Page 50 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

CONNECTIONS: A LIFETIME OF FELLOWSHIP

a special assistant to Labor Secretary George Shultz and only three years
later became the youngest person ever appointed to a subcabinet post in
the federal government when he was confirmed as Solicitor of the Depart-
ment of Labor. In 1982, President Reagan appointed him to the Commis-
sion on White House Fellows. Over the years, Kilberg has established quite
a network of Fellows, but there’s one particular relationship from that year
that he cherishes most of all. “I met my wife, Bobbie Greene, who was also
a Fellow my year,” Kilberg explained. “We have been married for thirty-
eight years and have five children and four grandchildren. When we got
engaged on June 12, 1970, at the White House, George Shultz, who was
then director of the Office of Management and Budget, declared that ‘this
is carrying fellowship just a bit too far.’” In all, eleven other couples have
been associated with the White House Fellows program.

THE FELLOWSHIP NETWORK
After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Massachusetts Governor
Jane Swift appointed a special advisory task force to evaluate security meas-
ures at Boston’s Logan International Airport, which was where two of the
four hijacked airplanes originated that day. The task force was asked to
review security operations at the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport),
which ran Logan and other nearby airfields as well as the Port of Boston
and Tobin Bridge. Governor Swift appointed Marshall “Marsh” Carter
(WHF 75–76) to head the commission. Carter had been chairman and
CEO of State Street Bank and Trust Company, but at the time of his
appointment he was a senior fellow and adjunct lecturer at Harvard Uni-
versity’s Kennedy School of Government (he is now deputy chairman of
New York Stock Exchange Euronext). Carter quickly came to the conclu-
sion that Massport’s management structure needed a major renovation, and
his first recommendation to Governor Swift was that the new leader
of Massport be a true CEO and not a political appointee, as had been
the case.
Governor Swift concurred, and Craig Coy (WHF 83–84) was tapped
as Massport’s new CEO. Coy had graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard
Academy, served in the Coast Guard for more than twenty years, gradu-
ated from Harvard Business School with an MBA, and worked as deputy
director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council. He seemed
tailor-made for the job.

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