Our guest is John Cavanaugh who is currently serving as executive director of Building Bright Futures, a private sector/public sector partnership designed to create a national model for urban educational excellence and equity in the Omaha metropolitan area. Our topic today is, “How can we start American children off on the right path to learning?”

Download | Duration: 00:53:17

Mr. Cavanaugh is a fourth generation Nebraskan. A lawyer by profession and a graduate of The Creighton University School of Law (1972) Mr. Cavanaugh served in the U.S. Army (1968-69, was elected to the Nebraska Unicameral Legislature in 1972 before being elected to the United States House of Representatives from the Second District in Nebraska. He served from 1976 until 1980.

Among his civic activities Mr. Cavanaugh served for 20 years as a trustee of the Platte River Whooping Crane Habitat Trust and received a Presidential appointment as chairman of the Czech and Slovak American Enterprise Fund. Mr. Cavanaugh currently serves on the Board of Directors of Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs. He and his wife are the proud parents eight children.  

This past Friday night, November 14, 2008, Mr. Cavanaugh’s daughter Maureen opened her art exhibition, “Stay With me,” at 31 Grand, 143 Ludlow Street, NYC, NY 10002.

The opening was very well attended and seemed quite successful from this reporter’s vantage. Special guests, fellow Nebraskans, and friends of the Cavanaugh’s, Mr. Ted Sorenson, former speech writer and adviser to the late President John F. Kennedy and Bob Kerrey, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the current President of the New School, and a former Governor and US Senator were in attendance. 

Bob Kerrey                   Ted Sorenson               John Cavanaugh