2012 Leadership Conference Speakers

Staff Sergeant Giunta

Staff Sergeant Giunta was awarded the Medal of Honor on 16 November 2010. Staff Sgt. Giunta was the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor for service in Iraq or Afghanistan, the first living service member to be awarded the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War, and the eighth service member to receive the nation's highest military decoration for valor in Iraq and Afghanistan

Staff Sgt. Giunta was raised in Cedar Rapids and Hiawatha, Iowa.  He enlisted in the U.S. Army in November 2003. He attended Infantry One Station Unit Training and the Basic Airborne Course at Fort Benning, Georgia, before being assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, Vicenza, Italy, on May 24, 2004.

Staff Sgt. Giunta, who was promoted to his current rank in August 2009, has served in B (Battle) Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, V Corps, Vicenza, Italy, his entire time in the Army. He currently serves as the Rear Detachment Non-commissioned Officer-in-Charge (NCOIC) of Battle Company, responsible for the health, welfare, morale, training, and accountability of all assigned Sky Soldiers, and works side-by-side with other Rear Detachment Company NCOICs to ensure all unit family members are well taken care of while their Soldier spouse is deployed to Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom X.

Staff Sgt. Giunta's professionalism and proficiency is further demonstrated by his graduation from the NBC (Nuclear, Chemical, Biological) Defense Course, Unit Armorer's Course, Combat Lifesaver Course, Warrior Leader Course, and Rear Detachment Leaders Course, in addition to the Italian Airborne School.

Staff Sgt. Giunta has participated in seven training deployments to Germany and two training deployments to the Joint Multinational Readiness Center, Hohenfels, Germany. He also participated in two combat deployments to Afghanistan. His first combat deployment was during Operation Enduring Freedom VI, March 2005 to March 2006. His second combat deployment to Afghanistan was during Operation Enduring Freedom VIII, May 2007 to July 2008. During this second deployment, on October 25, 2007, Staff Sgt. Giunta's platoon (in which he was then a specialist serving as a rifle team leader) was ambushed in the rugged Korengal Valley of eastern Afghanistan. For his extraordinary gallantry, unrivalled courage, and selfless leadership in action that day, Staff Sgt. Giunta was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama in a White House ceremony on November 16, 2010. The White House described how Staff Sgt. Giunta earned the Medal of Honor:

"Then-Specialist Salvatore A. Giunta distinguished himself by acts of gallantry at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a rifle team leader with Company B, 2d Battalion (Airborne), 503d Infantry Regiment during combat operations against an armed enemy in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan on October 25, 2007.

When an insurgent force split Specialist Giunta's squad into two groups, he exposed himself to enemy fire to pull a comrade back to cover. Later, while engaging the enemy and attempting to link up with the rest of his squad, Specialist Giunta noticed two insurgents carrying away a fellow soldier. He immediately engaged the enemy, killing one and wounding the other, and provided medical aid to his wounded comrade while the rest of his squad caught up and provided security. His courage and leadership while under extreme enemy fire were integral to his platoon's ability [to] defeat an enemy ambush and recover a fellow paratrooper from enemy hands."

[Biographical information from http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/giunta/profile.html]

Louis Freeh

Former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

Louis Freeh was dubbed “the singularly best-suited person in America to run the FBI” by former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and “a law enforcement legend” by President Clinton, who appointed him director in 1993.
Heralded for transforming the FBI from a national law-enforcement agency to a global-security institution, Freeh doubled the number of bureau branches worldwide. During his eight-year tenure, crime—like so many other industries of that era—became globalized. He visited 62 countries and met with more than 2000 foreign leaders while increasing the FBI’s focus on counterintelligence, cyber crime, DNA technology and electronic surveillance. Indeed, holding the position of FBI chief from September 1993 to June 2001 put him at the forefront of a global war with terrorists.

Freeh’s best-selling book, “My FBI: Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror” (St. Martin’s Press, 2005), chronicles his efforts to reform, fortify and strengthen the bureau while ensuring its freedom from political interference. Landmark investigations and prosecutions for which he’s been recognized include: the Oklahoma City bombing, Waco, the Unabomber, the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, Robert Hanssen and the “Pizza Connection” mafia case.

After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers University, and earning his Juris Doctor (JD) degree from Rutgers Law and Master of Laws (LLM) from New York University School of Law, Freeh began his career in law enforcement as an FBI Special Agent—based in New York City and at headquarters in Washington, D.C. Freeh joined the United State’s Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York, and after being appointed Deputy U.S. Attorney, he was appointed by President George H.W. Bush as the US District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York. Freeh served on the federal bench until his appointment as Director of the FBI by President Clinton.

Freeh has served as MBNA America Bank’s Vice Chairman, General Counsel, Ethics Officer and Principal Lawyer through Bank of America’s $35 billion acquisition of MBNA.

Currently CEO of Freeh Group International, a global consulting enterprise, Freeh provides strategic guidance on legal and corporate affairs, business ethics, evaluating risk, homeland security strategies and worldwide government relations. In addition to FGIS, Freeh is the vision behind global law firm Freeh Sporkin Sullivan, LLP, a unique team of former judges and law enforcement officials providing legal counsel, analysis and management consulting services.

Freeh sits on the boards of several public companies as a lead director and Chairman of the Governance Committee. His consulting and legal practices are heavily engaged in corporate governance and compliance issues, and he is a court-appointed monitor overseeing corporate compliance with a USDOJ/SEC settlement.

In his presentation, Freeh recounts his experiences with high-profile criminal cases to deliver fascinating stories from the most secure depths of Washington and beyond. He also offers compelling expertise and counsel on confronting the security/privacy issues facing today’s complex world. An expert on corporate governance and financial disclosure (including the Sarbanes Oxley Act), his private-sector experience also offers a unique perspective into corporate ethics, government relations, risk and global security that is crucial to corporate practice in the 21st century.

A first lieutenant in the U.S. Army JAG Corps Reserve, he currently resides in Delaware with his wife, Marilyn. 

[Bio courtesy of http://www.greatertalent.com/LouisFreeh/] 

Kathleen M. Rice  

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice brings experience, passion and dedication to the role of chief law enforcement official for one of the nation’s largest and safest counties. Upon taking office in 2006, Rice immediately began to modernize a district attorney’s office that serves Nassau County’s diverse population of 1.3 million residents.

In keeping the central promise she made during her historic 2005 run for office, Rice wasted no time in tackling the epidemic of drunk-driving on Long Island. Months after taking office, Rice overhauled the office’s DWI plea bargaining guidelines and created a comprehensive and unprecedented drunk-driving education program for Nassau’s high schools. Later that year, Rice and the courts agreed to open a DWI court, allowing specially trained prosecutors and judges to efficiently manage thousands of drunk-driving cases on a case-by-case basis each year.

Rice’s office has obtained murder and manslaughter convictions for drunk drivers who kill and she has drafted and lobbied successfully for legislation to toughen the penalties for the ‘worst of the worst’ drunk drivers in New York State.

In addition to her nationally recognized fight against drunk driving, Rice has worked hard to modernize the office and to reallocate resources to fight modern crime in Nassau County.

During her first two years in office, Rice has reallocated a significant amount of resources to the investigation and prosecution of public corruption. Her administration has moved to aggressively root out corruption in our schools and local governments.

Rice has also beefed up the resources used in the investigation of sexual predators preying on children using the Internet. In addition to refusing to plea bargain on child sexual predator cases, Rice has vigorously lobbied the state legislature to close the loopholes in the law and to toughen the penalties for criminals who prey on our children.

Rice has revamped bureaus dedicated to the protection of children and the elderly and to the prosecution of domestic violence. Rice has added specialized resources to the investigation of identity theft rings and consumer frauds and she has formed a specialized unit dedicated to the investigation of Medicaid fraud, the first of its kind in Nassau County.

Prior to becoming the first woman in Long Island’s history to be elected district attorney, Rice served as an Assistant United States Attorney under Attorney General Janet Reno in the United States Department of Justice’s Philadelphia office. During her more than five years as a federal prosecutor, Rice prosecuted cases of corporate fraud, deadbeat parents and public corruption, as well as federal drug and gun cases.

Rice began her career as a prosecutor in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, where she prosecuted cases of domestic violence, sexual assault and armed robbery, before being promoted to the office’s elite Homicide Bureau, where Rice successfully prosecuted dozens of murder cases.

Rice has received numerous awards and recognition for her service as a state and federal prosecutor. Rice has been the recipient of the United States Inspector General’s Integrity Award and the United States Attorney General’s Director’s Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. As District Attorney, Rice has been honored by Touro University, the North Shore Animal League, the National Organization of Women, and 100 Black Men of Long Island, among many others.

Rice is the 3rd Vice President of the District Attorney Association of the State of New York, a member of the New York State and Nassau County Bar Associations, the National District Attorneys Association and the Board of Governors at Touro Law School, and a board member of New York Prosecutors Training Institute, Inc.

Kathleen Rice is a graduate of Garden City High School, Catholic University of America and Touro Law School. She is a resident of Locust Valley, New York.

[Bio courtesy of http://www.nassauda.org/] 

James B. Stewart

Business Columnist for The New York Times and bestselling author, James B. Stewart combines the skills of an investigative reporter with the style and sensibility of a novelist, examining events in finance, law and politics that shape American society. The San Francisco Examiner called him “the journalist every journalist would like to be,” and in 2010 The Daily Beast named him one of the 15 "most important writers on business and economics."

Stewart's “Common Sense” column, which appears weekly in the Business Day section of the Times, features his insights about corporate America and Wall Street. Throughout his career, he has explored the use and abuse of power at the highest levels of business and government, from his Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal articles on the 1987 stock market crash to pieces about Enron, Whitewater, Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski and corporate governance.

A reporter-at-large for The New Yorker and formerly a columnist for The Wall Street Journal and Editor-at-Large for SmartMoney, Stewart has written penetrating profiles of Michael Milken, Blackstone Group's Stephen Schwarzman, and Jérôme Kerviel, the rogue trader who lost billions of euros for Société Générale. His acclaimed New Yorker cover story, "Eight Days: The Battle to Save the American Financial System," which included revealing interviews with Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner, captured the fierce arguments and panicked dealmaking behind the scenes that brought about unprecedented government intervention following the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

His New York Times bestseller, DisneyWar, won the Loeb Award for Best Business Book and was named one of the best books of the year by Barron’s. Stewart’s Heart of a Soldier was named “Best Book about 9/11” by TIME. His other bestsellers include Blood Sport, Blind Eye and Den of Thieves, the definitive account of 1980s Wall Street insider trading scandals.

His latest book, Tangled Webs: How False Statements are Undermining America: From Martha Stewart to Bernie Madoff (April 2011), is an investigation of the perjury epidemic in America, which he suggests is symptomatic of an alarming breakdown of ethics that compromises our judicial system as well as business, government, academia and medicine.

A Harvard-educated lawyer and the former Executive Editor of American Lawyer magazine, Stewart is the Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

[Bio courtesy of www.roycecarlton.com]

Eric M. Anderman, Ph.D. 

Dr. Anderman is a professor of Educational Psychology and Interim Director at the School of Educational Policy and Leadership at The Ohio State University.  Dr. Anderman received his Ph.D. in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan in 1994. He received his Master's Degree in Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1992, a Ed.M. in Education from Harvard in '86, and a B.S., Magna Cum Laude, from Tufts University in Psychology and Spanish in '85.

Dr. Anderman's scholarly interests include academic motivation; adolescent development; prevention of risky behaviors in adolescent populations; and research methods in social science.  He is the author of "Classroom motivation" and co-editor of  the following publications: "International handbook of student achievement," "Psychology of classroom learning: An encyclopedia," and "Psychology of academic cheating." 

[Professional Information courtesy of: http://ehe.osu.edu/epl/directory/eric-anderman/]

 

David Callahan, Ph.D.

David Callahan, Ph.D., a co-founder of the think tank Demos, has written extensively about American values, business, and public policy. He is author of The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead.

Since its publication, The Cheating Culture has received wide attention and been reviewed or mentioned in hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. (Read Chapter One) David has also appeared on numerous television and radio programs to discuss the book. His lectures about The Cheating Culture have taken him to over thirty states, where he has spoken on ethics and integrity to scores of universities, business groups, churches, and civic organizations.

In addition to The Cheating Culture, David is author of The Moral Center, which explores how America can move beyond the partisan culture war and come together around a set of shared values that emphasize both mutual obligation and personal responsibility. Most recently, he is the author of Fortunes of Change: The Rise of the Liberal Rich and the Remaking of America, which looks at how American business leaders and heirs are increasingly embracing such values as environmental sustainability, shared economic opportunity, and multiculturalism. David also wrote about values in the business world and economic trends in another book, Kindred Spirits: Harvard Business School's Extraordinary Class of 1949 and How They Transformed American Business.

David’s numerous articles have been published in such places as The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Foreign Policy, The Nation, and The American Prospect. He has been a frequent commentator on television programs on CNN, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, and Fox News, and has been a regular guest on radio talk shows across the United States, including appearances such NPR programs as Morning Edition and the Tavis Smiley Show.

David is currently a Senior Fellow at Demos, a public policy center based in New York City that he co-founded in 1999. In his various positions at Demos, David has written numerous research and policy reports on a wide range of public issues. Previous to co-founding Demos, David was a Fellow at the Century Foundation from 1994 to 1999, where he principally focused on issues of U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. He is the author of three books in this area: Dangerous Capabilities: Paul Nitze and the Cold War; Unwinnable Wars: American Power and Ethnic Conflict; and Between Two Worlds: Realism, Idealism, and American Foreign Policy After the Cold War. David is also the author of a critically acclaimed political thriller novel, State of the Union.


David went to public high school in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York and received his B.A. at Hampshire College and his PhD in Politics at Princeton University.

[Biographical information from http://www.cheatingculture.com/aboutdavidcallahanhtm/]

Pamela Meyer

Pamela Meyer holds an MBA from Harvard, an MA in Public Policy from Claremont Graduate School, and is a Certified Fraud Examiner. She has extensive training in the use of visual clues and psychology to detect deception.

Pamela’s mission is to help people become more accurate at finding the truth. In her best-selling book, Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception, Meyer teaches you how to go from lie-spotting to truth-seeking to trust-building. Featured in: Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Forbes.

The lie-detection skills Meyer has mastered reveals the deception epidemic plaguing our society. Studies show that you encounter an average of 10-200 lies per day. As a result, Meyer believes that everything a CIA operative knows about deception, should be known by all of us. At her private consulting firm, she trains corporate executives on facial micro-expression reading, advanced interrogation techniques, body language analysis, and behavior elicitation techniques.
 
Used by business executives to identify the truth in high-stakes situations, the techniques Meyer teaches are pertinent to managers, investment professionals, lawyers, insurance professionals, medical professionals, and any corporate environment where the truth is an essential part of business. After a session with Pamela Meyer, you’ll be armed with tools for better buying, protecting, interviewing, and negotiating.

In her keynote speech, Pamela Meyer provides her audience with detailed scientific findings on which personality types lie, how deception is expressed in e-mail, on the phone, and in person, and how to detect deception through body language. You will also learn about statement analysis, interviewing techniques, and interrogation, and about how negotiations can gain the upper hand and close deals that last, by mastering deception detection techniques. In a multimedia presentation featuring real-life examples, Meyer keeps her audience laughing while they learn, and she presents a path toward trust that emphasizes integrity, maturity, honesty.

[Bio courtesy of http://www.robinsonspeakers.com/pamela-meyer-speaker-speech]

Tamera Murdock, Ph.D.

Tamera B. Murdock, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on motivation and applied statistics. She is a member of the executive committee of the Kansas City Area Educational Research Consortium (KC-AERC), which brings together scholars from four research universities and over 20 school districts to conduct research relevant to P-20 education in the Kansas City region.
 
Dr. Murdock’s research focuses on individual and contextual factors that influence high school and college students’ motivation, achievement and behavior, including their cheating behavior. Grants from the Spencer Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Kauffman Foundation and the University of Missouri Research Board have supported her research.

Dr. Murdock’s work has appeared in many notable journals in educational psychology including the Journal of Educational Psychology, Contemporary Educational Psychology, and the Educational Psychologist.

She serves or has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Educational Psychology, Child Development, Educational Psychology Review and the Journal of Educational Research and was an executive editor of the Journal of Experimental Education. Along with Eric Anderman, she edited the 2007 Psychology of Academic Cheating which was published by Academic Press.