With decades of experience in politics and law, I observed first-hand the increasing polarization of our two-party political system and the tribalization of Americans unwilling to talk to people with whom they did not agree.Motivated to mitigate the chasm between extremes, in 2014, I founded American Public Square in hopes of using civil discourse to bridge the partisan divide. Essentially, American Public Square convenes people to engage in civil, fact-based conversations about local, regional and national issues. Our mission: To improve the tone and quality of civil discourse and find actionable paths toward common ground.With a national audience that has served more than 100,000 participants, APS operates out of Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas City is a melting pot of cultures, political leanings and backgrounds and, as such, serves as the ideal home to our work to:• Convene people and create space for productive and respectful dialogue on a variety of topics;• Educate the community on how and why their informed participation is important; and • Engage diverse segments of our society to ensure that multiple perspectives are explored.

As a visiting professor in Jewell's Department of Political Science, I have the opportunity to host lecture series on topics such as "How Do Political Campaigns Work?" and host guest speakers such as Howard Dean (former Governor of Vermont and chair of the Democratic National Committee), Margaret Talev (journalist), Kevin Madden (PR professional and senior advisor to and spokesman for Mitt Romney's 2012 U.S. presidential campaign), and Terry Nelson (Republican strategist). Additionally, I frequently organize and lead student educational tours of Portugal during which participants learn about the history, people, culture, politics, and business of the country. They are given access to experts from a number of backgrounds.

EDP Renováveis (English: EDP Renewables, EDPR) is a leading renewable energy company registered in Oviedo and headquartered in Madrid that designs, develops, manages and operates power plants that generate electricity using renewable energy sources.

ISCTE Business School traces its origins back to the earlier department of management sciences, created in 1972. The school is recognized for its excellence in learning and research, international and multicultural environment, and the solid connection to the business world that it offers our exceptional graduates, leadership entrepreneurship and innovation.IBS has approximately 170 teachers (134.98 FTE) distributed throughout its six Departments: Accounting, Economics, Finance, Marketing, Operations and Management, Quantitative Methods for Management and Economics, and Human Resources and Organizational Behaviour.More than 3,200 students are currently enrolled in the 6 Undergraduate Programmes and 12 Masters Programmes offered by the school. IBS is one of four schools that constitute University ISCTE-IUL, along with the School of Sociology and Public Policy, School of Social Sciences and Humanities and the School of Technology and Architecture.

Plan. Lead. Execute. PLX is a think tank comprised of a broad array of experienced professionals who come from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds. The group delivers innovative solutions designed to improve all aspects of our clients’ businesses through a team-based approach to issues related to strategy, governance, performance, recruitment, accountability, process, visioning, internal controls, risk management, leadership development, and analytics. Services include strategy consulting, leadership coaching, board governance and engagement, government relations and lobbying, product and marketing strategy, fundraising strategy and guidance, community relations and network building, and general business guidance.Whether your organization is running smoothly, stuck, or in crisis mode, the right expertise will help. Getting to the next level is a function of enhanced planning, leadership, and execution. PLX has the experience, tools, and expertise to help your organization solve the core issues limiting your success. Our team will transform your team and get you unstuck!

www.FromThisCorner.comPersonal musings about politics and civic life.

In my role as a Distinguished Professor, jointly appointed in the Political Science Department in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Public Affairs Department of the Bloch School of Business and Management, I sought to connect students and the wider public to a deeper engagement in citizenship that is at once local and global. Each fall semester, I co-taught (with a political scientist) an undergraduate course entitled, “Civic Engagement in a Democratic Society.” The class examined the concept and history of civic participation, how it develops, and how it shapes relationships between people and groups in a civil society. Many of the students in the class then chose to enroll in my inter-term course, a Study Abroad program in Portugal that enabled them to interact at the highest levels with leaders of the Portuguese government, NGO community, and academic and business communities. The intense, 11-day program featured daily lectures followed by site visits; this follows a series of classes held prior to the trip. Additionally, I served as the Director of the Truman Center for Governmental Affairs, which, for a time, housed the NGO I founded, American Public Square, a national organization dedicated to fostering civil discourse.

Appointed by President Barack Obama, I served as the Chief of the United States mission to Portugal. Portugal is a founding member of NATO and a member of the EU.During my time as Ambassador, I served as the Chairman of the Fulbright Commission in Portugal. In that capacity, alongside a group of local scholars, I assessed and ranked applications from researchers working on outstanding, cutting-edge projects in a range of fields. I also participated in the efforts of the Luso-American Foundation (FLAD) to establish research opportunities for American scholars who study the Lusophone world. One of my proudest achievements as Ambassador was convening the first-ever academic conference on the Holocaust in Portugal. My own father had been a German-born survivor of Buchenwald who had helped to establish a Holocaust museum in his adopted hometown of St. Louis. He had imparted to me from a young age the importance of the Holocaust’s lessons for maintaining a healthy democratic culture, and now, living in a post-fascist European country, I was coming to understand his outlook in a new way. I could see that Portugal, a country then in just its fourth decade as a democracy, had only come to terms in limited ways with its past under a brutal dictatorship. The conference, held in November 2012, proved a rousing success. Over two and a half days, scholars of History, Sociology, Political Science and Psychology tackled a series of issues of history and memory with sensitivity and insight. Attended by some 700 people from all walks of life and around the world, the conference helped to open a conversation important both to our shared values in the American-Portuguese relationship, and to the advancement of civic life in Portugal itself. My partners in this effort were the Gulbenkian Foundation and Luso-American Foundation (FLAD), two major Portuguese NGOs.

The Village Square is a non-partisan public educational forum on matters of local, state and national importance. The organization is dedicated to maintaining factual accuracy in civic and political debate by growing civil discourse on divisive issues, and recalling the history and principles at the foundation of our democracy.

Akerman is a national law firm ranked among the 100 largest in the United States by The American Lawyer. The firm has 24 offices across the United States and approximately 750 lawyers, with its largest office in New York City.

As City of Tallahassee Commissioner, I lead the effort in having Tallahassee's municipally owned electric company abandon an investment in older coal technology and instead pursue one of the nation's most aggressive Demand Side Management programs. I also served on the board of the Florida Municipal Energy Association, which is made up of the power companies in Florida.

The private law firm supported its clients in many forms of law including insurance, lobbying environmental, business, and administration law in addition to litigation matters. It was acquired by the firm of Ackerman Senterfitt in 2004.

David Obey is an American lobbyist and former politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives for Wisconsin's 7th congressional district from 1969 to 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party, and served as Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations from 1994 to 1995 and again from 2007 to 2011. He was the longest-serving member ever of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Wisconsin, until surpassed by Jim Sensenbrenner in 2020.

Congressman Bill Gunter was a member of the Florida State Senate in 1966. He was elected as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives as the first member from Florida's 5th congressional district, a newly created district in the Orlando area, in the 1972 election.