Page 48 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

CONNECTIONS: A LIFETIME OF FELLOWSHIP

ON GOOD ADVICE FROM FELLOW FELLOWS
During his Fellowship, Sam Brownback (WHF 90–91) was assigned to the
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. At the conclusion of his year in
Washington, he returned to his previous position as Kansas’s secretary of
agriculture. But only three years after completing his Fellowship, Brown-
back revisited Washington, D.C., with a new title: U.S. representative from
the Second Congressional District of Kansas. Brownback credits his White
House Fellowship with helping him gain a quick and firm footing on
Capitol Hill after his election. “In 1994, I was part of the biggest class of
freshmen in the U.S. Congress since 1974, when Tim Wirth (WHF 68–69)
and seventy-four other Democrats came to Washington in the aftermath
of Watergate,” Brownback explained.

“Before we took office, I asked several people in Washington for advice,
including Paul Gigot (WHF 86–87), who was editorial page editor of the Wall
Street Journal. The advice was to act quickly because our power would be
strongest immediately following our election. But this was also the time when
our knowledge level was generally the weakest. However, I got out of the
blocks fast because the Fellows program had already given me an idea of how
Washington works. I already had relationships, and I already had insight and
a sense of how to push the system.” His early accomplishments as a member
of Congress launched his successful bid in 1996 for the U.S. Senate seat
vacated by Bob Dole, who had resigned to focus on his presidential campaign.
When Brownback ran for president in 2008, he again called upon lessons
learned during his Fellowship year. “It gave me the big world picture. Meet-
ing with so many intriguing people—it just gave me a view of how the world
works, so when I was running for president I had some notion of how the
whole system pulls together—or pulls apart. It was a fabulous experience.”

A STEALTHY FELLOWSHIP CONNECTION
Few people have had a greater impact on the modern era than electrical engi-
neer extraordinaire George Heilmeier (WHF 70–71). At RCA Laboratories
in the 1960s, he developed the first liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) for use in
computers, watches, calculators, and instrumentation, an innovation that
earned him the prestigious Kyoto Prize, the Japanese equivalent of the Nobel
Prize. If you own a laptop computer or a flat-screen television, you can thank
Heilmeier for creating the display. If you use a digital camera, modem, or

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