Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program
About
Dan Glickman is the Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program, a nongovernmental, nonpartisan educational program for members of the United States Congress.
He served as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from March 1995 until January 2001. Under his leadership, the Department administered farm and conservation programs; modernized food safety regulations; forged international trade agreements to expand U.S. markets; and improved its commitment to fairness and equality in civil rights.
Before his appointment as Secretary of Agriculture, Glickman served for 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the 4th Congressional District of Kansas. During that time, he was a member of the House Agriculture Committee, including six years as chairman of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over federal farm policy issues. Moreover, he was an active member of the House Judiciary Committee; chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; and was a leading congressional expert on general aviation policy.
Glickman is also a Senior Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The BPC was formed in 2007 by former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell to develop and promote bipartisan solutions to the country’s problems and to promote civility in government.
Glickman served as Chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) from 2004 until 2010.
Prior to joining the MPAA, he was the Director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (2002-2004).
Before his election to Congress in 1976, Glickman served as president of the Wichita School Board; was a partner in the law firm of Sargent, Klenda and Glickman; and worked as a trial attorney at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He received his Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Michigan and his J.D. from The George Washington University. He is a member of the Kansas and District of Columbia Bars.
Glickman is also on the board of directors of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange; Communities in Schools; Food Research and Action Center, a domestic anti-hunger organization; National 4-H Council; and the Center for U.S. Global Engagement, where he is Chair of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. He co-chairs an initiative of eight foundations, administered by the Meridian Institute, to look at long-term implications of food and agricultural policy. He chairs an initiative at the Institute of Medicine on accelerating progress on childhood obesity. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a senior fellow of the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, the Council on American Politics at The Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University, and is Vice-Chair of the World Food Program-USA. He is the co-chair of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ global agricultural development initiative. He is the author of “Farm Futures,” in Foreign Affairs (May/June 2009).
