Biographical
Sketches of Members
Performance Measurement Advisory Council
Mortimer L. Downey III | William Eggers | Harry P. Hatry | Donald F. Kettl | Joseph Wright, Jr.
Mortimer L. Downey, III has been named a principal consultant at PBConsult, a Parsons Brinckerhoff subsidiary providing advisory and management consulting services to public and private owners, developers, financers and builders of infrastructure projects worldwide. PBConsult helps decision makers determine how best to develop infrastructure assets, deliver cost-effective physical systems and provide the vital services that build and sustain economic growth.
Mr. Downey held the position of U.S. deputy secretary of transportation for eight years, becoming the longest serving individual in that post. As the Department's chief operating officer, Mr. Downey developed the agency's highly regarded strategic and performance plans and had program responsibilities for operations, regulation and investments in land, sea, air and space transportation. He also served on the President's Management Council, as Chairman of the National Science and Technology's Committee on Technology, as a member of the Trade Promotion Coordinating Council and as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak). In a prior Administration he had served as an Assistant Secretary of the Department.
Previously, Mr. Downey was the executive director and chief financial officer of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the nation's largest independent public authority. Over a 12 year period, he directed MTA capital programs totaling over $20 billion, including development of new public and private financing techniques, and responsibility for oversight of capital project designs, budgets, schedules and performance. He has also worked at the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Budget, and at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Mr. Downey has received numerous professional awards, including election to the National Academy of Public Administration, where he serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors. He was the 1999 recipient of the American Society of Public Administration's Truitt Award for transportation management. He received the Frank Turner Lifetime Achievement award from the Transportation Research Board, a lifetime achievement award from the American Public Transportation Association, the Leadership Award from the Intelligent Transportation Society of America and the Member of the Year Award from the Women's Transportation Seminar. He was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the Eno Transportation Foundation and is serving on the National Academy of Science's Committee on Science & Technology Countermeasures to Terrorism.
A 1958 graduate of Yale University with a B.A. in Political Science, Mr. Downey earned his masters degree in Public Administration from New York University, completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School and served as an officer in the United States Coast Guard Reserve. He resides in Oakton, Virginia.
William Eggers is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Manhattan Institute (manhattan-institute.org), where he is working on a book on how digital technologies are transforming government.
He is the former Manager of the Texas Performance Review and Project Director for e-Texas, a state initiative charged with developing recommendations to save tax dollars, increase the use of technology, improve customer service and inject private-sector competition into state services.
Eggers managed performance reviews of Texas government that identified over $2.5 billion worth of savings and non-tax revenues for the state. Over 60 percent of the recommendations in the reviews were enacted into law. Mr. Eggers also served as a Commissioner for the Texas Incentive and Productivity Commission and a designee on the Texas Council on Competitive Government.
In addition, Eggers was the Chair of the Government Reform Policy Committee for then Governor George W. Bush during his presidential campaign. In this capacity he coordinated research for the campaign in e-government, privatization, civil service reform, government performance, procurement and other cross-cutting policy areas.
Mr. Eggers is the former Director of Government Reform at the Reason Public Policy Institute, a Los Angeles-based think tank. A nationally recognized expert on government reform, Eggers is the 1996 winner of the prestigious Roe Award for leadership and innovation in public policy research. Mr. Eggers is also the co-author of Revolution at the Roots: Making our Government Smaller, Better, and Closer to Home (The Free Press). The book was named the winner of the 1996 Sir Anthony Fisher International Memorial Award for the book "making the greatest contribution to the understanding of the free economy during the past two years." Prior to joining the Reason Foundation, Mr. Eggers assisted reformers in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union with the transition from socialist to free-market economies as a policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Mr. Eggers has advised dozens of cities, states, and foreign countries and trained hundreds of public officials on restructuring government.
Mr. Eggers graduated magna cum laude from the University of California at San Diego.
Harry P. Hatry is a Principal Research Associate and Director of the Public Management Program for The Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. He has been a leader in developing performance management/measurement and evaluation procedures for public agencies since 1970. He has worked with federal, state, and local agencies to develop outcome measurement procedures for a wide variety of public services.
He has provided assistance on Government Performance and Results Act-related activities to the U.S. Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services, and the Environmental Protection Agency's National Estuary Program. He assisted a consortium of 35 large U.S. cities and counties to develop comparative performance information, establish benchmarks, and provide best-practice information on a number of basic municipal services. He recently assisted the United Way of American to develop training materials on outcome monitoring for private, non-governmental, human service agencies.
He is a fellow at the National Academy of Public Administration. He was a member of the U.S. Department of Education's external Evaluation Review (Advisory) Panel. He is a member of the United Way of Americas Task Force on Outcome Measurement.
Donald F. Kettl is Professor of Public Affairs and Political Science at the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also Nonresident Senior Fellow in Washington's Brookings Institution. Kettl recently chaired the Wisconsin Governor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Campaign Finance Reform and the Wisconsin Governor's Blue Ribbon Commission on State-Local Partnerships for the 21st Century.
Professor Kettl is a student of public policy and public management, specializing in the design and performance of public organizations. He has appeared on national television on shows ranging from Good Morning America and the CBS Evening News to public television's News Hour, and on talk radio shows around the country. He has testified frequently at congressional hearings in Washington and contributed to op-ed pages in major newspapers, including The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and The Los Angeles Times. He also contributes a regular column to Governing magazine, "Potomac Chronicles," which is read by leading state and local government officials around the country.
Professor Kettl is the author or editor of a dozen books and monographs, including:
" The Transformation of Governance
" Environmental Governance: A Report on the Next Generation of Environmental
Policy
" The Global Public Management Revolution: A Report on the Transformation
of Governance
" Reinventing Government: A Fifth-Year Report Card
" Civil Service Reform: Building a Government that Works
" Sharing Power: Public Governance and Private Markets
" Deficit Politics; and
" Leadership at the Fed.
He has also published widely in professional journals.
He has consulted for a broad array of public organizations, including the U.S. Departments of Defense, Energy, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury; the Forest Service, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Budget, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal National Mortgage Association, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Commission on the Public Service (Volcker Commission), and the National Commission the State and Local Public Service (Winter Commission). He has advised the White House during both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Prior to his appointment at the University of Wisconsin, Professor Kettl taught at Vanderbilt University, the University of Virginia, and Columbia University. Professor Kettl has earned his bachelor's and doctorate degrees from Yale University. He is a fellow of Phi Beta Kappa and the National Academy of Public Administration. He is also a shareholder in the Green Bay Packers.
Joseph R. Wright is President and CEO of PanAmSat Corporation, one of the world's largest providers of global satellite-based communications services; servicing video/TV networks, news organizations, telecommunication companies, Internet networks and others around the globe. Prior to joining PanAmSat in 2001, he was Vice Chairman of Terremark Worldwide, Inc., that develops and operates Internet-fiber based Network Access Point (NAP) centers in Miami, Sao Paulo, and Madrid. Mr. Wright was also Chairman and Director of GRC International, Inc., that provided advanced IT, Internet, and software technologies to government and commercial customers, which was sold to AT&T in 2000. And he was Co-Chairman and Director of Baker & Taylor Holdings, Inc., an international book/video/software distribution and e-commerce company that is majority owned by the Carlyle Group.
Prior to entering the e-commerce and telecommunications world, Mr. Wright was Vice Chairman, EVP and Director of W. R. Grace & Company from 1989 to 1994. Before that, he was Deputy Director then Director of the Federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President Reagan, serving in the Cabinet and the Executive Office of the President from 1982 to 1989. He was one of a few individuals who received the Distinguished Citizens Award from the President. He was also Deputy Secretary of the Department of Commerce, from 1981 to 1982 and was later on the President's Export Council as Chairman of the Export Control Subcommittee. Prior to the 1980's, Mr. Wright was President of Citicorp Retail Services and Retail Consumer Services, credit card subsidiaries of Citibank, following positions in the Federal Departments of Agriculture and Commerce, including acting Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs.
He began his career at Booz, Allen and Hamilton, Inc. where he became one of the youngest Partners and the Division Head of the Growth Services consulting business after receiving an MIA from Yale University and a BS from Colorado School of Mines. In addition to the Boards mentioned above, Mr. Wright also currently serves on the Board of Advisors/Directors of AT&T Government Markets, Titan Corporation, Verso Technologies, Terremark Worldwide, Proxim Corporation and Fairmarket. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Council for Excellence in Government, Chief Executives Organization, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Federal Communications Commission's Network Reliability and Interoperability Council and the New York Economic Club. He lives with his wife, Ellen, in New York City.