Gwendolyn S. and Colbert I. King Chair Endowed Chair in Public Policy Lecture Series

About Gwendolyn S. and Colbert I. King

Gwendolyn S. King is an American businesswoman who was born in East Orange, New Jersey. She graduated from Howard University in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in French and Education, and from 1972 to 1974 did graduate work at George Washington University. King was a French, English and reading teacher from 1962 to 1971. She joined the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1971 as a management intern, and by the time she left that organization in 1976, she achieved the position of senior health desk officer. From 1976 to 1978, she was director, division of consumer complaints, for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 1978, she became senior legislative assistant to Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania. From 1979 to 1986, she worked as director of then-Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh’s Washington, D.C., office. From 1986 to 1988, she served in the White House as deputy assistant to President Reagan, and director for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. In 1988, she joined Gogol & Associates, Inc., as its executive vice president, a position she held until 1989 when she was appointed commissioner of the Social Security Administration. She resigned as Commissioner in 1992 to take a senior vice president position with the Philadelphia Electric Company. She then served as the director of the Monsanto Company, Marsh & McLennan Companies and Lockheed Martin Corporation. She currently serves as a member of the board of directors for both Lockheed Martin Corporation and Monsanto Company. She is married to Colbert I. King, and they have three children: Robert, Stephen and Allison.

Colbert I. “Colby” King is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post who specializes in urban and national affairs. He was born in Washington, D.C. King earned his Bachelor of Arts in government from Howard University in 1961. Before joining the Post’s editorial board in 1990, he worked for the State Department, serving at the U.S. Embassy in Bonn, Germany; in the U.S. Senate, where he helped draft homerule legislation for the District of Columbia; and at the World Bank, where he was U.S. executive director. He was appointed deputy editorial page editor of the Post in 2000, and served in that capacity until 2007. King was a regular panelist on the public affairs program “Inside Washington” on ABC-TV and a regular commentator on WTOP Radio, where he was awarded the 2005 Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcasters Association’s award for outstanding editorial commentary. In 2003, he won the Pulitzer Prize in commentary “for his against-the-grain columns that speak to people in power with ferocity and wisdom.” He is married to Gwendolyn S. King, and they have three children: Robert, Stephen and Allison.