Secretary of the Navy to Speak on Leadership

Posted on Oct. 11, 2012

Secretary of the U.S. Navy Ray Mabus will present “Leadership in Service,” the 2012 Deil S. Wright Lecture, at UNC on Nov. 1. The free public lecture will begin at 3 p.m. at the Paul Green Theatre on Country Club Road.

Mabus leads America’s Navy and Marine Corps and is responsible for an annual budget in excess of $150 billion and almost 900,000 people. He has served in a variety of top posts in government and the private sector. As governor of Mississippi, he was named a Top 10 Education Governor by Fortune magazine. He served as ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the Clinton Administration, and he was chair and chief executive officer of Foamex, a large manufacturing company. Before becoming governor, he was elected state auditor of Mississippi and served as an officer in the U.S. Navy.

In June 2010, President Barack Obama asked Mabus to prepare a long-term recovery plan for the Gulf of Mexico in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. His report on the disaster was met with broad bipartisan support.

Mabus earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mississippi, a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and a law degree from Harvard Law School. The lecture is hosted by the School of Government and the master of public administration program and is sponsored by the MPA Alumni Association and Fidelity Investments.

The lecture series is named in memory of Deil S. Wright, professor emeritus of political science, a prolific researcher and writer, and one of the founders of the MPA program at Carolina.

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