2001-01-18 Members Named to Board of Kennedy Center for Performing Arts
Press Secretary
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release January 18, 2001
PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES THREE TO
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF
THE JOHN F. KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
President Clinton announced today his intention to appoint William
M. Daley, Vinod Gupta and Jean Kennedy Smith to the Board of Trustees
of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The Honorable William M. Daley, of Chicago, Illinois, served as
Secretary of Commerce from January 1997 to July 2000. From July until
December of this past year he was Chairman, Gore-Lieberman 2000
Campaign, and is now in private business in Washington, D.C. In 1993
Secretary Daley served as Special Counsel to the President, coordinating
the successful campaign to pass the historic North American Free Trade
Agreement. A long-time Chicago resident, he was a partner in the law
firm of Mayer, Brown & Platt, President and Chief Operating Officer of
Amalgamated Bank of Chicago and active in many Chicago, community
projects. Secretary Daley received a B.A. from Loyola University and an
LLB from John Marshall Law School.
Mr. Vinod Gupta, of Omaha, Nebraska, is the Founder, Chairman and
CEO of American Business Information, Inc. He also has been a strong
supporter of education, having helped establish and fund a minority
scholarship fund for science and engineering students and an institute
for small business management at the University of Nebraska. In 1994,
he provided funding to establish a School of Business Management at the
Indian Institute of Technology in his native country of India.
Additionally, Mr. Gupta serves on the Boards of Directors of the
Nebraska Methodist Hospital Foundation, the Brownell-Talbot College
Preparatory School and Sitel Corporation.
The Honorable Jean Kennedy Smith, of New York City, New York,
served as United States Ambassador to Ireland from June 1993 to
September 1998. Since 1964, she has served as a member of the Board of
Trustees of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation, which provides grants
to promote awareness and advocacy in the field of mental retardation.
In 1974, Ambassador Smith founded Very Special Arts (VSA), an
international program that provides opportunities in the creative arts
for people with disabilities. Her book, Chronicles of Courage: Very
Special Arts, written in collaboration with George Plimpton, was
published in 1993. Ambassador Smith also served on the Board of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She has received a number
of honorary degrees and awards, including the Jefferson Award for
Outstanding Public Service, the Margaret Mead Humanitarian Award, the
1997 Terence Cardinal Cooke Humanitarian Award and the 1999 Heffernan
Fellow Distinction at Harvard University's Institute of Politics.
The Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts is responsible for the maintenance and administration of
the Kennedy Center. The Board is charged with four programmatic
mandates: the presentation of classical and contemporary music, opera,
dance and poetry; the presentation of lectures and other programs; the
development of programs for children, youth and the elderly; and the
provision of facilities for civic activities.
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