O'Leary, Hazel Rollins, 1937-

<p>Hazel O'Leary served as secretary of energy during the first Clinton administration (1993-1997).During the Ford presidency, O'Leary directed the Office of Consumer Affairs/Special Impact (1974-1976) and was general counsel of the Community Services Administration (1976-1977). President Carter named O'Leary assistant administrator for conservation and environment in the Federal Energy Administration, a position she held from 1977 to 1978. When the Federal Energy Administration became part of the Department of Energy, O'Leary served as chief of the department's Economic Regulatory Administration (1978-1980).From 1981 to 1989, O'Leary was vice president and general counsel of O'Leary & Associates, the energy consulting firm she and her husband formed. She then joined Northern States Power Company as executive vice president for public and environmental affairs and vice president for human resources. In 1993, she was promoted to president of the company.</p>

<p>O'Leary was born in Newport News, Virginia, in 1937. She graduated from Fisk University and earned her law degree at Rutgers University Law School.</p>

<p>After leaving the Department of Energy in 1997, O'Leary rejoined her energy consulting firm.</p>

<p>The Honorable Hazel R. O’Leary served as the President of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee from 2004 through February 2013 and currently serves on the boards of directors of the Nashville Alliance for Public Education, Nashville Business Community for the Arts, World Wildlife Fund, Arms Control Association and CAMAC Energy Inc.</p>

<p>Ms. O'Leary served as an Assistant Attorney General and Assistant Prosecutor in the state of New Jersey and was appointed to the Federal Energy Administration under President Gerald Ford and to the United States Department of Energy under President Jimmy Carter. In 1989, she became Executive Vice President for Environmental and Public Affairs for the Minnesota Northern States Power Company and in 1992 she was promoted to President of the holding company's gas distribution subsidiary. Ms. O'Leary served as the United States Secretary of Energy from 1993 to 1997 and as President and Chief Operating Officer for the investment banking firm Blaylock and Partners in New York from 2000 to 2002.</p>

<p>Hazel Reid O'Leary (born May 17, 1937) was the seventh United States Secretary of Energy, from 1993 to 1997, appointed by President Bill Clinton. She was the first woman and first African American to hold the position. She served as president of Fisk University, a historically black college and her alma mater, from 2004 to 2013. O'Leary's tenure at Fisk came amid financial difficulty for the school, during which time she increased enrollment and contentiously used the school's art collection to raise funds.</p>

<p>O'Leary received her bachelor's degree from Fisk before earning her Bachelor of Laws degree from Rutgers School of Law. O'Leary worked as a prosecutor in New Jersey and then in a private consulting/accounting firm before joining the Carter Administration. O'Leary returned to the private sector and rejoined the government as the first Secretary of Energy of the Clinton administration. As Secretary of Energy, O'Leary declassified documents detailing how the United States had previously conducted secret testing on the effects of radiation on unsuspecting American citizens. O'Leary received criticism for her excessive spending as secretary.</p>

<p>Hazel Reid was born in Newport News, Virginia. Her parents, Russel E. Reid and Hazel Reid, were both physicians. They divorced when she was 18 months old.  Her father and stepmother, a teacher named Mattie Pullman Reid, raised Hazel and her older sister Edna Reid,  primarily in the East End neighborhood. Hazel attended school in a segregated school system in Newport News for eight years.  She and her sister were then sent to live with an aunt in Essex County, New Jersey, and attend Arts High School, an integrated school.  She earned a bachelor's degree at Fisk University in Nashville in 1959. She then married Carl Rollins and had a son before returning to school and earning her Bachelor of Laws degree from Rutgers Law School in Newark in 1966.</p>

<p>The first and only woman to hold the position of U.S. Secretary of Energy, Hazel Rollins Reid was born May 17, 1937 in Newport News, Virginia. During this time of public school segregation, Reid’s parents, hoping for better schooling opportunities, sent their daughter to live with an aunt in New Jersey. There Reid attended a school for artistically gifted students.</p>

<p>Reid entered Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1955 and graduated with honors four years later. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society at Fisk. Seven years later she received a law degree from Rutgers University and soon became an attorney in the New Jersey State Attorney General’s Office.</p>

<p>By the early 1970s Reid moved to Washington, D.C., where she became a partner at Coopers and Lybrand, an accounting firm. Soon she joined the Gerald Ford Administration as general counsel to the Community Services Administration which administered most of the federal government’s anti-poverty programs. President Ford later appointed Reid director of the Federal Energy Administration’s Office of Consumer Affairs. In this position she became well known as a representative of the concerns of consumers who challenged the power and influence of the major energy producers.</p>