KPMG LLP’s Forensic Practice. He has extensive experience in the resolution of complex disputes and significant operational and financial management experience in various industries. He has participated in more than 100 mediations as both a participant and/or as a facilitator. Mr. Daddona has served as a neutral in major class action matters, an arbitrator in numerous cases, and he has provided expert testimony in arbitration and litigation matters. Mr. Daddona was responsible for the provision of the independent financial oversight on behalf of the City of New York for the debris removal at the World Trade Center site in New York following the terrorist attacks of September 11. His team established controls and processes amid the chaos of the site to document the City’s costs for debris removal, ultimately for reimbursement by the Federal Government. Working at the site around the clock, the team, working with City, State and Federal law enforcement agencies, completed its duties and helped the City avoid the potential financial disaster which could have occurred without appropriate controls and systems.
Veronique de Rugy is a research fellow at AEI. She was a fiscal policy analyst at the Cato Institute from 2001 to 2004, a postdoctoral fellow at the George Mason University Department of Economics from 2000 to 2001, and a research fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation from 1999 to 2000. She has also served on the board of directors of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity since 2000. Ms. de Rugy has written extensively on the dangers of EU and OECD tax harmonization proposals, is the author of numerous op-eds and academic papers, and is the coauthor of Action ou Taxation, published in Switzerland in 1996.
Willie Gable, Jr. is the pastor of Progressive Baptist Church (New Orleans, LA) and Macedonia Baptist Church (Hammond, LA). Mr. Gable is the founder and CEO of Ruach, Inc., a non-profit organization that operates the only intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment facility for youth in the City of New Orleans. The facility provides services in the area of addictive disorders, HIV/AIDS, research and evaluation, and economic development. Mr. Gable is also the founder and Executive Director of the Dr. M. W. McCaleb Educational Fund, Inc., a non-profit organization that offers housing, rental assistance, and tutoring to low-income individuals and families. Previously, Mr. Gable served as Grants and Operations Administrator for Covenant House New Orleans that led to the development of UNITY for the Homeless, an organization created as central homeless agency which monitors all homeless agencies in the Region ensuring the services are not being duplicated. His developmental leadership skills led him to provide consulting services to Project Lazarus, Make-A-Wish Foundation of New Orleans, and the Louisiana Association of Economic Development.
James K. Glassman is a resident fellow at AEI, where he specializes in issues involving economics and financial markets. In addition, he is host and co-founder of TechCentralStation.com, a for-profit website, started in February 2000, which concentrates on matters of technology and public policy. In September 2004, Mr. Glassman launched a new organization, Investors Action, for which he serves as chairman. Investors Action aims to educate America’s 90 million investors and represent their interests in the public-policy arena. Mr. Glassman also writes a weekly op-ed column on economic and political topics for the Scripps Howard News Service, and a monthly column on investing for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. His most recent book, The Secret Code of the Superior Investor (Crown, 2002) was named one of the top ten investing books of 2002 by Barron’s. Between July 1993 and July 2004, Mr. Glassman wrote an internationally syndicated weekly column on investing for the Washington Post. From 1987 to 1993, he was editor and part-owner of Roll Call, the twice-weekly newspaper that covers Congress. Prior to that, he had a long career in magazine publishing—as president of the Atlantic Monthly, executive vice president of U.S. News & World Report, and publisher of the New Republic. In 1972, he started Figaro, a New Orleans weekly newspaper, which he sold in 1979. He served as executive editor of the Washingtonian magazine from 1979 to 1981.
Robert W. Hahn is co-founder and executive director of the American Enterprise Institute-Brookings Joint Center and a resident scholar at AEI. Previously, he worked for the Council of Economic Advisers. He also has served on the faculties of Harvard University and Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Hahn frequently contributes to leading scholarly journals and general-interest periodicals, including the American Economic Review, Yale Law Journal, Science, and the New York Times. He is the author of Reviving Regulatory Reform: A Global Perspective and In Defense of the Economic Analysis of Regulation. In addition, Dr. Hahn is co-founder of the Community Preparatory School––an inner-city middle school in Providence, Rhode Island, that provides opportunities for disadvantaged youth to achieve their full potential.
Kevin A. Hassett is the director of economic policy studies and a resident scholar at AEI. He is also a weekly columnist for Bloomberg. Before joining AEI, Mr. Hassett was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an associate professor of economics and finance at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University. He was an economic adviser to the George W. Bush campaign in the 2004 presidential election, and was the chief economic adviser to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the 2000 primaries. He has also served as a policy consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury during both the former Bush and Clinton administrations. Mr. Hassett is a member of the Joint Committee on Taxation’s Dynamic Scoring Advisory Panel. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of six books on economics and economic policy, including the AEI book on tax reform, Toward Fundamental Tax Reform. He has published scholarly articles in the American Economic Review, the Economic Journal, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Public Economics, and many other professional journals. His popular writings have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, the Washington Post, and numerous other outlets. His economic commentaries are regularly aired on radio and television, including recent appearances on the Today Show, CBS’s Morning Show, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Hardball, Moneyline, and Power Lunch.
Eli Lehrer is a graduate student at The Johns Hopkins University. He previously worked as a manager in the Unisys Corporation’s homeland security practice where he consulted with many of the nation’s leading police agencies. Prior to that, he served as senior editor of The American Enterprise. He is the co-founder (with former Attorney General Edwin Meese) of the Heritage Foundation’s Excellence in Policing Project. His writing has appeared in National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Public Interest, Salon.com, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and dozens of other publications.
Sally Satel is a resident scholar at AEI and the staff psychiatrist at the Oasis Clinic in Washington, D.C. She serves on the advisory committee of the Center for Mental Health Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Dr. Satel earned a B.S. from Cornell University, an M.S. from the University of Chicago, and an M.D. from Brown University. After completing her residency at Yale University School of Medicine, Dr. Satel was an assistant professor of psychiatry from 1988 to 1993. From 1993 to 1994 she was a policy fellow with the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. She has written widely in academic journals on topics in psychiatry and medicine and has published articles on cultural aspects of medicine and science in numerous magazines and journals. Dr. Satel is author of Drug Treatment: The Case for Coercion (AEI Press, 1999), PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine (Basic Books, 2001), and coauthor, with Christina Hoff Sommers, of One Nation Under Therapy (St. Martin’s Press, 2005).
