General Session

Mike Aitken has worked at SHRM since 2003 and currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs. Prior to joining SHRM, he served for 14 years as associate director for Governmental and External Relations at the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR). Previously, Aitken worked on state public policy issues at Bonner & Associates, a public affairs firm in Washington, DC. Currently, he is based in Alexandria, VA.

Nina Totenberg is National Public Radio's award-winning legal affairs correspondent. Her reports air regularly on NPR's critically acclaimed newsmagazines, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition.

Totenberg's coverage of legal affairs and the Supreme Court has won her widespread recognition. Newsweek says, "The mainstays [of NPR] are Morning Edition and All Things Considered. But the crème de la crème is Nina Totenberg." She is also a regular panelist on Inside Washington, a weekly syndicated public affairs television program produced in the nation's capital.

In 1991, her groundbreaking report about University of Oklahoma Law Professor Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment by Judge Clarence Thomas led the Senate Judiciary Committee to re-open Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings to consider Hill's charges. NPR received the prestigious Peabody Award for its gavel-to-gavel coverage--anchored by Totenberg--of both the original hearings and the inquiry into Anita Hill's allegations, and for Totenberg's reports and exclusive interview with Hill.

That same coverage earned Totenberg additional awards, among them: the Long Island University George Polk Award for excellence in journalism; the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting; and the prestigious Joan S. Barone Award for excellence in Washington-based national affairs/public policy reporting, which also acknowledged her coverage of Justice Thurgood Marshall's retirement.

In 1988, Totenberg won the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for her coverage of Supreme Court nominations. The jurors of the award stated, "Ms. Totenberg broke the story of Judge (Douglas) Ginsburg's use of marijuana, raising issues of changing social values and credibility with careful perspective under deadline pressure."

Totenberg has been honored eight times by the American Bar Association for continued excellence in legal reporting, and has received a number of honorary degrees. On a lighter note, in 1992 and 1988, Esquire magazine named her one of the "Women We Love."

A frequent contributor to major newspapers and periodicals, she has published articles in the New York Times Magazine, the Harvard Law Review, the Christian Science Monitor, Parade magazine, New York Magazine, and others.

Before joining NPR in 1975, Totenberg served as Washington editor of New Times Magazine, and before that she was the legal affairs correspondent for the National Observer.

Nina Totenberg has won every major journalism award in broadcasting, and is the only radio journalist to have won the National Press Foundation award for Broadcaster of the Year. On the non-broadcasting side of her career, she has written for newspapers and periodicals, from the New York Times Magazine to the Harvard Law Review.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and contributing editor at TIME, Jon Meacham is one of America's most prominent public intellectuals. Known as a skilled raconteur and an accomplished historian with a depth of knowledge about politics, religion, and current affairs, he understands and analyzes how issues and events impact modern life.

Meacham’s latest presidential biography, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, will be published in November 2012. Walter Isaacson lauded Meacham, calling the book “A true triumph. In addition to being a brilliant biography, Thomas Jefferson is a guide to the art of power…a fascinating look at how Jefferson wielded his driving desire for power and control.”

His New York Times bestseller, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography. Meacham used the seventh president's unpublished correspondence and other sources to create "an unflinching portrait of a not always admirable democrat but a pivotal president, written with an agile prose that brings the Jackson saga to life.”

His other New York Times bestsellers include Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, which explored the fascinating relationship between the two great leaders who piloted the free world to victory in World War II, and American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation.

Executive Vice President and Executive Editor at the Random House Publishing Group, Meacham is editing the PoliticoInside Election 2012 e-book series and a book by Al Gore. He is also at work on a biography of President George H.W. Bush.

Starting his career at Newsweek in 1995, Meacham served as the magazine’s managing editor from 1998 to 2006 and editor from 2006 to 2010. The New York Times called him “one of the most influential editors in the news magazine business." Now a contributing editor at TIME, he writes for the magazine’s Ideas section.

Named a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum, he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Society of American Historians. He is a regular guest on Morning Joe and has appeared on Meet The Press and The Colbert Report. He presents his “In Perspective” essays and conducts interviews on PBS' weekly public affairs program, Need To Know.

Candy Crowley is CNN's award-winning chief political correspondent and anchor of State of the Union with Candy Crowley, a political hour of newsmaker interviews and analysis of the week’s most important issues. Crowley took the reins of State of the Union in February 2010. In her role as chief political correspondent, Crowley covers a broad range of stories, including presidential, congressional and gubernatorial races and major legislative developments on Capitol Hill. 

Crowley’s assignments have taken her to all 50 states and around the world.  As a member of the Peabody Award-winning “Best Political Team on Television,” she played a pivotal role in CNN’s America Votes 2008 coverage, traveling to both conventions, every debate and additional stops along the campaign trail. Crowley earned a prestigious Gracie Allen Award in 2009 for coverage of Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House. She also was part of the network’s Emmy Award-winning 2006 midterm election coverage.

She has covered the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Howard Dean, Bob Dole, Jesse Jackson, Edward Kennedy, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan, among others. Since the presidential nomination of Jimmy Carter, she has covered all but one of the national political conventions. She was also granted an exclusive sit-down interview with President George W. Bush days before he left office.

Among her most vivid memories as a reporter, Crowley counts the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast; the impeachment trial of President Clinton; Election Night 2000; ceremonies marking the 40th anniversary of D-Day on the beaches of Normandy; Ronald Reagan’s trips to China, Bitburg and Bergen-Belsen; the night the United States bombed Libya; and the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.

Crowley began her broadcast journalism career in Washington, D.C., as a newsroom assistant for Metromedia radio station WASH.  She has served as an anchor for Mutual Broadcasting and as a general assignment and White House correspondent for the Associated Press, where she covered most of the Reagan era before moving on to NBC-TV to become a general assignment correspondent in NBC’s Washington bureau. She came to CNN from NBC News in 1987.

Prior to her current role, Crowley served as a congressional correspondent for the network.  

In 2005, Crowley was honored with the Edward R. Murrow award and the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for excellence in journalism for her reporting on the 2004 presidential election.  In 2004, Crowley won the Gracie Allen Award in the “National News Story-Series” category for “War Stories” and a National Headliner and a Cine award for CNN Presents: Fit to Kill.  In 2003, Crowley won an Emmy for her work on CNN Presents Enemy Within.  She won the 1999 DuPont-Columbia University Silver Baton Award for her coverage of the impeachment and trial of President Bill Clinton.  She won the 2003 and 1998 Dirksen Awards for distinguished reporting on Congress from the National Press Foundation and the 1997 Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for her coverage of Bob Dole’s campaign for the presidency.  She received the Associated Press Broadcasters’ Award for spot news reporting for her coverage of the Reagan campaign, as well as the AP Award for in-depth coverage of the 1980 Reagan campaign.  Her reporting on more than a dozen 1992 U.S. Senate campaigns was runner-up for the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for Outstanding Journalism.  Crowley also won the Columbia University’s Armstrong Award for Freedom is My Woman, a documentary on a prison cellblock takeover.          

Crowley earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. 

2011 turned out to be a banner year for Jose Rene “J.R.” Martinez. Not only did he and his dance partner Karina Smirnoff take ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” season 13 coveted mirror ball trophy, he was also named the 2012 Tournament of Roses Grand Marshal. He is an actor, spokesman and retired soldier. Martinez played “Brot Monroe” on the Emmy Award-winning daytime drama “All My Children.”

After high school he joined the army. Martinez was proud to serve, as a way to give something back to a country that had already given so much to him and his family. In March 2003, Martinez was deployed to Iraq, and on April 5, less than a month into his deployment, he was serving as a driver of a Humvee in Karbala when his left front tire hit a landmine. Three other soldiers with Martinez were ejected from the burning vehicle, but he was trapped inside and suffered smoke inhalation and severe burns to more than 40 percent of his body. Martinez travels the country to spread his message of resilience and optimism. He devotes himself to showing others the true value in making the most of every situation.

For more than two decades, Holly Robinson Peete has been a television star with high-profile roles that cross over between comedy and drama. Snagging her first acting gig on the awardwinning children’s show “Sesame Street” at the age of four, she knew her heart belonged to showbiz at an early age but opted to place her education first.

Married for 13 years to former NFL quarterback Rodney Peete, she became an author with her book Get Your Own Damn Beer, I’m Watching the Game: A Woman’s Guide to Loving Pro Football.

Peete believes profoundly in the power of philanthropy and lives by the motto, “Service is the rent you pay for living.” In 1996, the Peetes formed a nonprofit, the HollyRod Foundation, with a mission to help improve the quality of life of people plagued with devastating life circumstances. HollyRod has expanded its mission recently with the formation of HollyRod4Kids which benefits many children’s causes, focusing on improving the quality of life of the children of the Gulf Coast post-Katrina, Kenya and South Africa.

She has received numerous awards and honors for her most recent philanthropic deeds, including the 2005 Girls, Inc. Mentor Award; and the 2006 A Place Called Home Humanitarian Award.

A physician and alternative medicine pioneer, spiritual leader and world renowned business consultant, Dr. Deepak Chopra has inspired thousands of top executives with his guidance to personal transformation.  A compelling teacher who has taught at educational institutions such as Harvard’s Medical School and the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University, Dr. Chopra has also written more than 60 best-selling books. The Soul of Leadership: Unlocking Your Potential for Greatness, which is the basis for this presentation, was named “One of the Best Business Books of 2011” by the Wall Street Journal.