Ohio's Future - Leadership

Rob Portman, Honorary Chairman

Rob Portman has served at the highest levels of the United States government. He has been a legislative leader in Congress, the nation’s top international trade negotiator and the lead Administration official setting budget and regulatory policy. Mr. Portman is widely regarded both domestically and internationally for his integrity, substance and proven ability to address the most challenging issues facing our nation.

A Cincinnati native, Mr. Portman was elected to the US House of Representatives in a special election in 1993. For more than a decade, he represented his constituents of the Second Congressional District of Ohio. As a successful legislator, he reached across party lines and earned the respect of colleagues from both sides of the aisle.

In Congress, Mr. Portman served as chair of the House Republican Leadership, a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee and vice chair of the House Budget Committee. He was known as a problem-solver who sought consensus. During his Congressional tenure, Mr. Portman passed legislation that strengthened retirement savings, simplified tax laws, improved drug prevention and education across communities, brought fiscally sound and innovative approaches to environmental conservation and reformed the IRS, all with large bipartisan support.

Mr. Portman left Congress in 2005 when he was nominated by President Bush to serve in the Cabinet as the United States Trade Representative. As the nation’s trade negotiator, Mr. Portman opened new markets around the world while vigorously enforcing US trade laws. He energized lagging global trade talks with an ambitious offer to lower US agricultural subsidies in exchange for greater market openings for US farmers. He successfully worked with Congress to pass the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the Bahrain FTA. Mr. Portman launched two new trade agreements with Korea and Malaysia and successfully negotiated agreements with Peru, Oman and Colombia.

In his second and most recent Cabinet position, as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Mr. Portman instilled fiscal discipline, proposing a balanced budget and instituting greater transparency in government spending. He led administration efforts to adopt the goal of balancing the budget by 2012. Mr. Portman enforced spending restraint by recommending veto of spending bills that Congress produced in excess of the President’s budget plan. Under his leadership, OMB also launched an unprecedented effort to publish a database of all Congressional earmarks.

From 1984 to 1986, Mr. Portman practiced international trade law as an associate at a Washington DC law firm. From 1986 to 1989, and again from 1991 to 1993, he practiced corporate and international law, first as an associate and then as partner, at a Cincinnati-based law firm. He also served in the George H.W. Bush Administration as Associate Counsel to the President, and later as Director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, from 1989 to 1991.

Mr. Portman joined the Advisory Board of the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University in 2008 and is a co-teacher at the University.

Mr. Portman is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions. In 2008 he received the Excellence in Public Service Award from Ohio State's John Glenn School of Public Affairs, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Distinguished Public Service Award from Dartmouth College's Nelson A. Rockefeller Center, the PLANSPONSOR Magazine Legend Award for his substantial contribution to the field of retirement security, the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America 2008 National Leadership Award for his national impact on the problems of alcohol and drug abuse, the Leadership in Alcohol and Other Drug Services Award from the Hamilton County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board, and the prestigious Albert Gallatin Award, an honor given by the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce to recognize exceptional contributions toward furthering understanding between the peoples of Switzerland and the United States.

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