Lester Hyman - Board of Directors

In 2004, the Mayor of the District of Columbia nominated Lester S. Hyman to be a Trustee of the University of the District of Columbia and his confirmation was approved unanimously by the Council of the District of Columbia.

Mr. Hyman, a Founding Partner and Senior of Counsel of the prominent Washington, D.C. law firm of Swidler Berlin Shereff Friedman, LLP, specializes in creating and implementing legislative strategies and in resolving international disputes for clients, including Fortune 500 corporations, as well as countries and major companies abroad.

He brings to bear 49 years of experience in law, government and politics.

As a protégé of John F. Kennedy, he served as an attorney with the Corporation Finance Division of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, as senior consultant to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as the Chief Assistant to the Governor, Secretary of Commerce and Development, and later Chairman of the Democratic Party of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Mr. Hyman has acted as an advisor to eight presidential candidates.  For the Clinton-Gore Administration, he "vetted" candidate for Vice-President, Attorney-General, Secretary of the Treasury, Director of the CIA, and the U.S. Supreme Court, including preparation for Senatorial confirmation hearings.  In 2000, he led a vetting team for the Vice-Presidential selection for Al Gore and in 2004 helped coordinate the vetting process for John Kerry.

He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for National Policy, one of the country's leading public policy "think tanks."  He has taught "Decision-Making in Politics" at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  He also serves on the Board of the International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI) and in 2004 acted as Project Director for an 18-nation IIPI conference on the creation of the Caribbean Court of Justice.

In 1990 he was a member of the International Observe Team, headed by former President Jimmy Carter, which monitored the first democratic election in the history of Haiti, and has been deeply involved in peace resolution efforts in Africa, as well as legal and governmental issues in Japan, France, Korea, Germany, England, Lebanon, Russia and the Caribbean.

In 1994, the President of the United States, upon the personal recommendation of Hillary Rodham Clinton, appointed Mr. Hyman to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Commission which oversaw the construction of the FDR Memorial in Washington.

From 1995 to 1997 he served on the Board of Trustees of the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena, California.

In 1996 President Clinton appointed Mr. Hyman to the eight-person Presidential Delegation that represented the United States at the historic Peace Accord in Guatemala that ended a 36-year civil war.

In 2003, Mr. Hyman's book "United States Policy Towards Liberia" was published by the Africana Homestead Legacy Publishers.  It is based upon the author's eleven years of intensive involvement in the Liberian peace process.

Mr. Hyman's biography appears in the current edition of "Who's Who in America."  He has written extensively o U.S. and international issues, with his articles appearing in such publications as The Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe.  He has made numerous appearances on CNN, CNN International, and the Fox TV national cable network as a legal/political/international expert and lectures on West African issues both in the United States and abroad.

He is a graduate of Brown University and the Columbia University School of Law.  He lives in Washington, D.C. and also has a home in the Caribbean (on the island of Tortola) where he is a member of the Board of both the British Virgin Islands Community College and the British Virgin Islands National Parks Trust.