School launches Steven L. Spinner fundraising campaign

Spinner, a 1984 graduate of the LBJ School who died last September, devoted his career to developing a comprehensive delivery system for employment and training services and to fostering public-private partnerships in the area of workforce development.

As job training adviser to the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, Spinner led a bipartisan staff effort to craft legislation consolidating federal training and education programs. This legislation, known as the Workforce Development Act (Senate Bill 143), was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate two weeks after Spinner's death and was subsequently passed by the House of Representatives.

"Steve did an excellent job on many complex issues, and he played an indispensable role in preparing landmark bipartisan legislation . . . ," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy soon after Spinner's death. "All of us who worked with him and learned from him in the Senate--Republicans and Democrats alike--will miss him deeply."

Prior to his work on Capitol Hill, Spinner was employed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. From 1988 to 1990, he was director of the MASSJOBS Southeast, a regional economic development initiative that allowed him to work closely with the public and private sectors in a program that targeted human resource development as a tool for economic revitalization.

Earlier, as assistant director of MASSJOBS Council, the governor's principal advisory board for workforce development policy, Spinner sought the active involvement of private sector executives in the deployment of resources for job training and education across the state.

Spinner was also instrumental in designing the Massachusetts School-to-Work Transition Program in which high school students experience on-the-job training combined with a restructured curriculum that prepares them for the demands of the work place.

"Steve Spinner exemplified the highest qualities of dedication to public service, integrity, and professionalism," said LBJ School Professor Ray Marshall, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor. "This internship encourages students to emulate those qualities and to do so in the important field where Steve made significant contributions in a very short life."

According to Carlton Schwab, LBJ School Director of Development, the Steven Lowell Spinner Internship Fund has been created to "foster a student's interest in and working knowledge of employment, education, and training policy and programs that prepare workers for meaningful employment." Income from the endowment will be used to fund the required 12-week summer internship for a student interested in workforce development policy.

Gift and pledge information
Gifts or pledges to the Steven Lowell Spinner Internship Fund should be sent to Carlton Schwab, Director of Development, LBJ School of Public Affairs, Box Y, University Station, Austin, Texas 78713-8925. Questions may be addressed to Schwab via e-mail at cschwab@mail.utexas.edu, or by calling 512/471-2760.