White House fellows discuss Hawai'i issues
Advertiser Staff
White House Fellows spend most of their time as full-time assistants to senior staff, Cabinet officers and the Vice President, writing speeches, answering Congressional inquiries and conducting briefings.
This week those duties focused far outside the Beltway, though, with the 36-year-old fellowship program's first visit to Hawai'i.
This year's 15 Fellows are meeting Hawai'i business executives and Kamehameha Schools officials, visiting the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl and Hansen's Disease center on Moloka'i, and considering the positive and negative ways the military relates to the community.
Sparky Rodrigues of community group Malama Makua was invited to speak about Makua Valley, while Protect Kaho'olawe 'Ohana member Davianna McGregor was expected to talk about the former "target isle."
The "off-the-record" meetings are held with leaders during two to three domestic trips and an international trip.
"The goal is to take what they've learned about the workings of the federal government back to the job they had and back to the community," said program associate director Lucy Weber of the Fellows, who receive salaries of about $73,000.
Honolulu resident Raymond Jefferson, 33, a former Army Green Beret who lost a hand protecting his troops from a faulty explosive device and is now working to provide upper-limb prosthetics to amputees who can't afford them, is part of the fellowship program for 2000-01.
The group traveled to Kentucky and West Virginia in March to examine the coal industry's impact on the local community and to India and Pakistan in May.
President Lyndon Johnson established the White House Fellows program in 1964 to give select individuals with leadership potential a yearlong opportunity to participate in federal government policy-making.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, Pacific Forces commander Adm. Dennis Blair and former city councilman Mufi Hannemann are program alumni.
