Speaker biographies

Ted Brennan is the director of government and global affairs at the Washington, D.C., office of Tew Cardenas LLP. Mr. Brennan joined Tew Cardenas after more than twelve years of service on Capitol Hill. Since 1994, he has served in a number of capacities, including legislative assistant, press secretary, legislative director, and senior policy advisor in the office of former representative Cass Ballenger (R-N.C.). He also has served as a professional staff member for the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the House Committee on International Relations. In 2005, he was appointed staff director of the Senate International Narcotics Control Caucus. Later that year, he rejoined the House Committee on International Relations to serve as full committee staff for Western Hemisphere Affairs under Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-IL). During his tenure, Mr. Brennan was responsible for advising congressional leaders on U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere. He drafted important legislation, helped develop and oversee U.S. foreign assistance to Latin America through the U.S. Agency for International Development and other agencies, and played a critical role in planning and implementing U.S. counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism strategies in the hemisphere. He also led successful congressional efforts to provide reliable aid to Colombia, worked to resolve trade disputes with Peru and Ecuador, and helped develop the proposed social investment fund for the Americas.

Robert “Bobby” Charles rejoined the Charles Group, LLC, as president in April 2005, after serving from 2003 to 2005 as assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. His tenure in the Bush administration led to the development of strong international relationships, which reinforce his strong ties with many in Congress and the administration. Mr. Charles founded the Charles Group, LLC, in 1999 after serving as staff director and chief counsel for the National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice Subcommittee in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. He also served then–subcommittee chairman J. Dennis Hastert as chief staffer on the Speaker’s Task Force on a Drug Free America from 1997 to 1999. A former litigator in New York and Washington, Mr. Charles worked at Weil Gotshal & Manges and Kramer Levin between 1988 and 1995, clerked for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and taught both government oversight and cyberlaw at the Harvard University Extension School from 1998 to 2001. In 2000, he was awarded Harvard’s prestigious Petra T. Shattuck Award for Excellence in Teaching by the university. In the first Bush administration, Mr. Charles served in the White House as deputy associate director in the Office of Domestic Policy. He currently pens a column for the Washington Times and authored Narcotics and Terrorism: Links, Logic, and Looking Forward (Chelsea House, 2003). He has also authored a number of academic studies and law review pieces.

The Honorable Henry Cuellar was sworn into office in January 2005, representing the twenty-eighth district of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives. During the first months of his tenure in the House, Representative Cuellar successfully passed legislation to create a national gang intelligence center at the FBI, and he was the first Democrat to support the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Currently serving his second term in Congress, Representative Cuellar is a member of the House Homeland Security, Small Business, and Agriculture Committees and is senior whip. Prior to his election to the House, Representative Cuellar served as the Texas secretary of state and spent fourteen years in the Texas legislature.

Roberta S. Jacobson became deputy assistant secretary for Canada, Mexico and NAFTA issues in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the Department of State on June 4, 2007. She previously served as director of the Office of Mexican Affairs from December 2002. From 2000 to 2002, Ms. Jacobson was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru, and between 1996 and 2000, she was director of the Office of Policy Planning and Coordination in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, covering issues such as civil-military relations, human rights, foreign assistance, presidential travel and counter-narcotics throughout the hemisphere. Ms. Jacobson has also served as coordinator for Cuban affairs in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, executive assistant to the assistant secretary (1993–94), special assistant to the assistant secretary (1989–92), and she has also worked at the National Security Council (1988). She also worked for the United Nations from 1982 to 1984 at the Center for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs. She contributed a chapter on “The Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women” in The United Nations and Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 1990).

Roger F. Noriega is a visiting fellow at AEI, coordinating the Institute’s program on Western Hemisphere issues. Twice appointed by President George W. Bush (and confirmed by the U.S. Senate) and with a ten-year career on Capitol Hill, Mr. Noriega’s breadth of experience offers strategic vision and practical insight on the Americas. As assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Mr. Noriega managed a 3,000-person team of professionals in Washington, D.C., and fifty diplomatic posts to design and implement political and economic strategies in Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean. As U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Mr. Noriega coordinated complex and sensitive multilateral diplomacy in a thirty-four-member international organization to bolster OAS efforts to promote trade, fight illicit drugs, and defend democracy. Mr. Noriega has held various other positions, including senior policy advisor with the U.S. mission to the OAS; many program management and public affairs positions with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of State; press secretary and foreign policy advisor for former representative Robert Whittaker (R-Kans.); and research assistant for the secretary of state of Kansas.

Armand B. Peschard-Sverdrup is the CEO of Peschard-Sverdrup & Associates, LLC, a firm which provides highly specialized and customized consulting that focuses exclusively on the rapidly evolving political, security, and business environment in Mexico. He brings with him more than thirteen years of specialized experience, having focused exclusively on Mexico at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., where he served as director of the Mexico Project and where he remains a senior associate. Mr. Peschard-Sverdrup focuses on Mexico’s domestic politics, national security and border security, trade and investment, and U.S.-Mexican bilateral relations, and he comments on these issues frequently in the media. He is a guest lecturer at the Mexican Advanced Area Studies Seminar at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State, the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., and the Canadian Forces College in Toronto. Books which he authored or contributed to include North American Security 2025 (forthcoming, CSIS Press), Mexican Governance: From Single-Party Rule to Divided Government (CSIS Press, 2005), and U.S.-Mexico Border Security and the Evolving Security Relationship (CSIS Press, 2004).

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