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Daniel Glickman    

Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture; Former Congressman (D-KS); Senior Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center

Dan Glickman is a well-recognized leader in the fields of agriculture, nutrition, hunger, bipartisan politics, and public policy following a long career in the federal government, advocacy, the private sector, and non-profit arenas.

Glickman is a senior counselor and chair of the International Advisory Board at APCO Worldwide and is a long-time board member and former lead director and Chair of the Governance Committee of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME Group), senior advisor to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, and recent past chairman. He is a distinguished fellow in Global Food and Agriculture at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and an adjunct professor at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy in Boston. Glickman also serves as a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a D.C- based think tank that fosters bipartisanship; and a strategic advisor and counselor at The Russell Group.

The first-time author has written his memoir, Laughing at Myself; my Education in Congress, on the Farm and at the Movies, published by the University of Kansas Press in 2021.

Glickman has been actively promoting bipartisanship in the U.S. Congress, retiring as vice president of the Aspen Institute and executive director of its Congressional Program in early 2021 after 10 years. The program is a public policy education and civility-building program for members of the U.S. Congress.

He was a board member of the American Cancer Society Action Network; the domestic anti-hunger group Food Research and Action Center; Issue One, a cross-partisan political reform group; World Food Program-USA; past chairman and now a board member of the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He serves on the Advisory Boards of Francis Renewable Energy, an electric vehicle charging company, and Good Meat, a subsidiary of Eat Just, a cellular-based meat company.

Glickman served as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from March 1995 until January 2001 in the Clinton Administration. While at USDA, Glickman oversaw the administration of farm and conservation programs, Meat and poultry food safety and related inspection programs, global trade in food and agriculture, civil rights enforcement impacting employees and other stakeholders, and the US Forest Service. Before his appointment as Secretary of Agriculture, he served for 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives for the 4th Congressional District of Kansas. While in Congress, he was a senior Member of the House Agriculture Committee and chair of the subcommittee on general farm commodities, the House Judiciary Committee and chairman of the subcommittee on Administrative Law and Government relations chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; and was a leading congressional expert on general aviation policy.

He served as chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) from 2004 until 2010. Prior to joining the MPAA, he was the director of the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.

Before his election to Congress in 1976, Glickman served as president of the Wichita, Kansas School Board; was a partner in the law firm of Sargent, Klenda, and Glickman; and worked as a trial attorney at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He received a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Michigan and a J.D. degree from The George Washington University. In recognition of his service, Glickman has also received an honorary Doctor of Philosophy from Kansas State University and an honorary Doctor of Laws from The George Washington University Law School.

Speech Topics


  • The 2003 Farm Bill: Important for the Future of Food Security.
  • The Power and impact of Federal Nutrition Programs: Thoughts from a Former Secretary of Agriculture.
  • The Farm Bill: Is it the Most significant climate initiative for our country?
  • Climate, Conservation, and Agriculture Policy: Can Food and Agriculture change the world?
  • Is Bipartisanship Dead in American Politics? If so, can it be Revived to Save American Democracy?
  • Diet, Nutrition, Health, Agriculture and Medicine: What are the links to living longer and saving our national health?
  • Humor and Politics: One politician’s View on how Humor can Save our country’s democracy.
  • Is our Food Safe: If not, what can we do to make it safer?
  • Why Global Food Security is Global Political Security.
  • How the Ukraine Crisis can Change the way we feed the hungry Worldwide.
  • What a Country! How a Jewish kid from Kansas grew up to be the country’s Secretary of Agriculture and chief lobbyist for Hollywood: lessons for us all.

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