The Advisory Committee
James A. Baker III, former Secretary of State
James A. Baker III, has served in senior government positions under three United States Presidents. He served as the nation's 61st Secretary of State from January 1989 through August 1992 under President George Bush. Mr. Baker served as the 67th Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the President's Economic Policy Council. From 1981 to 1985, he served as White House Chief of Staff to President Reagan. Mr. Baker's record of public service began in 1975 as Under Secretary of Commerce to President Gerald Ford. It concluded with his service as White House Chief of Staff and Senior Counselor to President Bush from August 1992 to January 1993. A native Houstonian, Mr. Baker graduated from Princeton University in 1952. After two years of active duty as a lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, he entered the University of Texas School of Law at Austin. He received his J.D. with honors in 1957 and practiced law with the Houston firm of Andrews and Kurth from 1957 to 1975. Mr. Baker is presently a senior partner in the law firm of Baker Botts. He is Honorary Chairman of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University and serves on the board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 2005, he was co-chair, with former president Jimmy Carter, of the Commission on Federal Election Reform. In 2006, Mr. Baker and former U.S. Congressman Lee H. Hamilton served as the co-chairs of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan blue-ribbon panel on Iraq.
John DeGioia, President, Georgetown University
For nearly a quarter century, John J. DeGioia has helped to define and strengthen Georgetown University as a premier institution for education and research. Since graduating from the University in 1979, he has served both as a senior administrator and as a faculty member. On July 1, 2001, he became Georgetown's 48th president. Dr. DeGioia addresses broader issues in higher education as a board member of the American Council on Education, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and the Campus Compact, and as an executive committee member of the Council on Competitiveness. He is chair of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education and serves on the Business-Higher Education Forum. Dr. DeGioia is a Professorial Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy. Prior to his appointment as president, Dr. DeGioia held a variety of senior administrative positions at Georgetown, including senior vice president, responsible for university-wide operations, and dean of student affairs. In 2004, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Academia from the Sons of Italy. He earned a bachelor's degree in English from Georgetown University in 1979 and his PhD in Philosophy from the University in 1995.
Lee Raymond, former Chief Executive Officer, Exxon Mobil
Lee R. Raymond is the retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Exxon Mobil. He had been Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Exxon from 1993 until its merger with Mobil in 1999 and held the same position with Exxon Mobil until he retired in December 2005. He began his career with Exxon in 1963 after having graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1960 and received a Ph.D. in the same discipline from the University of Minnesota in 1963. He is a Director of JPMorgan Chase and Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American Enterprise Institute. He is Chairman of the National Petroleum Council, a trustee of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, a trustee of the Mayo Clinic and a member of the President's Export Council.
Dr. Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Professor, Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley
Dr. Laura D'Andrea Tyson has earned her reputation as an authority on U.S. economic competitiveness, global markets and the high-tech industry. She applied her expertise as National Economic Advisor to the President and Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors during the first term of the Clinton Presidency and was the highest-ranking woman in the Clinton White House and was a key architect of President Clinton's domestic and international policy agenda. She was London Business School's First Female Dean (2002-2006) — the first woman to head a top-10 international business school. Since leaving this position, she has become a visiting professor at the institution. Dr. Tyson is also known for holding positions as Dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, where she has returned as professor of economics and business. Dr. Tyson has a summa cum laude undergraduate degree from Smith College (1969) and a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1974).