Alice Rivlin of Brookings Awarded Elliot Richardson Public Service Prize: Rivlin Honored with Colin Powell, George Shultz

Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Alice M. Rivlin, the founder of the Congressional Budget Office and the former director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, was awarded the first Elliot Richardson Public Service Prize May 28 by the Council for Excellence in Government (CEG). Following the Tuesday ceremony, she was honored May 29 by President Bush at the White House.

The Council for Excellence in Government’s public service prize is awarded to individuals who “have demonstrated generosity of spirit, thoughtfulness in the pursuit of excellence in government, courage and integrity,” according to a statement from CEG.

“Alice has devoted her career to making the public service work better,” said Michael H. Armacost, president of the Brookings Institution. “She has been a true asset to Brookings and to the country and I am thrilled that the Council for Excellence in Government has given her the recognition she richly deserves.”

“Public service is an exciting and rewarding career,” said Rivlin, who is being awarded the prize along with Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz. “I am delighted that recent polls show rising interest in public service among young people.”

Rivlin co-directs the Brookings Greater Washington Research Program and is a professor at the Milano Graduate School of the New School University. From 1983-87, she directed the Brookings Economic Studies Program.

Before returning to Brookings in 1999, Rivlin was vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board. She has also been the founding director of the Congressional Budget Office, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, chair of the District of Columbia Financial Management Assistance Authority, and assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Rivlin, the 1983 winner of a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, is a frequent contributor to newspapers, television, and radio, and has written numerous books, including Systematic Thinking for Social Action (l971), Reviving the American Dream (1992), and Beyond the Dot.coms (with Robert Litan), 2001.

Before his death in 1999, Elliot Richardson served in the military and in state and federal government. He was Undersecretary of State; Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare; Secretary of Defense; Attorney General; and Secretary of Commerce. He also served as Ambassador to Great Britain.

The Brookings Institution is an 85-year-old, independent, nonpartisan research organization that seeks to improve the performance and quality of U.S. public policies.