| The 133rd Glenville State College Commencement is scheduled to begin
Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 10 a.m. The ceremony will take place in the Jesse R. Lilly, Jr. Gymnasium.
Students completing requirements for degrees in August 2006,
December 2006, and May 2007 are eligible to graduate. The 160 graduates hail from throughout West Virginia, 11 states and two foreign countries.
There will be a reception directly following the ceremony on Clark Hall Lawn.
James Westbrooke Spears, West Virginia Homeland Security Advisor, will be the keynote speaker at Saturday's ceremonies.
He was appointed to the position of Cabinet Secretary of the West
Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety and West
Virginia Homeland Security Advisor by Governor Joe Manchin III in 2005.
Secretary Spears is responsible for 11 divisions of approximately 10,500
employees with a budget of over half-billion dollars. Divisions include
the Adjutant General/WV National Guard, Division of Corrections,
Division of Criminal Justice Services, Division of Homeland Security and
Emergency Management, Division of Juvenile Services, Division of
Protective Services, Division of Veterans Affairs, Parole Board,
Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority, WV State Fire
Marshal, WV State Police, and the Homeland Security State Administrative
Agency.
Spears is a graduate of Davidson College in North Carolina, where he
earned a BA degree in History and graduated as an ROTC distinguished
military graduate. While serving in the Army he also completed a
master's degree in International Relations from the University of
Southern California.
He also attended l'Ecole d'Etat-Major (French
General Staff College) in Compeigne, France; the Strategic Intelligence Postgraduate Program in Washington, D.C. (Distinguished Graduate); the Postgraduate program for Foreign Area Specialists at the JFK Special Warfare Center (Distinguished Graduate); the Defense Language Institute for French language in Monterey, California (Distinguished Graduate); and the U.S. State Department's Foreign Service Institute for Slovak Language in Washington, D.C. Secretary Spears' languages are French, German, and Slovak.
He brings a wide range of experience to his new position. He has served as principal advisor to six United States ambassadors for various programs, including review, analysis and development of U.S. foreign and economic policy for two U.S. ambassadors in Luxemburg and two in Slovakia. In Slovakia he served as the U.S. Defense Attaché and acted on behalf of the U.S. Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to formulate and coordinate U.S. political-military policies in Slovakia.
In addition, he managed more than $8 million in sales and
assistance programs to the Slovak Republic. His experience also includes
the coordination of congressional and public affairs for the Defense
Intelligence Agency.
Secretary Spears served for 22 years as a U.S. Army Officer before
voluntarily retiring to serve as Director of Program Development and
Training for the U.S. Department of State's African Crisis Response
Initiative in Washington , D.C. Serving as a principal advisor to two
U.S. ambassadors, he designed, coordinated and implemented one of our
federal government's primary assistance programs in Africa.
He
negotiated with the governments of Kenya, Botswana, Senegal, Malawi,
Mali, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Ethiopia, developing peacekeeping
assistance and development programs totaling as much as $20 million
annually.
A world traveler, he has criss-crossed the African continent multiple
times and lived in various countries for almost 14 years. Mr. Spears is
married and has four children.
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