Page 265 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

BECOMING A WHITE HOUSE FELLOW

ever met,” the man told Porter. “Come with me.” Moments later, Porter
was ushered into a room where he was introduced to Donald Rumsfeld,
Dick Cheney, William Scranton, Rogers Morton, and Jack Marsh: the tran-
sition team that would advise Gerald Ford as he assumed his new duties as
president of the United States. “I was announced to them as their secre-
tary,” Porter recalled. “I spent my first sixteen days as a White House Fel-
low working with the transition team and preparing the report that would
instruct President Ford on how to organize his White House.”
After the transition, Porter served as executive secretary of the Presi-
dent’s Economic Policy Board, a cabinet-level entity that met daily in the
White House and once a week with the president. At the end of his Fel-
lowship year, he accepted President Ford’s request that he stay on for the
duration of his term. Porter returned to the White House during the Rea-
gan administration, serving almost five years in the Office of Policy Devel-
opment. He later spent four years as assistant for economic and domestic
policy for President George H. W. Bush.

A FLY ON PRESIDENT REAGAN’S WALL
One of my White House Fellows classmates, Jonathan George (WHF
88–89), is one of the most humble people I have ever known. A descen-
dant of Quanah Parker, the last chief of the Quahadi Comanche Indian
tribe, George preserves his rich Native American culture through strong
ties with his family. His mother’s job as a counselor for the Bureau of
Indian Affairs required many moves during his childhood, and George
attended sixteen public schools in ten states as a youngster. He is now a
U.S. Air Force brigadier general and a Deputy Administrator for the
National Nuclear Security Administration, and though his achievements
might justify a bit of swagger, he evinces instead a calm, deeply profes-
sional, and modest demeanor. I was not surprised to learn that one of his
greatest memories from our Fellowship year was of sitting quietly in the
Oval Office—a fly on the wall—watching the nation’s most powerful men
sip scotch and discuss the news of the day.

George’s principal, Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng, was an old friend of
President Reagan’s, having served as the Director of Agriculture in California
when Reagan was governor. On Fridays after their work was done at the state
capitol, they often would drive over to a city called Hangtown outside

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