Showing 361 - 370 of 436 Items
Date: 2008-08-22
Creator: Seth W Brewster
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Seth Brewster was born on January 8, 1960, in Worcester, Massachusetts, and grew up in Manchester, Maine, where his father worked for Central Maine Power. He attended local public school until his junior year of high school, when he transferred to Deerfield Academy. He was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1982 with a double major in engineering sciences and economics. After college he worked for Arthur Andersen Consulting, based in New York City. He attended law school in Boston and took the bar exam in Massachusetts and Maine. In 1991, he pursued an opportunity to work for Senator Mitchell in Washington, D.C. as a trade legislative aide. He remained in that position until Mitchell decided not to seek reelection in 1994. In early 1995, he joined Verrill Dana, a law firm in Portland, Maine, where he remained at the time of this interview.
Summary
Interview includes discussions of: Kent’s Hill School; Deerfield Academy; Dartmouth College and Dartmouth culture; the modern pentathlon; Arthur Andersen Consulting; clerkship for Judge William G. Young; the Levasseur case; the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; Senator Mitchell’s role in passing the NAFTA as majority leader; the responsibilities of a trade legislative aide; Mitchell’s decision to resign from the Senate; commercial and anti-trust litigation in Maine and how that ties in with Brewster’s work on the Hill; and an anecdote about being introduced to President Clinton by Senator Mitchell.
Date: 2008-03-06
Creator: Colleen Quint
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Colleen Quint was born on September 22, 1963. She grew up in Portland, Maine, attended Deering High School, and Bates College, graduating in 1985. She first met Senator Mitchell in the fall of 1985 while working as an intern in his Washington, D.C. office. She worked at the Christian Science Monitor for three years as editor for Western Europe and Great Britain, then returned to Maine for law school and practiced law for ten years. She is married to Bill Hiss, who was involved in the founding of the Mitchell Institute. At the time of this interview she was executive director of the Mitchell Institute.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: family and educational background; growing up in Portland, Maine; working as an intern in Senator Mitchell’s office in Washington D.C.; Samantha Smith legislation; working for the Christian Science Monitor; clerkship with Thomas Delahanty; Attorney General’s Office legal work; Bowdoin College fraternity policies; Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA]; the creation of the Mitchell Institute; running into George Mitchell at the airport and his great memory; the environment that many Mitchell Scholars come from; and the development of the Mitchell Institute.
Date: 2008-11-21
Creator: Christine G Williams
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Christine G. Williams was born January 20, 1952, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Adelaide and Donald Williams, a Methodist minister. She earned a degree in history from Boston University. As a VISTA volunteer she taught on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota before returning to New England to teach at Brunswick High School in Brunswick, Maine, for the 1975-1976 school year. Subsequently, after teaching in New Hampshire for four years, she was hired by George Mitchell’s U.S. Senate office in 1982 and worked there until 1994, focusing on health care issues in the latter years. She later went to work for the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: teaching social studies; working for Senator Mitchell; changes when Mitchell became chair of the Health Subcommittee of the Finance Committee; Robert Wood Johnson Fellows and staff in Mitchell’s office; involvement in Health Care Reform and the bill they wrote; changes when Mitchell became Senate majority leader; Clinton’s election and what could have been done better for health reform; the task force on the Clinton health reform bill; work on health care legislation and how the bill was finally defeated; other health legislation; the question of bipartisanship; her wedding; Mitchell’s retirement; appreciation and understanding of Maine people, Maine’s health care; ambience of Mitchell’s office and what it was like working there; Mitchell’s temperament, professionalism, and personality; Mitchell’s contributions to the Senate and leadership; Mitchell’s election to majority leader; involvement with the Mitchell Institute scholarship program; Mitchell and long term care; and federal recognition for the Micmacs.
Date: 2014-11-17
Creator: Barbara Kates, Stephanie Bailey, Maria Girouard, Arla Patch, Wenona Lola, Esther Attean
Access: Open access
Date: 2014-11-13
Creator: Adele Moore, Stephanie Bailey, Garry Moore, Lynn Mitchell
Access: Open access
Date: 2010-05-04
Creator: Barbara A Mikulski
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Barbara Ann Mikulski was born on July 20, 1936, and grew up in the Highlandtown neighborhood of East Baltimore, Maryland. She attended Mount Saint Agnes College and received her M.S.W. from the University of Maryland School of Social Work. She became a social worker, community organizer, and Baltimore city councilor, and she made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 1974 before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976. After serving in the House for ten years, she ran for the U.S. Senate in 1986, becoming the first elected woman Democratic U.S. senator. She has won numerous re-elections and continued to serve in the Senate as its longest-serving female senator at the time of this interview.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Mikulski’s run for the Senate in 1986 and Mitchell’s DSCC role in supporting her campaign; Mitchell dancing with Mikulski at a fund raiser; Mikulski’s reception in the Senate as a female senator; Mikulski-Mitchell ‘spousal impoverishment’ amendment; committee assignments during Mikulski’s first term; women in Congress; DSCC Women’s Senate Network; women’s issues worth legislating and fighting for in the Senate; Mitchell’s qualities as a leader; common constituent interests among ‘coastal senators;’ NAFTA; how Mitchell related to women; Mikulski’s reaction to Mitchell’s retirement from the Senate; Mitchell’s legacy as Senate leader.
Date: 2009-09-29
Creator: Daniel 'Dan' E Wathen
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Daniel E. "Dan" Wathen was born November 4, 1939, in Easton, Maine, to Wilda (Persis) and Joseph Jackson Wathen. He was graduated from Easton High School and Ricker College in Houlton, Maine (1962), the University of Maine School of Law (1965), and the University of Virginia School of Law (1988). He was appointed to the Maine Superior Court by Governor James B. Longley and served there for four years. He was then appointed justice to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court by Governor John McKernan. He served as justice for ten years, then chief justice for ten more years. Justice Wathen retired from the bench in 2001 and subsequently joined Pierce-Atwood law firm in Portland, Maine.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Dan Wathen’s legal career; practicing law in Augusta; becoming acquainted with George Mitchell through his practice in Maine; his parents’ recollections of George Mitchell; first impression upon meeting Mitchell; Freddy Vahlsing and sugar beet project; Mitchell’s 1974 gubernatorial campaign against James B. Longley; Wathen’s inspiration to be a judge; Mitchell’s judicial temperament; Mitchell’s diplomatic role; and the Mitchell Institute.
Date: 2010-03-18
Creator: Patrick J Leahy
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Patrick Joseph Leahy was born in Montpelier, Vermont, on March 31, 1940. He was graduated from Saint Michael’s College in 1961 and Georgetown Law in 1964. Beginning in 1966, he was elected to four consecutive terms as Vermont state’s attorney in Chittenden County. At the age of 34, he became the youngest U.S. senator ever elected by Vermont, and he is the only elected Democrat from Vermont ever to serve in the U.S. Senate. During the 1980s, he was vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and chairman of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. At the time of this interview, he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a senior member of the Agriculture and Appropriations Committees, ranking second in seniority in the Senate.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Mitchell’s arrival in the Senate and his perceived qualities, especially his negotiating skills; Mitchell’s quick rise to Senate leadership; Mitchell’s decision to retire from the Senate; Mitchell’s potential as a Supreme Court justice.
Date: 2009-09-14
Creator: Robert 'Bob' O Lenna
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Robert Oscar “Bob” Lenna was born in Jamestown, New York, in 1945 to Harry Albert and Babette (Simon) Lenna. He received his undergraduate degree in American studies and his graduate degree in American and New England studies at the University of Southern Maine. In 1970, he worked on the staff of Senator Charles Goodell of New York, then moved to Maine and was hired for a position on George Mitchell’s staff when Mitchell announced his run for U.S. Senate. He later worked for Libby Mitchell.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: family and educational background; working on Mitchell’s 1974 gubernatorial campaign; Lenna’s motivations to get involved in politics in the 1970s; Lenna’s impressions of why Mitchell lost the 1974 campaign; difference Lenna noticed between Mitchell’s 1974 and 1982 campaigns; Mitchell’s legacy; Mitchell’s reaction to Nixon’s pardon; and Libby Mitchell’s career.
Date: 2010-03-02
Creator: Heather M Mitchell
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Heather McLachlan Mitchell was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, and lived in Paris, France, for fifteen years. She was assistant to the executive director of the Association of Tennis Professionals and subsequently represented professional male tennis players. She relocated from Paris to New York and in 1993 met George Mitchell at the U.S. Open. The two were married in 1994. She later worked independently coordinating tennis events. Once their children started school, she began working as a literary agent at Gelfman Schneider.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: connections in Maine when growing up in Quebec; visiting Maine with George Mitchell; visiting Maine with their children; Mitchell’s balance between work and family; Mitchell’s contact with support staff from his Senate days; and Mitchell’s house in D.C.