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News & Events 2006

Speaker's Forum Event, December 1

Ed Teixeira, Vice-Director of Civil Defense for the State of Hawai'i, spoke at the December 1, 2006, PUBA-Community Speaker's Forum. Mr. Teixeira reviewed some of the recent challenges to affect Hawai'i--the 42 days of Oahu rain in March 2006, and the Big Island earthquake on October 15, 2006--emphasizing the lessons of preparedness and the need to provide timely information. Mr. Teixeira manages the Civil Defense Division, located in the Birkhimer Emergency Operating Center in Diamond Head Crater.

Speaker's Forum Event, September 29

On Friday, September 29, PUBA held the second PUBA-Community Speakers Forum, featuring University of Hawai'i Vice-President of Administration, Sam Callejo. Mr. Callejo has extensive experience in the public sector, having served as Director of Administration for Governor Benjamin Cayetano, state comptroller with the Department of Accounting and General Services, and director and chief engineer with the City and County of Honolulu's Department of Public Works. At various points in his career, Mr. Callejo has also served as acting mayor and acting governor. The forum focused on lessons for public managers from a diverse career: how to get things done in the face resistance to change.

With the assistance of the Hawai'i State Department of Human Resources Development, the event took place downtown in the Leiopapa a Kamehameha building (state office tower).

PUBA Professor, Jill Tao

Please join us in welcoming our newest member, associate professor Jill Tao. Jill comes to us from the University of Oklahoma and received her Ph.D. in Public Administration from The Florida Sate University. She is involved in the core year with special emphasis on the modules for political perspectives and legislative process. Her teaching interests include comparative and development administration and policy, and her research interests center on the way in which the structure of government and policy affect the well-being of less affluent communities. Jill has lived and worked in a number of different U.S. states, the People's Republic of China, and Hong Kong (prior to 1997), both in the government and non-profit sectors.

PUBA Visiting Faculty, David Nixon

Please join us in welcoming associate professor David Nixon. Dave comes to Hawai'i from Georgia State University where he taught in the Department of Political Science and received his Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He is teaching PUBA 662, Applied Policy Analysis, this fall. Dave's research and teaching interests include U.S. bureaucratic politics, appointments and federal judiciary, and methodology.

 

First Speaker's Forum

On Wednesday, June 14, PUBA held its first Community Speaker's Forum. The purpose of the forum is to address significant issues in public service, and to create opportunities for people committed to public service to get together in conversation. This first one featured Attilio (Leo) Leonardi (MPA, 1989) who recently retired after eight years as the Chief of the Honolulu Fire Department. Leo was extraordinarily successful in transforming a good, but conservative, organization into one whose innovations and commitment to quality are recognized nationally. His talk and the subsequent discussion focused on what he did to bring about positive changes, and what lessons others might take away from his experience.

The Kalihi YMCA generously made its facility available for this event.

Right: Leo and participants

Higher Education Reform in Mongolia

On June 9th Dick Pratt returned from two weeks in Ulaanbaatar Mongolia where he continued work on a higher education reform project. The project brings together faculty from colleges and universities across the country for workshops that focus on teaching critical thinking, using active learning strategies, re-desigining the curriculum, and assessment. This visit included convening a leadership group drawn from earlier workshops. The project is co-sponsored by the American Center for Mongolian Research, the Academy of Management, Mongolia National University and the Fulbright Senior Specialist Program. Dick first went to Mongolia in 2002 for a conference on Globalization and Development in Mongolia, which was followed by a project on reforming public administration education.

Pictured top left, Dick Pratt lecturing to faculty. Top right, the main square next to the parliament in Ulaanbaatar.

Asia-Pacific Exchange

Tsedev Damiran, Dick Pratt

On April 29th Tsedev Damiran and Dick Pratt gave a talk at a forum organized by the Center for Asia-Pacific Exchange. Their presentation focused on the reform of public institutions in Mongolia since the Soviet Union pulled out in 1990. This work is based on a paper they have written titled, "Public Administration Development and Reform of a Post-Communist Regime: The Case of Mongolia." Tsedev Damiran is a Scholar in Residence in the Public Administration Program. Dick Pratt has been working on reform-related projects in Mongolia since 2002.

Right, Tsedev Damiran and Dick Pratt.

 

Retirement Dinner for Attilio Leonardi

A retirement dinner was held on January 28, 2006 for Honolulu Fire Chief Attilio "Leo" Leonardi, pictured here on the right.

John Clark, Ken Silva, and Attilio Leonardi

Over the past eight years "Leo," together with Deputy Chief John Clark who is shown on the left, helped re-make HFD into one of the premier fire departments in the nation. The new Chief, Ken Silva, stands between them. All three received their MPA's from PUBA.

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