Speaker Biographies

May 2009

Commencement speaker: to be announced

Baccalaureate Speaker: to be announced

 

May 2008

Commencement speaker: Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor, City of New York

Baccalaureate Speaker: Sister Mary Scullion, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Project H.O.M.E.

 

Michael R. Bloomberg, May 2008 Commencement Speaker:

Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg L.P., is currently serving his second term as Mayor of the City of New York.

Mr. Bloomberg officially began public life in 2001, when he entered and won the race for Mayor of the City of New York. In his first term, Mr. Bloomberg is credited with reducing crime by 20 percent, creating jobs by supporting small businesses, and implementing ambitious public health strategies, including the ban on smoking in restaurants and bars.

Mr. Bloomberg was re-elected in 2005. In his second term, he has balanced the budget and driven unemployment to a record low. He has also undertaken PlaNYC, a far-reaching campaign to fight global warming and protect the environment. The plan focuses on five crucial dimensions of the city’s environment—land, air, water, energy, and transportation. A key pillar of the plan is reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in city-owned buildings and operations by 30 percent over the next 10 years. As co-founder of the bipartisan coalition Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Mr. Bloomberg is also working with more than 200 mayors nationwide to ban illegal guns.

Mr. Bloomberg earned an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1964. After completing his undergraduate degree, he went on to receive an MBA from Harvard Business School. In 1966, he went to work for Salomon Brothers, where he quickly rose through the ranks.

Mr. Bloomberg’s vision for an information services company that would use emerging technology to bring transparency and efficiency to the buyers and sellers of financial securities led to the launching of a small start-up company called Bloomberg L.P. in 1981. Today, Bloomberg L.P. has over 250,000 subscribers to its financial news and information service. Headquartered in New York, the company employs over 10,000 people worldwide.

With the success of his company, Mr. Bloomberg began directing more of his attention to philanthropy, donating his time and resources to many different causes. He has served on the boards of numerous charitable, cultural, and educational institutions, including Johns Hopkins University, where, as chairman of the board, he helped build the Bloomberg School of Public Health into one of the world’s leading institutions of public health research and training.