Briefing: “WMD, Terrorism and Energy: Opportunities

for the US and Russia”

The Partnership for a Secure America and

Security for a New Century

111th Congress

Monday, March 9 at 3 p.m.

Cannon House Office Building 122

Speakers:

Dr. Laura S. H. Holgate, Vice President for Russia/New Independent States (NIS) Programs. Ms. Holgate has served in a number of senior positions in the federal government, including managing the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program at the U.S. Department of Defense, which provides assistance to Russia and the new independent states in securing and destroying excess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and materials. She also served as Director of the Office of Fissile Materials Disposition at the U.S. Department of Energy. Ms. Holgate has received numerous public service awards and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute of Strategic Studies. She is President of Women in International Security, and sits on advisory panels of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Ed Verona, President and CEO of the U.S.-Russia Business Council.

Mr. Verona was previously Vice President of ExxonMobil Russia, Inc., based in Moscow. He began his professional career in 1980 as a Special Representative for mining and petroleum equipment manufacturer Ingersoll-Rand, and joined Shell Oil Company in 1987. He was appointed to the U.S. Foreign Service in 1989 and assigned as an Economic Officer to the American embassies in Mexico City, Brasilia, and Moscow. In 1996, Mr. Verona left the Foreign Service to become Executive Director of the Moscow-based Petroleum Advisory Forum (PAF). In 1998, he was named Russia Country Manager for Texaco, Inc., based in Moscow. Mr. Verona was transferred to Almaty, Kazakhstan in 1999 as Texaco’s Country Manager, where he also served as Chairman of the Kazakhstan Petroleum Association (KPA) 1999-2000. Subsequently, he was assigned to Washington, D.C. as International Government Relations Advisor. Following Texaco’s merger with Chevron, he served as Vice President for Government and Public Affairs for ChevronTexaco’s upstream operations in Latin America, based in Caracas, Venezuela.

Matthew Rojansky, Executive Director of the Partnership for a Secure America.

The Partnership for a Secure America is co-chaired by former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN) and former Sen. Warren Rudman (R-NH), with a mission to restore the bipartisan center in US foreign policy. Prior to joining PSA, Mr. Rojansky served as a clerk to Judge Erdmann on the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the top appellate court for the US military. He was previously a Fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, where he conducted research on international criminal law, served as a section instructor in political science, and organized simulated UN Security Council sessions to address Iran's nuclear program with students at US and Russian universities. Mr. Rojansky has served as a public relations consultant on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and has worked and studied in the former Soviet Union.