The State of the USA marshals the highest caliber of leadership and resources needed to fulfill the institution's mission. Its Board of Governors includes members from the education, media, business and government sectors.
Board of Governors
The State of the USA is fortunate to have an outstanding group of national leaders as its Executive Governors. Their long and impressive careers range across the government, business, nonprofit and academic sectors, with deep roots in scientific and statistical communities. They all share a deep commitment to problem solving and decision-making based on evidence and nonpartisan approaches.
Executive Governors
- Vincent Barabba - Chairman
- Daniel S. Gaylin
- Christopher (Chris) Hoenig - President and Chief Executive Officer
- Kenneth Prewitt - Vice Chair
Governors (Non-Executive)
- Bill Achtmeyer
- Derek C. Bok
- Karen Cook
- Jeremiah Eck
- Kerry Murphy Healey
- Clay Johnson, III
- Thomas C. Jorling
- Ruben King-Shaw
- Nicholas Lemann
- Peter Lynch
- Valerie Mosley
- Stephen Pagliuca
- Louis Perlmutter
Board of Governors (biographical information)
Executive Governors
Vincent Barabba retired in 2003 as the general manager, Corporate Strategy and Knowledge Development, General Motors Corporation, where he was responsible for overseeing Corporate Strategic Planning and the Business Decision Support Center. He twice served as director of the United States Bureau of the Census and is the only person to have been appointed to that position by presidents of different political parties. Between his government service and GM assignments, he served as the manager of market research for the Xerox Corporation and director of Market Intelligence for Eastman Kodak. Mr. Barabba is the co-founder of Decision Making Information, which became the Wirthlin Group, and from 1969 to 1973 provided electoral information to political campaigns from city hall to the presidency. In recognition of his performance in the private and public sectors, he was inducted by the Market Research Council into the Market Research Hall of Fame. Mr. Barabba has also received the American Marketing Association's Charles Coolidge Parlin Award for his leadership in the application of science to the discipline of marketing research, the MIT/GM Henry Grady Weaver Award for individuals who have contributed the most to the advancement of theory and practice (rigor and relevance) in Marketing science, the System Dynamics Society's Applications Award for the best "Real World" application of system dynamics, and the Certificate of Distinguished Service for Contribution to the Federal Statistical System from the Office of Management and Budget. He is an author and past president and fellow of the American Statistical Association and has served as U.S. representative to the Population Commission of the United Nations and chairman of the National Research Council Panel to review the statistical program of the National Center for Education Statistics. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute.
Dan Gaylin is Executive Vice President for Research Programs at NORC at the University of Chicago. He oversees all of NORC's research departments, guiding implementation, development, partnerships and collaborations, and strategic planning. He leads NORC's government affairs activity and the AP/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Mr. Gaylin has 25 years of experience spanning government, think tanks and private research organizations. A nationally recognized expert in program evaluation, he has led multi-disciplinary teams in conducting health services research, policy formulation and policy analysis. Prior to NORC, Mr. Gaylin served as Senior Advisor for Research and Planning at the US Department of Health and Human Services, where he headed initiatives to coordinate data strategy and research activities across HHS to develop coherent mechanisms for identifying research priorities and avoiding redundancy. Prior to his work at HHS, he was a Vice President at the Lewin Group consultancy and a Research Associate and Program Manager at the Urban Institute.
Christopher (Chris) Hoenig, President and Chief Executive Officer
Christopher Hoenig's career is dedicated to producing fundamental innovations in how we understand and improve our collective problem-solving capabilities. He has worked with organizations in the private, public and nonprofit sectors -- as a consultant with McKinsey & Co., managing director at the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) and vice president of strategy at IBM. His work as chairman of the Key National Indicators Initiative under the auspices of the National Academies helped lead to the recent historic establishment of the first ever Key National Indicator System for the United States. In all of these positions, he has applied an ongoing body of work on the fundamentals of leadership and complex problem solving, which informed his book, "The Problem Solving Journey" (Perseus Books). His work as managing director of strategic issues for the GAO ultimately led to the creation of The State of the USA.
Kenneth Prewitt is the Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Prior to that he was dean of the graduate faculty, the New School University in New York, and from 1998, until January 2001, was director of the United States Census Bureau. As head of the Census Bureau, his primary focus was on the operations of Census 2000 -- often described as the largest peacetime mobilization in history, with a budget of approximately $7.5 billion and a permanent and part-time decennial staff that at its peak was more than 900,000 persons. From 1995 to 1998, he served as the president of the Social Science Research Council, a position he also held from 1979 to 1985. For 10 years, he was senior vice president of The Rockefeller Foundation, where he directed the International Program to Support Science-Based Development involving activities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He served for five years as the director of the National Opinion Research Center, based at the University of Chicago. He taught for 15 years at the University of Chicago, and for shorter periods, taught at Stanford University (where he received his PhD), Washington University (where he received his MA), the University of Nairobi and Makerere University (Uganda). Dr. Prewitt is the author or co-author of a dozen books, and 75 contributions to professional journals and edited collections. He has been elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Academy of Political and Social Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served on the board of numerous professional and nonprofit organizations, and on advisory boards to the World Bank, the World Health Organization, UNESCO, the National Science Foundation, as well as universities and private foundations.
Governors (Non-Executive)
Bill Achtmeyer is Chairman and Managing Partner of The Parthenon Group, a strategic advisory firm he founded in 1991. He is responsible for the overall strategic direction and operational management of the firm. During the course of working in the consulting business for over 25 years, he has advised a number of Chief Executive Officers on the strategic direction of their corporations including Agilent, Bertelsmann, Corning, DeVry, eBay, Educate, Ford Motor Company, Hachette, Herman Miller, J.M. Huber Corporation, McGraw-Hill, LaureuteEducation, Mead/Westvaco, Quad/Graphics, Saatchi and Saatchi, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Thomson Reuters, and Young & Rubicam. He is recognized as an expert in corporate strategy, as well as mergers and acquisitions strategy and integration. Prior to starting Parthenon, he was a Director of Bain & Company responsible for the worldwide mergers and acquisitions practice and led Bain's North American business development activity. He is Chairman of the Board of Overseers of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Belmont Hill School. He is an Overseer for the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Museum of Fine Arts and a Board Director of Tenacity. He is also a member of the Board of Citizens Energy Corporation and Briggs and Stratton Corporation and the former Chairman of the Board of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC). Mr. Achtmeyer holds an A.B. from Princeton University (Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs) and an M.B.A from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Derek Bok has been a lawyer and Professor of Law, Dean of the Law School, and President of Harvard University and is 300th Anniversary University Professor of Harvard and since July 2003 has served as 300th Anniversary Research Professor. He has written six books on higher education. His research interests also include the adequacy of government in the United States in coping with the nation's domestic problems. He published a book on this subject entitled "The State of the Nation" in 1996 and a sequel entitled "The Trouble with Government" in 2001. He has served on the Board of Trustees of the World Resources Institute, the University of Massachusetts and Chair of the Board of Overseers of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. In 1999, he became the National Chair of Common Cause, a position he held until 2006. He is presently Chair of the Spencer Foundation and Faculty Chair of the Hauser Center for the Study of Nonprofit Organizations and Philanthropy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Professor Karen Cook is the Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology at Stanford University and the current chair of the department. Her current research focuses on issues of trust in social relations and networks. She is also working on projects related to social justice, power-dependence relations and social exchange theory, in addition to collaborative research on physician-patient trust. She was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1998-99) and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2007. She is Director of the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Stanford.
Jeremiah Eck is the founding partner at Eck / McNeely Architects, Inc., a Boston firm that over the past 30 years has completed a wide range of residential and academic projects. The work includes houses in 14 States and academic facilities comprising teaching, living and administrative buildings. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, author, landscape painter and former lecturer at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design where he continues to offer professional development seminars on houses. He is also a frequent speaker on how architects may better serve their clients. He has written two books "The Distinctive Home: A Vision of Timeless Design," and "The Face of Home: A New Way to Look at the Outside of Your House," by Taunton Press. His third book, "Breaking Ground: Site Sustainable House Design," will be published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2010. He graduated from Colgate in 1967, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and received his Masters in Architecture from Columbia University in 1972 where he received the AIA School Medal for Excellence.
Kerry Healey served as the 70th Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 2003-2007. As Lieutenant Governor, she lead successful efforts to combat drunken driving, address homelessness, increase penalties for victims of child abuse, gang violence, sexual assault and domestic violence. She was a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics and Center for Public Leadership in 2007 and served as a Senior Advisor for the Romney for President Campaign in 2008. She was appointed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the Executive Committee of the US Department of State's Public Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan (PPP), and is currently President of the Friends of the PPP, a non-profit that supports PPP programs to provide scholarships and training to Afghan lawyers. Since 2009, Ambassador Swanee Hunt and Dr. Healey have co-chaired the Parity Project, a bi-partisan effort to increase women's representation in high-level State and Federal offices. She also serves on the Advisory Boards of the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Institute on State and Local Government and the MIT Collaborative's Healthcare Visionary Council. She is Vice-Chairman of the National Center on Family Homelessness and serves on the boards of a number of charitable or educational institutions. Prior to election, she was Chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party and, for more than a decade, worked as a public policy researcher for the Cambridge-based think tank, Abt Associates, Inc., on contracts with the US Department of Justice. She is the author of numerous publications on criminal justice policy. Healey holds an AB from Harvard College (Government) and a PhD from Trinity College, Dublin (Law and Political Science). She was a Visiting Researcher at Harvard Law School and a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in Ireland. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In September 2010, Kerry Healey became the host and creator of Shining City, a half-hour weekly television program showcasing New England's scientific and social innovation on NESN.
Clay Johnson was the Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget during the George W. Bush administration providing government-wide leadership to Executive Branch agencies to improve agency and program performance. Prior to this, he was the Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel, responsible for the organization that identifies and recruits approximately 4,000 senior officials, middle management personnel and part-time board and commission members. From 1995 to 2000, he worked with Governor George W. Bush in Austin, first as his Appointments Director, then as his Chief of Staff and then as the Executive Director of the Bush-Cheney Transition. He has been the Chief Operating Officer for the Dallas Museum of Art and President of the Horchow and Neiman Marcus Mail Order companies. He also has worked for Citicorp, Wilson Sporting Goods and Frito-Lay. In Austin, he helped create the Texas State History Museum, and was also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas Graduate School of Business. In Dallas, he served as President of the Board of Trustees for St. Marks School of Texas and as a Board Member of Equitable Bankshares, Goodwill Industries of Dallas and the Dallas Chapter of the Young Presidents Organization.
Thomas C. Jorling is Visiting Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies at Williams College. He was director of the Center for Environmental Studies at Williams from 1972 to 1977. He left to become assistant administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (water and hazardous materials). His other government service includes assistant general counsel for the Smithsonian Institution in 1968 and 1969. From 1969 to 1972, he was minority counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Public Works. He headed New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation and spent 10 years as vice president for environmental affairs at International Paper, retiring in 2004.
Ruben King-Shaw's distinguished career includes high-level positions in the public and private sectors, with a focus on the health care industry. Currently, he is Chairman and CEO of Mansa Equity Partners, Inc., private equity investors whose portfolio includes several health care companies. He has served as COO and deputy administrator for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; senior advisor to the secretary of the U.S. Treasury, and secretary of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. King-Shaw has counseled governors and health ministers in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa on topics of economic development and health care delivery systems. He has also counseled American presidents. Today, King-Shaw is actively involved with the Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) School and Cornell University. He is a member of the ILR Dean's Advisory Council and, with his wife, established an endowment to support ILR diversity initiatives.
Nicholas Lemann was born, raised and educated in New Orleans. He began his journalism career as a 17-year-old writer for an alternative weekly newspaper there, the Vieux Carre Courier. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1976, where he concentrated in American History and Literature and was President of the Harvard Crimson. After graduation, he worked at The Washington Monthly, as an associate editor and then managing editor; at Texas Monthly, as an associate editor and then executive editor; at The Washington Post, as a member of the national staff; at The Atlantic Monthly, as national correspondent; and at The New Yorker, as staff writer and then Washington correspondent. On September 1, 2003, he became dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, at the end of a process of re-examination of the school's mission conducted by a national task force convened by the university's President, Lee C. Bollinger.
Valerie Mosley is Senior Vice President, Fixed Income Portfolio Manager, for Wellington Management. Partner of a $540 billion global money management firm, she manages fixed income portfolios for corporate and public pension funds, endowments and mutual funds. She chairs the firm's Industry Strategy Group, which examines themes and secular trends and identifies which industries to emphasize and which sectors to avoid. As a member of the Core Bond Strategy Group, she helps set the investment strategy for all core bond mandates. She is also a member of the Corporate Strategy Group, which establishes the style-specific investment parameters that guide corporate only Fixed Income Portfolio Managers. Prior to joining Wellington Management in 1992, she spent two years at P.C. Corbin Asset Management as their Chief Investment Officer. She worked in institutional corporate bond sales at Kidder Peabody and began her career at Chase Manhattan Bank where she was a commercial lending officer for financial institutions. She serves on the Board of Overseers for the Museum of Science in Boston, MA and serves on the National Association of Securities Professionals' Boston Board. She served on both the Board of Advisers and the Capital Campaign Advisory Board for Duke University's Trinity College of Arts and Science. In February, 2006, she was named as one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in the country and in October 2008, was identified as one of the Top 75 Blacks on Wall Street by Black Enterprise Magazine.
Stephen Pagliuca is a Managing Partner and Executive Committee Member of the Boston Celtics. Chairman of the Basketball Committee, Pagliuca has focused on enhancing the development and improvement of the Celtics basketball operations. He also serves as a member of the NBA Board of Governors and the NBA Competition Committee. Pagliuca currently is a Managing Director of Bain Capital, a leading global private equity firm he helped build with over $40 billion capital under management. Pagliuca received a bachelor's degree from Duke University where he also played freshman basketball, and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. He is currently Chairman of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Chairman of the Boston Celtics Shamrock Foundation and serves on the international board of The Right To Play, a worldwide children's development group that utilizes Olympic athletes to promote children's health and safety. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Gartner Group, Burger King, and ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG. He serves as Chairman on the Board of Trinity Advisors at Duke University and is a trustee of Bain Capital Children's Charity. Pagliuca has been active in youth basketball from kindergarten to the AAU level.
Louis Perlmutter, a senior advisor to Corporate Partners, a private equity fund, is a retired senior partner of Lazard. He is chairman of the Transatlantic Institute, a director of the Charles H. Revson Foundation and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the board of fellows (directors) of Harvard Medical School, the advisory board of Foreign Affairs, and trustee of the Blaustein Institute for Human Rights. He is past chairman of the board of trustees of Brandeis University and the American Jewish Congress and the past chairman of the executive committee of the United Nations Association of the USA. He has received honors from The Phoenix House Foundation, The Israel Policy Forum, The World Federation of United Nations Associations and the American Jewish Committee. His areas of expertise include international finance, economics and foreign policy with a focus on the Middle East. Mr. Perlmutter received a bachelor's degree from Brandeis University, from which he later received an honorary L.H.D., and a J.D. degree from the University of Michigan Law School.