March 11 – Leon Panetta with Larry Mantle

Leon Panetta served as the 23rd Secretary of Defense from July 2011 to February 2013. Before joining the Department of Defense, Mr. Panetta served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. From July 1994 to January 1997, Mr. Panetta served as Chief of Staff to President William Clinton. Prior to that, he was Director of the Office of Management and Budget, a position that built on his years of work on the House Budget Committee. Mr. Panetta represented California’s 16th (now 17th) Congressional District from 1977 to 1993, rising to House Budget Committee chairman during his final four years in Congress.

Since retiring as Secretary of Defense in 2013, Panetta has served as chairman of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, located at California State University, Monterey Bay, a campus of the California State University that he helped establish during his tenure as congressman. The institute is dedicated to motivating and preparing people for lives of public service and helping them to become more knowledgeably engaged in the democratic process.