Morris K. Udall Centennial Celebration

Image

Ambassador Cindy Hensley McCain was sworn in by the Biden Administration to serve as the United States Permanent Representative to the UN Agencies in Rome on November 5, 2021.  She has dedicated her life to improving the lives of those less fortunate both in the United States and around the world.

She is the former Chair of the Board of Trustees of the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University, where she oversaw the organization’s focus on advancing character-driven global leadership based on security, economic opportunity, freedom, and human dignity as well as chairing the Institute’s Human Trafficking Advisory Council.

In addition to her work at the McCain Institute, she served on the Board of Directors of Project C.U.R.E, CARE, Operation Smile, HaloTrust and the Advisory Boards of Too Small To Fail and Warriors and Quiet Waters.

McCain holds an undergraduate degree in Education and a Master’s in Special Education from the University of Southern California.

She was the Chairman of her family’s business, Hensley Beverage Company, which is one of the largest Anheuser-Busch distributors in the nation. Ambassador McCain is the wife of the late U.S. Senator John McCain. Together, they have four children.

Image

Jon Kyl currently serves as Senior of Counsel at Covington and Burling LLP. He is also a Distinguished Fellow in Public Service in Arizona State University’s Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, a Distinguished Scholar of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, and a director of ASU’s Kyl Center for Water Policy.

Previously, Senator Kyl served eighteen years in the U.S. Senate, and before that, eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was elected unanimously by his colleagues in 2008 to serve as Republican Whip, the second-highest position in the Senate Republican leadership, a position he held until his retirement in 2013. He was a member of the Judiciary Committee from 1995-2013, and also served on the Finance Committee.

On September 5, 2018, Senator Kyl was appointed by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey to fill the seat of the late Senator John McCain. He served on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. He concluded his service in the Senate on December 31, 2018.

Before his public service, Senator Kyl practiced law at Jennings, Strouss & Salmon in Phoenix. In 1985, he served as chairman of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce.

Born in Oakland, Nebraska, Senator Kyl received both his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Arizona. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was editor-in-chief of the Arizona Law Review. He and his wife Caryll have two children, Kristine Kyl Gavin and John Kyl, and four grandchildren.

Image

Bruce Babbitt served as governor of Arizona from 1978-1987 and as secretary of the interior from 1993-2001. He received a B.A. in geology from the University of Notre Dame, a M.Sc. in geophysics from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. As governor of Arizona, he led enactment of the Arizona Groundwater Management Act of 1980, which remains the most comprehensive water regulatory system in the United States, and he established the Department of Water Resources and the Department of Environmental Quality.

As secretary of the interior he oversaw regulatory reforms in the Bureau of Reclamation, the nation’s largest water provider, and he initiated water management programs in the Florida Everglades, the Platte River Basin and the Lower Colorado River Basin. He led negotiations for the California Bay Delta accord of 1994 and is presently working with California Governor Jerry Brown to manage statewide negotiations to revise stream flow standards in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins.