[MUSIC PLAYING] OK, good afternoon, everybody. I'm Ed Steinfeld. I'm the director of
the Watson Institute, and it is my pleasure
to welcome you all, and my pleasure to be here for
our careers in public policy panel, Doing Well
By Doing Good . I just want to quickly mention
that this event is co-sponsored by the Watson Career Lab . And for those of you who may be
interested in our 5th year MPA opportunity, 5th
year degree program, there is information and a
sign up sheet just outside. So I think events
like this are really terrific for a lot of reasons. But being able to speak to
leading thinkers and leading actors in the
public policy world and hear about what
they've done and how they've done it, how they've
gotten to where they are, I find it very inspiring. I've always found it inspiring. I find it inspiring
from where I sit now, and I think from
where I sat when I was a little bit younger. I found it not just inspiring,
but incredibly useful. We are extremely
fortunate today-- I'm just going to quickly
introduce the panel and we'll move
forward from there. We are extremely fortunate
today to have three really exceptional
panelists, all of whom are associated with
Brown, two of whom currently are part of
the Watson Institute. But let me start
really with our guest. Elizabeth Roberts
is the Secretary of the Rhode Island
Executive Office of Health and Human Resources, and a
Brown. grad, Brown alumna. Under her leadership,
Rhode Island has implemented a package
of progressive, sustainable, Medicaid reforms that have
achieved well over $100 million in annual state savings, really
without cutting eligibility or benefits, which is quite
an exceptional achievement. Elizabeth previously
served as Rhode Island's first female
lieutenant governor, and had been named by previous
governor Lincoln Chafee in 2010, to lead the state's
health care reform efforts. And since then, Rhode
Island has become really a leader nationally
in health care reform. Elizabeth previously
served five two-year terms in the Rhode Island
state Senate. And as I mentioned, is
a graduate of Brown, and also received her MBA
in health care management from Boston University. Elizabeth will speak first. Let me just introduce the rest
of the really great panel. Our second speaker
will be Brian Atwood. Brian is currently a
senior fellow at Watson. But Brian has had just an
extraordinary professional career that's still going on. Brian, in the Clinton
administration, led the US agency for
International Development-- USAID, for 6 and 1/2
years, and had also served in the Clinton/Gore
transition team, he had served as head of
the State Department-- head of the transition team for
the State Department in 1992. Brian had also served as
Undersecretary of State for Management prior to
his appointment at USAID. Brian is not just a
distinguished diplomat and a distinguished very
high level policymaker, but Brian is also a
scholar and educator. He had served previously as
Dean of the Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the
University of Minnesota, that was from 2002 to 2010, and he
was Professor of Public Policy and Chair of the Global Studies
program at University of-- at the Hubert Humphrey School. Debbie Gordon, also a
Watson senior fellow. Debbie is the Director
of the Energy and Climate program at the Carnegie
Endowment for International peace. And she comes from a very
interesting background, if I may say so myself. I'm a bit of an
engineer wannabe, I just didn't have any of
the brains necessary for it. But Debbie was trained
originally as a chemical engineer at the University
of Colorado-- go Buffs-- and she holds an MPP from the
Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. Debbie works on issues of
global oil-- global oil industry and climate change. She's the author of two
very important books. The first, Two Billion Cars
Driving Toward Sustainability. That was from Oxford in 2009. And the second, Steering a New
Course, Transportation Energy and the Environment. And that was from 1991. In previous portions
of her career, Debbie managed an energy
and environmental consulting practice and taught at the
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental
Studies, and also directed the energy
policy program at the Union of
Concerned Scientists. All of these individuals
have huge CV's, which I don't have the
time to go into in detail, but what an exceptional
opportunity for us to have all of you here. If I can turn it over
first to you, Elizabeth, that would be great. Yeah, I'm going to set my timer
because I can start. talking and keep going. As I sit on this panel and
think about this Institute, which is really focused on
global and international issues, and I
graduated from Brown having come here, been a
human bio major undergrad and volunteered in hospitals-- in a hospital--
women and infants, when I was a student, and
really loved Rhode Island and chose to stay and have
made my career right here in public service. Some of it in health care-- not-for-profit health
care, so I think of that as public
service, although we can have that discussion about
how much of that is business and how much public
service these days. But then really decided to
get involved politically and ran for office, served
in the state legislature for 10 years, Lieutenant
Governor for eight, which in this state, I was able,
as an independently elected Lieutenant Governor
to have my own policy portfolio and a staff. And as was said in
my introduction, during my second term, was asked
to oversee the implementation of the Affordable
Care Act, which I have been active working
on some pieces related to that at the local level. And so now I, as having moved
into the Executive Branch as the Secretary of
Health and Human Services for Governor Raimondo, I now
sit in this precarious spot, and we had a New York Times
reporter here yesterday talking to us about
it, of seeing where-- am I about to oversee
the dismantling of what I have spent
much of my career doing and how do I protect
the people that-- which is about 300,000 people in
Rhode Island, out of a million. So when you think about
Health and Human Services, it is a huge percentage
of the population for different reasons. And it has been an
incredibly rewarding career. I've made a good enough living
to live how I want to live. And I've also been able to
serve the public in a way that I have found really
rewarding to me personally. There are things to think about. And I was thinking
about what it is that has made this
rewarding for me, and what the characteristics
are I think about when I think about my work and where
different people fit into the environment
that I work in. So clearly mission,
commitment to mission is incredibly
important if you want to do work in public
service because there are enormous obstacles to overcome. It's never as financially
rewarding as some other choices you can make. And keeping that
commitment to the mission helps you get
through, I'm having a particularly challenging
time in my job right now, which we don't have to go through. But part of what gets me
up every day and going, you know I've got
to get back to work, is the purpose
that I'm there for, even when sometimes the work
can be very frustrating. And public service can
be tough and frustrating. There are a lot of obstacles
you may not encounter elsewhere. I will also say that there
are different pathways. So I chose a pathway kind
of inside the system. You have to be-- I cope well with
incremental change. Some people are like-- want to storm the barricades
and blow up the system. And I love people like
that because I never get anywhere if there aren't
people out there doing that. But I know that
what my skill set is, is not being the fighter so
much as a person who sits down at the table and
says, OK, what can we get done, how do we move it? Who do we bring here to
help solve the problem? How do you build the team and-- or the coalitions, different
purposes for different times. And that's what I love doing,
and what I've had success doing, working with
the community more, working with the
people we serve, working with the people
who provide service, and how do we
improve what we do. So they're advocates. So I've been kind of a
government policymaker. Advocate's another pathway,
incredibly valuable. If we do not have advocates
speaking out, speaking up, I find myself, as I just
said, I'm an incrementalist. I have spent the last two
weekends protesting, which my children are thrilled about. And so, you know sometimes
your roles change and you feel a call
to action that's different from perhaps
the one you've had before. But then I go back
and I put my suit on and I go to my
regular job, which is how do I get that next
problem solved for the people that I serve. When you think
about your career-- the other thing
which sounds simple but I won't say, because it's
not just the mission but it's actually loving your work
and the style of work that you have. So as I said, I'm somebody
who likes sitting in the room and putting the people together. And I also love engaging
with the people I serve. As a candidate, I loved,
loved, loved knocking on doors and talking to people,
hearing their stories. What did they care about. What did they want. What they need. How could I give a face
of trust to government which people lack so much. But having that,
choosing that path that fits for you, that's
not a struggle, but a fit is so important
because then you last decades doing that and moving up. I'm not an academic. I'm sitting here next to
some very esteemed academics. That's not my path. I chose more of a
kind of out there and learn as I go path,
which I have loved. But you need to find
the one that fits you because that's the one where
you will be successful and make a real difference. And I guess the thing I will
say is that sense of mission and that sense that
you won't give up, that as much as it feels like
some weeks and months and even years sometimes that
things won't get better, and I'm looking at a four-year
period where I'm like, this could really be a
dismantling of so much I care about across many issues, and
I'm now committed to figuring out how I serve the
people in this state-- a million people--
with a governor who doesn't agree, nor do I, how
do you still serve them the way they should be served despite
an administration in Washington that may not see
things the way we do. So I have loved my work. I still love my work. I am way, way
older than you all. I'm probably older
than your parents. But it has been a career I
would recommend to anyone. And I will say, last
of all, before I stop, I think for many
people, elected office is something they think
of as distasteful, nasty. Both my parents-- my
mother said to me-- and I about to say
something crude. My mother didn't
say anything crude. She said, are you tough enough? And I said, I'm
going to find out. My dad said to me-- this is like my dad was like--
he said, how much of a whore are you willing to be? How much will you trade
off on your principles? And I said, dad, I'm
not planning on that-- [LAUGHTER] --I'm going to
compromise-- my dad was a very conservative Republican
he's no longer living. I'm going to hold my
principles and myself, but work within a
system where everybody doesn't agree with me. And I've been able to do that. And if you feel called
to elected office, please follow it because
too few people do. And it's very
important that we have people who really care deeply,
who are willing to learn, and willing to focus, and
willing to commit to progress to serve in elected office. And I will stop. Great, thank you. Brian? Well, first, I have to say
that Rhode Island is well served, Elizabeth. This is very
impressive, and I've watched your Governor on the
Jim Braude show the other day on television and very
impressed by her as well. So Rhode Island is
a very lucky state. I guess the first
thing I will tell you is an anecdote which
probably won't apply to any of you, but it's an
interesting story nonetheless because the theme of
this is doing good by-- and doing well at the same time. One of my students at Harvard,
when I was teaching there, came up to me and asked if
he could go to lunch with me. And I figured he was going to
ask me to help him get a job. So I said, yes. Hopefully I'm very open to
students who want my advice. So we went to lunch
and the first thing he said was, I just
sold my dot.com company for $25 million. [LAUGHTER] So I said, OK you
can pay for lunch. [LAUGHTER] His name was Raj
Kumar, and he asked me if I would be the chair
of his advisory committee. I had been the head
of USAID, so he thought that might
be helpful to him as he started this
company called Devex. Devex provides
information to people who want to get involved
in development work. And many of you may
know, in fact, it's a very important site
for those of you who are interested in
development because you can put your resume in there and
people look at this long list. If they're interested in
doing a water project in Kenya and you can you speak
Swahili, you can just press on the button
and people will see your name come up, if you
have those qualifications. So it's a very, very good site
for those of you interested. My path was kind of settled
for me, much to my surprise, when I was selected to be
a foreign exchange student. I went to the smallest
country in Europe-- well, arguably--
Luxembourg, and was exposed to people who
didn't live in a superpower. And I guess I
learned then what-- I guess it was
Teddy Roosevelt said about carrying a big
stick, but being very silent and quiet about it all. Because I wasn't very quiet. I was a very
chauvinist American who bragged about every
Coca-Cola sign he saw. And finally my AFS brother
said, you and the Soviets are just as bad. And I was very upset about that. And I said how can you say that? We're a democracy, they're
a communist country, etc. And he said, well you
both want to dominate us. That was a lesson that
sort of stuck with me. I became a diplomat after that. I became a Foreign
Service officer in the State Department. And I hope I'm very
sensitive and learned a lot about intercultural learning. So the path was set,
but the exact things that I would do later in
my life, I wasn't aware of. I met a senator when
he came through Madrid. I was at the embassy and I
was asked to take care of him. So we spent three days together. And he was 38 years
old, he was elected on the basis of his
opposition to the Vietnam War. And we hit it off and
later went to work for him. I had to leave the
Foreign Service. And five years later , when
Jimmy Carter was elected, I was asked to go down to the
State Department as a Deputy Assistant Secretary, and
two years after that, at the age of 30, I was an
Assistant Secretary of State, which is a
presidential position, one of the youngest
to have that happen. So you never know-- I guess my message to
people who are looking for a career in public
service, first of all, it is a great career. It's very exciting. Elizabeth, as you
were speaking, I was thinking of one
thing in my life that I've always thought about. If you don't wake up in the
middle of the night more than four or five times a week
thinking about some idea that you've had or some
problem that you're-- you're not really-- you
don't have a very good job. It's not very exciting. You really have to have
a job that keeps you on your toes in that regard. So the one thing that
certainly happened to me was that I had a great deal
of luck meeting this senator and then going beyond
the career ladder. This is another, I
guess, message for you. In public service,
you can decide to go into a career position. And there's an awful
lot of negative things that are said about bureaucrats. I have a great deal
of respect for them. My son is one. And they do a very good
job and they work hard. But you make a decision that
you're on a career ladder. And you decide whether
or not-- in my case, I had to decide whether
I wanted to wait until I was 50 years old
to become an ambassador. I really was a little
more impatient than that. I didn't think I would
have to wait that long. So I left. And I took a chance. I became a political appointee. And I knew that that was-- I was destined to
leave office one day. And of course, Jimmy
Carter wasn't re-elected. So I went into the hinterlands. I eventually ended up with
the best job I've ever had, which was to run the
National Democratic Institute for International
Affairs, which is loosely affiliated with the
Democratic Party. Now it's chaired by
Madeleine Albright. It had been chaired
by Walter Mondale when I was the president of NDI. And basically, it promotes
democracy and human rights around the world. So there is a
non-governmental organization, which has a lot of funding
from the US government. Again-- another
possibility if you're not interested in going into a
career, a professional career. You can think about,
as Elizabeth suggested, I would think today,
more than ever, we need people who are
effective advocates. And to be an effective
advocate, it seems to me you need a graduate degree. That might not have been
necessary in my day. But it's certainly
absolutely essential today. And when you get a graduate
degree in public policy, you're going to learn a great
deal about analysis, about what empirical data means. You're going to
learn statistics, something that may bore you. But it's absolutely essential
that you have the grounding to be able to take a
public policy issue, look at it from
the point of view of several academic
disciplines, and come up with the right ideas. And it's never been more
important than it is today. I don't think I have
to tell you why. Because there are
some people who are in very high
positions today that don't seem to know how to
read or are not serious enough to look in-depth at some of
the issues that we're facing. When I was asked to lead the
State Department transition, I don't think I've ever been
more excited, coming back into government after the
Carter administration, to lead the transition
during the Clinton years. I met a number of people,
including professional Foreign Service officers. You may have seen, in recent
days, that over 1,000 of them have now signed a
dissent channel message. That dissent channel was created
during my initial exposure to the State Department, when I
think over 500 signed something that opposed the
Vietnam War, basically saying it was a mistake. Well they had no way
to handle, if you will, whistleblowers within
the State Department. And that's when the dissent
channel was created. Now they actually give awards
for the best dissent channel messages within State. I'm not sure how
this administration is going to handle this
large number of people who signed this message. But it's going to
be very interesting. But I remember
talking to people-- and I guess this is
my final message-- who came to me as the
transition leader. And as professional Foreign
Service officers said, you know, I've always opposed
the last administration's policies. I'm really a Democrat. And I really want a job,
is the underlying message, in this next administration. I didn't respect that. They weren't acting
as professionals. And of course, that's
something that, if you do become a Foreign
Service officer, you are there to serve. That doesn't mean that
your voice shouldn't be heard, if you're in
opposition to a policy. You should state it within
the bounds of your job. You should sign dissent
channel messages if you feel that way about
the policy, feel strongly. Or, in the case of a man
by the name of John Brady Kiesling, whose book-- I've got a chapter from his
book that I use in my class-- who resigned in conscience,
because of his opposition to the Iraq war. So all of these things
are considerations for wherever you are. Elizabeth is absolutely
right that you really have to feel enjoyment
in any job that you have. And it seems to me
that you can choose number of things in terms
of your graduate education. I always thought about
academic professionalism. There are three basic
strands to getting a professional academic
graduate degree. One is go to a business school. Another is go to a law school. Another is to go to a
public policy school. I always argued
that the best deal is to go to a public
policy school. It's a little cheaper
than the others. Nowadays, there is a surplus
of lawyers out there. And business degrees
cost a lot more than a public policy degree. But more importantly, I was once
considered-- didn't get it-- but to be the dean
of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. And they were deciding to
inject some business concepts into their degree program. They did do that. But any public policy degree
that's worth its salt does have-- gives you enough
background so that you can work in business, as
well as in government, or in the
nongovernmental fields. So all of these considerations. If you're interested
in development work, I just spoke last
week to the Society for International Development. They are basically
advising students or people who are looking for
jobs in the field. And so that's another
possibility for you. Another public service position,
of course, is academia. And it's an extraordinarily
important thing. And there, I think, you
have to go all the way and get your PhD,
if you really want to be involved in academia. So I'll stop there. I've had a checkered career. And if you looked
at it, you would say there's no pattern to it. And when I have students
come to me and say, I'm going to do this,
this, this, and this, and they've got the
next two decades all lined up for themselves,
they're making a big mistake. You have to have a
degree of fatalism to be thinking
about these things. You're not always going
to get what you want. And I've been rejected. I just mentioned being rejected
as the dean of the Fletcher School. But the next thing
that happened was that I got to be the dean
of the Humphrey School. That was a much
better fit for me. So be fatalistic. Be ambitious. Be optimistic. But understand that you're
going to find opportunities wherever you end up. I'll They there. Thank you. Debby? Yeah, I think I can tie these
strands together a little bit by saying how much I, too-- very different pathways-- have
loved my career trajectory, which also has been a patchwork
of many different stages and places. What I think I've loved
most about my career-- that only the public policy
would have allowed me this, not the chemical engineering,
which I'll tie in in a second-- has that I've been able to
work in every different sector. And I think that when
you see the world from the public,
and the private, and the nonprofit,
the academic sector, you've circled
around what life's all about, all the different
places where you can give back, where you can learn, where
you become purposeful. And you have these really long,
varied careers that are great. I personally always
loved math and science. And I knew, when I was young,
I would never go into medicine. So I had to find this
early career path myself, where I found chemical
engineering-- very similar to this time that we're in now. Because when I went to
undergrad, it was 1979 to 1982. And it ended up being the
time of the second oil crisis. So it was a very similar
rollercoaster time in the energy sphere, where
while I was in school, prices were high. And things were crazy, like
they were a couple of years ago. And then the market fell
out from underneath of it. I took a job with Chevron. And it was fascinating. I learned how a major oil
company thinks, especially in times of boom and bust,
which is similar to now. And I did a lot of environmental
permitting for them, and thought how they thought. But I was restless. And I really wanted to
think much more broadly. So I think that would
be the first lesson I would say to you. And it echoes what Brian said. Don't ever feel you're stuck. You go someplace,
and it's the first-- a place that you go. You decide what you're doing. And then you always
have the opportunity to transform yourself. Education is the
great way to do that. So I step back after my
five years at Chevron. And I said, I think a public
policy degree is in order. It just seemed like,
after listening-- I didn't have the benefit of
sitting in a room like this with you to figure it out. I was thinking
industrial psychology. I was all over the place. Public policy was
still relatively new, coming out of the 70s. And I went back to
school at Berkeley. And I met Eric Patashnik,
who I'm married to. It was one of the best
things I ever did in my life, not only meeting my husband,
but also really thinking back to our class of students
that we had around us. No one was wedded
to any one thing. We had folks that were
working in labor policy. We had child policy. We had health policy
and public health. There were about three or four
other engineers in our class. And I love the idea
that we all had a mission in mind, which was to
try to make the world somewhat of a better place, but from all
these different perspectives. It was this melting pot
of different interests. And you learn so much, not
just from the professors, but from your class, which
I thought was fantastic. I left there. And I knew that I
wanted to not go back into the private sector,
at least right away. So I joined the Union
of Concerned Scientists. And I opened an office
for them in California. I worked on transportation
policy for many years. I worked in Congress. I worked at the Lawrence
Berkeley Lab at a time. I think that the tether in
all of that part of my life, post public policy degree, was
being a policy entrepreneur. And we heard it here from
both of these folks as well-- the idea that you have ideas
of these solutions to problems. When I was 20,
sitting in your seats, I thought that the world was a-- I think I appreciated there
were complexities in the world. But I thought that problems
were pretty easily solved. And now, all these
years later, I realize-- it doesn't take me off
my mission to solve it-- but I realized how hard
it is to solve problems. Probably the world's
problems are best solved by a sum of 2% solutions,
where you have to keep at it. And I think that's what
motivates me to keep at it. When we were having kids, what
I loved about my policy degree-- and this speaks to
both male and female-- it was really a flexible career. So I consulted for 15 years
when my kids were growing up. Because there were always
policy projects to work on. And once I was doing
energy and environment, it was a broad enough
issue, just as health is, and in different spheres,
you can use your skills to actually consult to others. So you can take these
haituses in your career without leaving your
career, which was fantastic for me, because I
could juggle family, and my intellectual
curiosity, and my life. And that was the bridge to me
joining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 2010. And what I love about
the think tank world-- I think it's probably also
in the academic sphere-- is you are truly free to step
back, not for any one client, but for whatever
your mind's cause is, to decide what are the problems,
and what are the solutions? And now you're really in a place
of policy entrepreneurship. So just to give you a flavor,
about four years ago-- I had been working on
transportation policy, cars and trucks and air pollution,
for many, many years. That's where I took
my policy career. And when this oil
and gas revolution started, with fracked oil and
oil sands and oil changing, I realized that the early
part of my career at Chevron was a lot like the world
now, even though there was 25 years in between. And so I worked with
colleagues at Stanford and the University of Calgary
to develop an Oil Climate Index that assesses global oils
in terms of their greenhouse gas emissions and compares them. So I was able to go back to
the future in my own career, where I started out, and
bring that information, that knowledge--
because of policy-- back to current
affairs in the world right now, which I just
think is fantastic. And then a second
example I'll give you on how you can be circular and
organic if you do go the policy route, which I think keeps you
young in terms of your career-- as you heard here,
the excitement that stays with you in a career,
which is not always common. But I first approached-- and
then he came back to me-- one of my early
mentors at Chevron. So I have this whole
group of people that I entered the
oil industry with that stayed their entire career. I wasn't one of them. They've just retired. So a lot of my early
friends in my career, at 21 and 22 years old-- they've now concluded
their careers. They had their 30 years. They retired. They're young, but
they're retired. So I approached one of my first
friends, mentors, at Chevron, and I said, you know,
I think we should start something called the
National Environmental Legacy Project. I don't know if we'll stick
with the name, but I like it. And it is to take the people
that went through industry, post Earth Day, like in
that environmental movement, with the environmental as
the core of who they were, and actually take the
lessons they learned and bring that legacy back to
today, so we can reinvigorate and reenergize industry
and this partnership, this collaboration, that
always has taken place between industry
and the NGO sector, to hopefully make
everything work, to see progress on both ends-- both the private
and the public side. Because I think it is a
marriage between the two. And now he, Steve,
has assembled all of these other
retired engineers. I have someone who's retired
from Sandia National Lab. We're starting to knit
this new group together of people that
want to give back. So I think that-- just, again,
to echo what was said here-- I think if you do choose
to go into public policy, you're going to have a
very long, and fruitful, and exciting career
ahead of you. I don't know what your career
will be if you go other routes. But I will say, I
almost can promise you, if you get excited about
ideas, if you think creatively about problems, if
you're motivated to find different solutions,
if you don't run out of steam, and you're the--
well, you're here. So you're the type
of people that get excited about this-- you
will love a public policy career. And it will just open
your world for you. And you'll find yourself,
toward the end of your career, being just as excited as
you were in the beginning. Thank you, Debbie. And thank you to
the whole panel. [APPLAUSE] Great. We have time for questions. Questions from the--
oh, I see hands. Yep? So you if you had
one piece of advice to give to someone looking for
first jobs in public policy, where should start looking? Do you have any
thoughts on entering? Go ahead. I was just going to say, I
think a lot of it comes from-- and I guess my path
speaks this a little bit. But I think having some
sort of substantive interest and knowledge that marries
to this broader policy-- know the goals of problems and
solutions and crafting policy prescription-- I would say start with what
that substance is in your core. I don't know what you're-- what's your background interest? Research in migration
and homelessness-- that's what I've been focused
on so far, but I don't know. I don't know. I do think, honestly, it's a
time of real reinvigoration at the local and state level. So I would say-- I work in Washington. And I'd say not necessarily
running to Washington right now would be a good thing. But I do think at the
local and state level there's a purpose and a need. So I want to capitalize
on something that Ed said. The political doorway is a
quick escalator sometimes. So if you, even on
a volunteer basis, but on a paid basis in some
way, get involved in an effort through either-- most likely a person that
you're trying to help-- you can find your
way fairly quickly. I'm about to interview a woman
who's 32 and has been a Deputy Secretary in Washington. Because she found
her way in the door. And that's about being smart,
and hardworking, and lucky. So luck is the other
thing I want to emphasize. And then the other
way is to have a skill that's needed in
an area you care about. My son right now is working for
an organization that is local, the Institute for the Study
and Practice of Nonviolence. And that's not his
area of expertise. But he's creating a
data program assessment for them, which they didn't
have any of that skill. So finding a niche where you can
help advance an area that they may have-- an organization
may have the mission you're thinking about. So when you think
about homelessness, there are so many. But then they're lacking
in some of the capacities they need to take themselves
to the next level. So there's opportunities
there that then you can find your way. But in some other
quick movement, it's really about
connecting yourself to somebody who, politically,
is moving, whether it's locally or nationally. There are a stunning
number of people working for Governor
Raimondo right now between 25 and 30 years old-- a whole bunch of them. And it's great. And so let me tell
you the other side-- so for somebody like me,
who's in my late 50s, I love working with a whole
bunch of 25 and 30-year-olds. Because they got educated
in a different way. They think about the world
differently than I do, even though I try and keep up. And it's an exciting thing. So just keep looking. But particularly if
you have that area, try and find what you can offer
them that they don't have yet. The only thing I would
add-- and I'd certainly agree to the last point, because
that's what happened to me. I hooked on to a US senator. And that changed
my life and career. But internships are
extraordinarily important now. The negative side is that there
are a lot of organizations that are really exploiting interns-- aren't paying them and the rest. So if you can do your internship
to get college credit, or as part of your academic
experience, that's great. But choose wisely
the organization. Because many interns that work-- especially in Washington,
which I know best-- really catch on in that
way and make the contacts. Networking is
extraordinarily important. Unfortunately, you're all
talented in this room. If you're Brown students,
you're talented. But it depends on who
you know in the end. So internships are important. Great. Yeah? Yeah, so I'm a
senior now at Brown in public policy and thinking
about post-Brown careers. And I definitely
see a cliff coming. There's a date I graduate. And then after that date, I
need to have something, or not. And it's a little daunting. And you each talked about a
lot of different career moves. I imagine in my life,
unlike my grandparents, I will not be working at
the same place for 25 years. And you talked
about some fatalism and being willing to go for it. So my question is,
how did you know when the time was the right
time to move from one thing to the next? How did you deal-- I don't even have
my first job yet. It's a scary thing. How am I going to pay bills? Where am I going to work? Just leaving a job
is not a small issue. | think it's instinct,
to some extent. One thing to always think about
is are you just changing jobs to change jobs or are you
going to go up another level and learn, have an opportunity
to learn even more? So that's an important
consideration. Many, many of the
students that I've had as graduate students
are in the same situation. I do think you need that
credential nowadays. And I must say, to put a
pitch in for the Watson Institute and the
Taubman Center, we've got a
tremendous opportunity there to get a graduate
degree in one year. And I think that's a very
important credential to have. You have to think about the
person who has an opening-- say the National
Democratic Institute, where I worked for a while. You advertise the opening
and you'll get 100 resumes. It's very easy to
simply say, well, he doesn't have
a masters degree. Just put that aside. Unless of course
you've been an intern-- maybe you'll have
an opportunity. They'll know you. Anything that can really
sell what you have to offer is important. But the credential,
unfortunately, today is just absolutely essential. Because it's too easy to set
aside someone who doesn't have an advanced degree. I would add-- I'm just
going through resumes now. Carnegie has a junior
fellow program. And it's too late,
because you're a senior. But I think what I would say-- and maybe you've
done this already. What I would say to anyone who
still has some semesters left as an undergrad would be
definitely take economics. And take enough analytic
classes and enough breath in your curriculum. Because as I go
through things, I see a lot of students that
have devoted themselves to their major-- maybe a double major. But it's narrow. And I think the world is a
very broad place right now. You need to be to think across
many different spheres at once. And I would echo
what Elizabeth said. I think that have-- for the
first question, if you have an idea, either something
that's data driven or something that's knowledge
driven, I'd say do it. Do it in your spare time. That's a little bit of the juice
that goes with public policy, anyway. You never really get
bored of yourself. You're always
working on something. And if that means
taking the initiative to write an article that
you submit somewhere, or to build a database
that you share-- but I would just say endeavor. And there is a lot of
luck involved in this. But I've found
that there's a lot of just personal self interest
of perpetuating your thought that goes into this. My moves were really-- to
answer your direct question-- my moves were really much
more motivated by my husband's career. So when Eric was moving,
I was getting creative and moving as well. But I have somewhat
bought into-- and I always landed and
felt great about it. But I've subscribed
to a basic thought. Wherever you are in life,
try to get out at the top. Don't ride the
elevator to the bottom. Now it's really
important in life to be aware of
you, and the world, and your situation, and your own
interests, and your own life. And then try to
stay where you are and have a great ride at it. And then if it lasts for
a very long time, great. And if not, don't
let it bring you down to a point where you
feel lost in where you are. So I have not had a
particularly linear career. I left out the first
15 years of my career. I didn't even run for
office till I was almost 40. But I will say-- something that
Ed said, and that is instinct. There were times when
there was an opportunity. And I was like,
it's not quite what I thought I was going to do. But it really, for some
reason, interested me. The people I would be
working with that I can't-- that is incredibly important. I always wanted to learn. I wanted to work with
people I could learn from-- that sometimes I go, you know,
I'm just going to try it. And so those are some of the
best choices I ever made. Because I didn't
really have a path I'd already mapped for myself. As opportunities came
along, I took them. I will also be
honest and tell you that my first nine months out
of Brown, I worked at a store on Wickenden Street. I wanted to stay here. I didn't have a
career path job yet. I ended up at Pawtucket
Memorial Hospital after that. But I was like,
I'm staying here. I'm going to figure it out. And I took a job at a
store on Wickenden Street. Also, it gave me a
moment to decompress and think about
what I wanted to do. And so people have
different pathways. I went to graduate
school at night because I needed to
work while I went to grad school, which is why
I went to BU, because I could do that. So you find that path. And some of it is what-- I think often you can have
a natural sense of what's the right step for you. And you should listen to that. Think about it. If you tend to make bad choices,
maybe don't listen to it. But there will be something. And you go, hm, I thought
I was going there, but that looks
really interesting. When I was 22, I would
never in a million years have told you that I
would have been somebody who is a politician-- never. I grew up with the
Watergate kids. I watched the
destruction of politics. And I would never
have done that. At 39, somebody said, do
you want to run for office? And I went, you know what? I would love to do that. And it was the best
thing I ever did. So listen to that
voice sometimes, especially if you have
the ability to do it. Because it can be some of
the most rewarding choices that you make. Other questions? Yeah? Hi, so I have a
question for Elizabeth, just to respond
to Deborah's point about getting out on top, so
working in an administration-- I'm sliding at the moment. But go ahead, I'm sorry. I'm considering a career with
State Department as well, and now I have to
reconsider whether I do want to work in
an administration that I don't align with. So to what extent is
that contradictory? How should you
follow your passions versus knowing that
it might not be the best move from upward
mobility standpoint? Well good question. I guess everyone-- So I will be honest and say
that I made several choices that probably weren't the best
move from an upward mobility perspective. But then because I was able
to turn them into that, they did become that, right? So don't underestimate the
value luck, but also hard work. You'll be surprised,
when you get out there in the big world-- a lot of people actually
don't work that hard. If you're willing to work hard-- That's true. --you can accomplish a lot. And I discovered
in politics there's a lot of people who
don't work hard. And I love complicated
public policy. And legislatures are not
full of people who love that. So I was able to be
really successful. Because I would work
really hard on figuring out how we wanted to do whatever
it was in health insurance regulation-- the kind of
stuff most people their eyes glaze over. So the other thing that I
want to mention to you, when you say I'm interested in
Foreign Service, but thinking about this administration and
how could I possibly do that-- so I have been in
political environments that I was uncomfortable in. And I actually always felt
I worked for the public, not for the government. And it was my job to make
my part of government the best it could be. I was in some leadership
structures in the legislature where I was like, hm. I ended up in the back of the
state police because a guy that I worked for ended up
arrested and going to jail. I never knew. But it was not a
comfortable thing. But the work I did
on that committee was actually very good. So you've got to figure
out how you manage yourself and what you're
comfortable and can do. But I'd encourage you,
especially in this environment right now-- which is
a worldwide, I think, not just an American
phenomenon-- if we don't have
people who disagree in positions of authority and
power, then it only gets worse. And the times I wanted
to quit my elected job-- I would have enough of
an ego, I would go home at the end of the legislative
session and I would say, I'm not running again. It's done. I'm done. I don't want to have to
compromise about some things. And then I would sit there,
and I'd go, but if I leave, does somebody better come in? Who's going to speak up on
the issues I care about? And who's going to
fight for those things? And can I also say something
that's politically incorrect? It's OK to have an ego. It's OK to believe that you
offer something valuable and therefore, to
commit to providing that to the broader community. Because that's really a lot of
what public service is about. And I should
clarify what I said. Because I don't think you
can get out of the top unless you're in. Good point. So I think the best
time to get into a job is in a time of chaos. It's not easier, but
you will learn so much. So I would definitely go,
if you were inclined to, and not avoid going because
of what you read is going on. I came into the oil industry
during a time of crisis. I learned so much. I started the Union of
Concerned Scientists when climate change
became a thing. I learned so much. I think the best time to
go in is just at this time. And you will know, if
you feel the time comes, this isn't the right way to go. And then you get out at the
top, because you're already in there. And I wouldn't worry, as a
junior Foreign Service officer, that you're going to
spend your days defending the Trump administration's
foreign policy. Really. I was in during the Vietnam War. And I was assigned to the
Ivory Coast, in West Africa-- Cote d'Ivoire. And all sorts of things that
an embassy does on a day-to-day basis-- consular officer,
various things-- even the political
officers at that embassy didn't have to defend
the Vietnam War. That wasn't their thing. And there are many
ways to rationalize if you disagree with a policy. Your basic position as
a diplomat is to say, this is what they are
saying back in Washington. That's not necessarily
what you're saying. If you act as a
professional, you can do it. Now if you were to get into
the Foreign Service this year, it would probably
take them six months to get a security clearance. Then you'd go through training. Then they'd send you
to language training. By that time, Trump
will be in the past. [LAUGHTER] Other quest-- yes? Well, I'm considering
concentrating in computer science. And I'm interested in the
policy applications of that. Oh, God. I'm realizing the
skill set, though, to build a product versus
be helpful to policy is very different. So what kind of
skills and interests does policy need from
technical people? I think it's just your
very way of thinking. And not everyone in policy
has to be technical. But I've found that for my
mind, the people I love, love solving problems
with and working with are the people that come
to a problem analytically. And that's your brain. So I'd say, your skill
set in the 21st century, with computer science or a
very technical background, for anyone else is probably-- it's vital. It's more than important. Not that everyone
shouldn't considered it from their social, other
important perspectives, but there aren't
enough people, I think, that are technically trained
and minded that go in. So I would say, the
world's your oyster if you end up
going with computer science and public policy. And I will say that
certainly in government now, one of the things-- all of a
sudden, a light bulb went on. And people when, wow, we're
spending a lot of money. And we don't really
know how much of it makes that much of a
difference in a positive or a negative way. So there is a whole
strand of careers now around helping to develop
data, analytic tools to help us understand the impact
of programs and investments that we make. And it is a very
valuable commodity because it is lacking in
government and very necessary. So there are enormous
opportunities. And I think it's also true that
we haven't even quite figured out how to do it yet. So to not only have somebody
with a technical expertise but a way of
thinking differently and more analytically
about the work we do is really, really valuable. Yeah, I actually
just want to add, I wasn't kidding when I said,
I'm an engineer wannabe. I really do believe
that increasingly, the overlap between technical
disciplines computer science, engineering,
and public policy-- that overlap is just getting
more obvious in many ways, in lots of different areas. But just think about cyber-- so yes, of course,
cybersecurity. But where is industrial
innovation today primarily? It's not happening in the
making of physical products, necessarily, but all the
data centric activities surrounding them-- and
even in governance itself, using data analytics. So I would just say, do it. And moving down a computer
science or science and engineering path doesn't
preclude public policy and, in fact, may create
all kinds of opportunities. And just the last self serving,
collectively, plug I would make is, Brown is a good
place to do that. The boundaries between the
sciences, and engineering, and the social sciences-- Watson-- the boundaries,
to the extent they exist, are really porous and flexible. It's a great place to be. Comments? Questions? I just had one last
question for the panel. And you touched on
this a little bit, but I think for most people,
early in their careers-- except for some
very lucky folks-- but early in their careers,
they do kind of crappy work. They do really great work. But the jobs they get are often
not as romantic as we'd like. And a lot of us, when we think
about what do we want to do, we think about it's
more toward the middle or the end of the career, the
very romantic kinds of jobs. So if, maybe when
you started out or if you think about how you
saw others start out, when you're doing an entry
level job that's not really your dream, how do you
use that opportunity? How do you network? How do you create opportunities
from a starting point, rather than the more
romantic side of things? I think you listen and you learn
and you take every opportunity. If you're, for example,
an intern working in an office for someone
who does a lot of writing, he'll probably ask you to go
off and Xerox something for him, copy something for him. But you have an opportunity
also, just on your own, to write a memo to him. Say, I had this
idea, or that idea. You can show what
talents you have and give some thought to that. People who are good mentors will
encourage that kind of activity when you're young. And there's an old saying that
youth is wasted on the young. Don't waste it. It's all the attitude, really. I think about some of my jobs. OK, I'll tell you
the one that helped me get my job at Chevron. I was a group leader at summer
camp for 37 13-year-old girls. And the fellow hiring me
said, I've got a 13-year-old. And if you can handle 37 of
them, you could do anything. And it had nothing
to do with the job. I was also a roustabout for
an oil company in Louisiana, which taught me so much
about that part of the world. And I was digging
ditches, and cutting carbon out of
compressors, and doing crazy things that were
not necessarily fun, but it was fun. So I think a lot of it is this
yes, this attitude that these are all building blocks. And you start to assemble
what you've learned. And you say yes way
more than you say no. And you find pleasure in
the mundane and the things that you do. And then, all the sudden,
it builds who you are. And it becomes part
of the formulation of how you solve problems. OK. Yeah, and so I my first
kind of mundane job was also one I wasn't
really qualified for. I was an office manager,
which is not my skill set. I've got a staff
member back here who will probably nod at that. I am a good thinker. I'm not always a good
manager and organizer. But I worked really hard. And I was there earlier. And I stayed late. And I did whatever
need to get done. And then somebody
from another area, who had a job much more
suited to my skills-- which is to do
clinical research-- came and said, we want to
hire you to come over and do clinical research. So I'm within the
same organization. But because they're
watching me do what I do, which wasn't
particularly interesting, they're like, whoa, but
we can use that person to do a different job, here
in the same organization. And I have to say, sometimes
those jobs can be-- you usually have
a group of people who are doing those jobs. It may seem mundane. But it's also a way
to build the team. And often, members of those team
move up in the organization, alongside you. And will be that people-- it's like your roommates. They're the people that you know
as you move forward and build your network. So I don't know. I look back fondly on some
of my less than exciting jobs of the past. I loved being a
waitress, for example. I had that moment. I was a supermarket
checker outer. Right. I loved that one too. So the other thing is to realize
that in the most mundane job, you learn things-- absolutely learn things
that will serve you. I learned things as a waitress
that serve me well now. But even in my first entry level
career job, I learned skills. I learned some new data analytic
skills that I didn't have. You just take
advantage to learn. Because that learning will
carry through for you. Great. Any final questions? Can I just make one-- Yeah, please, Brian. --piece of advice. Be ambitious. But wherever you are, do the
best possible job you can do, whether it's mundane or not. Because so many
people-- and I've had people when I was
Assistant Secretary of State, who kept looking for
the next best job. And they didn't do
the job they were in. That's a big fault
of a lot of people. They're so ambitious
that they show it. Be ambitious but don't show it. Do the best possible job
you can, wherever you are. And if you are working
for the right people, they'll reward you. Don't worry. So this is for giving advice. So here's mine--
enjoy your work. And if you don't enjoy your
job, find a different job. The one job I didn't
like, it actually impacted my whole life. And I realized, I
need to change jobs. And I did. And things were better. Enjoy your work. Because then it's not
work, it's your life. And if you don't
like your job, it's just tough to get up and want
to go and make a difference. So enjoy it. It's a big part of your life. So you should enjoy it. Fantastic. And on that note, let's all
thank Elizabeth Roberts, Debbie Gordon, and Brian Atwood.
