Former Secretary of the Interior and Senator Ken Salazar

Drawing on his years in Washington, D.C. government and politics, Ken Salazar will offer a perspective:  “Washington, D.C.: A Look Back at the U.S. Senate and the Department of the Interior,”  an anecdotal review of the good, the bad, and the ugly of his experiences in the nation’s capital and the halls of power in which he worked.

About Ken Salazar
Ken Salazar is a partner at the prestigious law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, LLP.  He is the former Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior.  Appointed by President Obama in January 2009, Ken Salazar served over four years until April 2013 as the 50th Secretary of the Interior, directing a vast agency responsible for managing the nation’s resources, including water, fish, wildlife, mining, public lands and national parks, onshore and offshore energy development on public lands and primary responsibility for the federal relationship with American Indians.  During his time as Secretary he successfully developed and implemented numerous oil and gas and renewable energy initiatives on public lands and helped lead the Administration’s “all of the above” energy strategy.  His numerous conservation efforts include the creation of the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative and ten new national parks and ten new national wildlife refuges.

Additionally, Salazar addressed long-standing injustices in Indian Country.  Well known in Colorado as a lawyer, businessman, farmer and rancher, Salazar was elected to the U.S. Senate from Colorado in 2004.  In the Senate, among his activities, Salazar was a key player in crafting landmark energy laws and comprehensive immigration reforms; worked with a bipartisan group of senators in championing new defense and foreign policies to restore American security and influence around the world and pressed for a change in mission in Iraq to better advance America's national security interests; and helped craft resolution of the judicial nominations crisis that threatened the Senate.  Prior to becoming U.S. Senator, Salazar was twice-elected Colorado’s Attorney General, and also served as the state’s natural resources director, and legal counsel to Governor Roy Romer.  A fifth generation Coloradan, Ken Salazar’s ancestors have lived in the American Southwest since the 1500s.  Ken Salazar earned a political science degree from Colorado College in 1977 and graduated with a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1981 before working as a water and environmental lawyer with some of the top firms in the West.  Salazar and his wife, Hope, have two daughters, Melinda and Andrea, and one granddaughter, Mireya.

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