[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 18 (Monday, January 30, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1792-S1794]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HEINZ AWARDS
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, this April will mark the fourth anniversary
of the untimely passing of our friend and colleague, John Heinz. And
those of us who were privileged to serve with this remarkable public
servant continue to miss his friendship and his leadership.
Many of John's friends gathered last Thursday in Statuary Hall for
the presentation of the first Heinz Awards. These awards were
established by Teresa Heinz and the Heinz Family Foundation, and will
be awarded to individuals who have made a difference in five issue
areas where John was most active.
It was a very moving and inspiring ceremony, and it reminded us again
that, as John Heinz proved throughout his career, good people can do
great things.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the very eloquent remarks
delivered at the ceremony by Teresa Heinz be printed in the Record, and
that they be followed by brief biographies of the six Heinz Award
recipients.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Remarks of Teresa Heinz at the Heinz Awards, Statuary Hall, January 26,
1995
Thank you.
This is a deeply gratifying and poignant day. It is the
culmination of nearly four years of careful thought about how
to pay tribute to the memory and spirit of my late husband
John Heinz. And it is the culmination of four years of hard
work toward that goal. I know John would be greatly honored
that we are all here today in this hallowed hall, to
celebrate his memory in a place that meant so much to him. I
want to thank Speaker Gingrich and our sponsor, Congressman
Curt Weldon, for making this possible. And I especially want
thank all of you for being here.
If you have ever done it, you know that the making of a
tribute is a terribly difficult matter. That is especially
true when the goal is to honor someone as complex and multi-
faceted as my late husband. I realized early on that, for
John Heinz, no static monument or self-serving exercise in
sentimentality would do. He would have wanted no part of such
things. The only tribute befitting him would be one that
celebrated his spirit by honoring those who live and work as
he did.
To me, the value of remembering John Heinz is and always
will be in remembering what he stood for and how he stood for
it. His life said something important about how life can be
lived, and should be lived. I wanted to remember him in a way
that would inspire not just me, but the rest of us.
And so the Heinz Awards were born. They are intended to
recognize outstanding achievers in five areas in which John
was particularly active. But they are meant less as a reward
for the people we will honor here today, than as a reminder
for the rest of us--a reminder of what can happen when good
people, regardless of who they are or where they come from,
set out to make a difference.
There is a saying in the Heinz family that dates back to my
husband's great-grandfather, the founder of the Heinz
Company. Quite aside from his business acumen, H.J. Heinz was
an exceptional man who battled his food industry peers on
behalf of food purity laws, created the most progressive
workplace of his day, and fostered in his offspring an
abiding sense of social responsibility. And yet H.J. Heinz
dismissed the notion that he was truly exceptional. His aim,
he said humbly, was merely ``to do a common thing uncommonly
well.''
In much the same way, H.J. Heinz's great-grandson never saw
greatness in his great accomplishments. For John Heinz,
public service was a common thing, one that he wanted to do
uncommonly well. He was a dedicated achiever, but he was
distinguished mostly by intangible qualities--qualities of
mind and spirit: intellectual curiosity; a love of people; an
informed optimism; a willingness to take risks; a passion for
excellence; a belief that he could make the world a better
place; the stubborn determination to make it so. And, above
all, a contagious, effervescent joy in life.
These are the qualities celebrated by the Heinz Awards.
They are, in fact, in addition to excellence, the criteria.
In our first year, our nominators sent us some two hundred
nominations from across the country. And as we began culling
through these, we took excellence as a given. But then we
looked beyond achievement. We looked for vision, and
character and intent.
And finally, after our jurors and board of directors had
met, we had settled on six remarkable individuals. They are
an eclectic group. To the extent they share world views, that
is more by accident than design. Their underlying spirit was
what we asked our nominators and jurors to assess. And it is
that spirit, a spirit that I regard as uniquely American,
that we are here today to salute.
Many people in our society wish that they could make the
world a better place. Too few believe that they actually can.
And fewer still act on that belief.
Many people have dreams. Too few pursue those dreams. And,
tragically, fewer still persist until dream becomes reality.
We live in cynical times, and one aspect of that cynicism
is the corrosive notion that individuals are powerless to
make a difference. But history is still made by people, one
person at a time. Our first recipients of the Heinz Awards
illustrate just how much we can do when we apply ourselves
and care enough to try.
They are an antidote, if you will, not just to cynicism,
but to the culture of powerlessness so ascendant now in our
society. These six have believed in the power of one. They
have dreamed great dreams. And they have made that belief and
that dreaming the basis of their life's work, to the
betterment of us all.
Their stories, I hope, will remind Americans that we really
do have power as individuals, that good people still can
achieve great things. Our world has been improved by the six
individuals you are about to meet. But the secret of their
impact transcends their films, their books, their programs,
their treaties, and their microchips. These things
[[Page S1793]] were made great by the qualities of the people
who made them, by their joy, their love of people, their
optimism, their willingness to take risks, their passion for
excellence, their belief that they can improve the world,
their gritty determination. Their work, accomplished as it
is, has been the product of something internal--an
incandescence that burns brightly in the human spirit.
Our faith in luminous qualities of heart and mind made this
a great country. And if there is to be any future for this
thing we so blithely call the American spirit, we must
embrace those qualities again. Can it be done? Is it
important? As evidence and proof, I offer you six
extraordinary people.
Thank you.
____
Bibliographies of the Six Heinz Award Winners
paul and anne ehrlich
Paul and Anne Ehrlich receive the Heinz Award in the
Environment in recognition of their thoughtful study of
difficult environmental issues, their commitment to bringing
their findings to the attention of policy makers and the
public, and their willingness to suggest solutions.
Anne and Paul Ehrlich have been producing important
scientific research for over three decades. But they are
distinguished by their passionate determination to
communicate their findings to non-scientific audiences. They
have long seen it as their responsibility to alert humanity
to the dangers of ecological carelessness and arrogance. This
perspective, uncommon among scientists, has made them the
target of sometimes strident criticism, which they accept
with grace as the price of forthrightness.
They are distinguished as well by their willingness to
offer and seek solutions to the problems they identify. Their
prescriptions, sometimes misrepresented as draconian, are
rooted in the same Judeo-Christian principles that are the
source of the Ehrlich's profound ethic of stewardship. It
would be difficult to name any other couple who have made
such a long-standing and substantive contribution to
scientific and policy understanding of population,
environment, and resource issues.
As scientists, authors and educators, Paul and Anne Ehrlich
have for 30 years devoted themselves to enhancing public
understanding of a wide range of environmental issues,
including conservation biology, biodiversity and habitat
preservation.
The basis of the Ehrlichs work has always been their
science, and they have compiled an important body of
scientific research over the years. But it is for their
environmental advocacy, particularly in the area of
population, that the Ehrlichs are most well known to the
general public, and little wonder. Paul Ehrlich made a
memorable debut on the world scene with the publication of
his 1968 book, The Population Bomb, in which he warned that
the Earth's resources could not indefinitely support the
planet's growing population. In a 1990 sequel, The Population
Explosion, Anne and Paul Ehrlich provided an unflinching
update.
Setting forth challenging but prescient work was to become
a hallmark of the Ehrlich's careers. Several decades ago, the
Ehrlichs were the first to raise the alarm about a possible
resurgence of infectious diseases, another controversial
theory now taken seriously.
Paul Ehrlich, who is Bing Professor of Population Studies
in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford
University, and Anne Ehrlich, senior research associate in
biology and policy coordination at Stanford's Center for
Conservation Biology, which the couple founded, have never
suggested that population issues represent the whole of the
planet's problems. In fact they have been forceful advocates
for broadening the agenda of the environmental movement to
include such issues as biodiversity, poverty, consumption,
carrying capacity, energy supplies, agriculture and food,
global warming, nuclear weapons, international economics,
environmental ethics, and sustainable development.
The Ehrlichs have displayed rare leadership in seeking to
translate meaningful science into workable policy. Far from
being prophets of doom, they are spirited optimists, whose
unrivaled contributions have flowed from a belief that the
future is still ours to make.
geoffrey canada
Geoffrey Canada receives the Heinz Award for the Human
Condition in recognition of his battle against what he calls
the ``monsters'' preying on the children of the depressed
inner-city. As President and CEO of the New York-based
Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families, he not only has
created model programs, but sets an example for all adults
wanting to protect children from crime, drugs, lawlessness
and despair.
Geoffrey Canada knows life in the inner city at first hand.
It's where he grew up, and he remembers what it's like to be
a child there. ``I haven't forgotten about the monsters,'' he
says. ``I remember being small, vulnerable and scared.''
Geoffrey Canada was one of those rare and fortunate young
men and women who are able to rise above and move beyond the
inner city. Once they leave, they rarely return. But Canada
did return, motivated by a desire to save young people whose
lives might otherwise be snuffed out by bullets or smothered
by hopelessness. He decided to live in Harlem, the community
in which he works, in order to provide what, in his own
youth, he so wished for: a role model. He is optimistic in
seeking practical answers to what pessimists view as
intractable problems. The fact that he has no illusions is
the very thing that makes him so effective.
Geoffrey Canada grew up poor on welfare, in a household
headed by a single woman in the blighted tenements of New
York's South Bronx. Despite the many things he did not have,
he realized what he did have: a hard-working and loving
mother who gave him a strong set of values, a deep sense of
responsibility, a belief in the importance of education, and
an almost ardent commitment to make things better not only
for himself, but for those around him.
In 1963, having completed his graduate education, he joined
the staff of the New York-based Rheedlen Centers for Children
and Families. He was named its President/CEO in 1990. At
Rheedlen, he has been instrumental in creating or developing
such programs as Rheedlen's Beacon School, Community Pride,
the Harlem Freedom Schools, and Peacemakers.
The Beacon Schools program uses public school buildings to
provide inner-city families with safe shelters and
constructive activities 17 hours a day, 365 days a year.
There are now 37 Beacon Schools in New York. The program has
been replicated in Connecticut, Illinois, and California.
To combat the culture of violence in the inner-city, Canada
conceived of the Peacemakers Program. He was concerned by the
media's easy promotion of violence as a way of settling
disputes, and he set out to develop an alternative: a program
to teach children how to use communication to resolve
conflicts. His Peacemakers curriculum trains young people in
conflict resolution, mediation, and violence prevention and
reduction techniques. He is the author of the forthcoming
Fist Stick Knife Gun, a book on conflict resolution.
Geoffrey Canada believes that, if today's urban youth are
to be convinced that a disadvantaged background does not
demand despair or dictate defeat, they must have real role
models and real heroes. And they need them on the spot:
successful, educated men and women who continue to live
alongside them in their communities, shop at their stores,
play in their parks, and ride the buses and subways just as
they do. Geoffrey Canada's life teaches by example.
ambassador james goodby
Ambassador James Goodby receives the Heinz Award for Public
Policy. Virtually unknown to his countrymen or to the world,
Ambassador Goodby is a quiet titan in the delicate, high
stakes arena of international nuclear weapons negotiations.
Both the esoteric and security-sensitive nature of his
specialty have required him to work almost entirely behind
the scenes. But for more than four decades, under nine
Presidents, James Goodby has made the world a safer place,
beginning with his leadership of the effort to achieve a
nuclear test ban treaty in the 1950s and 1960s. After
retiring from the foreign service in 1989, Ambassador Goodby
was called back into service in 1993 to serve as Chief U.S.
Negotiator for the Safe and Secure Dismantlement of Nuclear
Weapons. He negotiated over 30 agreements with several former
Soviet Republics to assist in the dismantling of nuclear
weapons, preventing weapons proliferation and converting
military facilities to civilian enterprises.
As Secretary of Defense William Perry has written, ``Jim's
life has been dedicated to serving the public and humanity.
He is an unselfish individual who is touched by the needs of
others and responds in a vigorous way to bring about
change.''
James Goodby came of age in the shadow of the atomic bomb.
The post-war years--the late 1940s and early 1950s--saw the
disintegration of wartime alliances and the escalation of
East-West tensions. Goodby graduated from Harvard in 1951 and
entered the foreign service in 1952. With the exception of
the two years he served as U.S. Ambassador to Finland (1980-
1981), most of his career has dealt with international peace
and security negotiations.
His reputation as a negotiator quickly spread through
foreign policy and government circles: he was strong and
dependable; he was smart; and he seemed to have the knack for
devising creative solutions to complicated questions. While
assigned to the U.S. Mission to NATO in the early 1970s, he
negotiated alliance positions on human rights and security
provisions for the Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe, many of which became part of the Helsinki Final Act.
After a stint as vice chairman of the U.S. delegation to the
Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START), he became head of the
U.S. delegation to the Stockholm Conference on Confidence and
Security Building Measures and Disarmament in Europe in 1984.
In that position, he negotiated the framework that laid the
basis for negotiations on conventional force reductions in
Europe. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who
describes Goodby as a ``thoroughly laudable person,'' has
written that ``Ambassador Goodby got the ball rolling very
effectively, standing up to the Soviets and rallying our
allies.''
Praise for his accomplishments makes James Goodby, now a
Distinguished Service Professor at Carnegie Mellon University
in Pittsburgh, Pa., uncomfortable. A native New Englander, he
modestly demurs: ``Where I come from, we don't feel
comfortable with
[[Page S1794]] such talk * * * I had a lot of people to help
me do it.''
It may surprise some that a single individual, bucking
modern media worship by purposely eschewing publicity, could
make such a difference to the fate of the world. But James
Goodby, compelled to a life of public service by a desire to
make the world a safer place, offers reassurance that there
still exist in America men and women with brilliant minds and
distinguished careers who need nothing more than the inner
satisfaction of a vision fulfilled and the knowledge that
they have truly made a difference.
andrew s. grove
Andrew Grove receives the Heinz Award for Technology and
the Economy in recognition not just of his astounding
technological and business accomplishments, but also of his
determination and vision. In a story as old as America, those
traits transformed him from a young immigrant into a leading
figure in the birth of the information society.
His accomplishments range from the technical to the
commercial, from contributing to the development of the
microprocessor chip--perhaps the most important advancement
in the history of computing--to helping create the personal
computer industry. As more Americans start traveling down the
information highway, at speeds and prices to their liking, a
tip of their symbolic hats to Andy Grove would be in order.
More than an engineering genius, he is an enlightened
corporate executive and employer whose ability to nurture
talent is legendary. His peers as well as his employees call
him Andy, and that speaks volumes about the man's character,
about his approach to business and, most certainly, about his
approach to life.
A native of Hungary, Andrew Grove fled during the 1956
Soviet invasion. When he arrived in New York, he was twenty
years old, had only a few dollars in his pocket, and knew
even fewer words of English.
The boy from Budapest has lived the quintessential American
success story. By working any job he could find, he put
himself through New York's City College, earning a BS. in
Chemical Engineering. He received his masters and Ph.D. from
the University of California at Berkeley.
Andrew Grove has played perhaps the pivotal role in the
development and popularization of the 20th century's most
remarkable innovation--the personal computer. The
technologies pioneered by Grove and his associates, first at
Fairchild Semiconductor and then at Intel, which he co-
founded in 1968, made the entire personal computing
revolution possible. The world has barely begun to scratch
the surface of the technological and economic benefits that
revolution can bring.
No stranger to controversy, Andrew Grove has shown an
ability to learn from experience. And, while others panicked
over problems or setbacks, he has always managed to maintain
his focus on what is important and what he does best:
developing even faster, more affordable and more powerful
technology.
Thanks in large measure to Andrew Grove's genius and
vision, millions of people now have instant and inexpensive
access to the kinds of information and entertainment about
which even the elites of previous generations could only
dream.
henry hampton
Henry Hampton receives the Heinz Award in Arts and
Humanities for his creativity, his curiosity and his
seriousness of purpose, as manifested in the outstanding
contributions of Blackside, Inc., the independent film and
television company he founded in 1968.
From modest beginnings, Blackside has become one of the
successful independent production companies in the world. But
success hasn't changed Henry Hampton, who, remembering his
early struggles, regularly mentors young minority filmakers.
Among Blackside's productions are the landmark television
series Eyes on the Prize I and II. Other Blackside
documentaries have included The Great Depression, Malcolm X,
and the recently-broadcast America's War on Poverty.
Hampton's work and that of his producing team, has been
described as ``history as poetry''--but it is not the kind of
poetry that sugar-coats difficult and divisive issues. He
believes that Americans of all races must truly understand
their past before they can deal with the present, much less
master the future.
Henry Hampton grew up in St. Louis. After deciding against
a career in medicine, he went to work as an editor, and later
as director of information, for the Unitarian Universalist
Church. When a Unitarian minister was killed in Selma,
Alabama, the churchleaders, including Hampton, went to the
South to join Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s march.
During this first visit to the deep south, Hampton started
to think about capturing the struggle for civil rights on
film. He had no experience, but he set about learning.
Questioning the conventional approaches, he and his
colleagues slowly began devising a unique style for
Blackside's work. Finally he was ready to make exactly the
kinds of documentaries he envisioned.
Eyes on the Prize has received six Emmys, a Peabody, and an
Academy Award nomination. It has been broadcast around the
world, and is used as a teaching tool on as many as half of
four-year college campuses in the U.S.
Henry Hampton pushes his company to deal with what he calls
``messy history''--the kind that doesn't supply the neat
conclusion the public so often wants. He believes that media
can help people use the perspective history offers as they
deal with contemporary problems.
Depsite the weighty issues with which his films deal, Henry
Hampton remains an optimistic man. He is undeterred by the
effects of both childhood polio and of a more-recent cancer.
His vision of a just and compassionate future for all
Americans fuels his spirit and permeates his work.
____________________