Coats to speak at Lincoln Day Dinner
GREENCASTLE -- Former U.S. Sen. Dan Coats will be the featured speaker Sunday at the Putnam County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner.
The dinner starts at 1 p.m. in the Ball Room at the DePauw Student Union.
Coats is one of the Republican candidates to replace Sen. Evan Bayh, who has announced he is retiring from the U.S. Senate.
Coats represented the state of Indiana in the United States Senate from 1989 to 1999. He was a member of the Senate leadership, serving as Midwest regional whip.
In the Senate, he focused on defense, national security, health care, education and human resource issues.
Prior to his service in the Senate, Coats represented Indiana's Fourth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 to 1988.
While in the House, Coats served on the Committee on Energy and Commerce and as Republican leader of the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families. Before his election to Congress, Coats served as Indiana director for then-Congressman Dan Quayle from 1977 to 1980.
Prior to his involvement in politics, he was assistant vice president of a Fort Wayne life insurance company.
Upon retirement from the U.S. Senate in 1998, Coats joined former Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole and George Mitchell as special counsel with the Washington law firm of Verner Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand. Coats' practice focused on legislative, international and corporate matters including defense, telecommunications, health care and non-profit organizations.
Appointed by President George W. Bush, Sen. Coats served as U.S. Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany from August 2001 to February 2005.
In April of 2005, he joined the Government Advocacy and Public Policy practice group at the law firm King and Spalding LLP as senior counsel.
Coats served on the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he chaired the subcommittees on Military Personnel and Air/Land Forces, the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In 1995, he received national recognition as the author and champion of the Project for American Renewal, a comprehensive initiative aimed at shifting power and funding from Washington directly to local, faith-based and non-profit groups which are successfully working to resolve many of the nation's social problems.
Following his retirement from the Senate, Coats and his wife Marsha formed The Foundation For American Renewal (FAR) for the purpose of continuing his engagement in support for faith-based initiatives. FAR is associated with the Sagamore Institute For Policy Research, an Indianapolis based non-profit organization, which Senator Coats co-chairs. He has lectured and written on this topic, and is the author of "Mending Fences: Renewing Justice Between Government and Civil Society."
Coats, who served in the U.S. Army from 1966-68, was a leading voice in the Senate for military reform and transformation to the post cold-war world. He was a strong advocate of a bi-partisan approach to national security issues, joining Sen. Joseph Lieberman on a number of defense reform initiatives.
He is a former member of the West Point Board of Visitors, the Defense Panel on Globalization and Privatization, and the Defense Policy Board.
Coats served as co-chair, along with Sen. Lieberman, of the Center for Jewish and Christian Values. He is past president of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, an organization he has been associated with since 1972. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of Wheaton College, Illinois and on a number of boards, civic and volunteer organizations.
Coats is a 1965 graduate of Wheaton College and holds a Juris Doctor degree from Indiana University School of Law, where he served as associate editor of the Law Review. He holds three honorary doctoral degrees.
Tickets to the Lincoln Day Dinner are $25 each and can be purchased at the door or by calling Republican County Chairman Larry Sutton at 653-5954.