 |
Name:
|
Basil Anthony Smikle, Jr. |
| Month: |
May 2003 |
| School: |
Cornell, 1993, Columbia, 1996 |
| Degree: |
B.S., MPP |
| Company: |
Office of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
|
| Title: |
Deputy State Director |
Basil Anthony Smikle Jr. is currently the Deputy State Director for U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
He acts as The Senator's liaison to elected officials, labor leaders and community-based organizations
throughout the State of New York. He is also instrumental in determining the policy and political
strategy for the State and assists in the administration of seven regional offices across New York.
He traveled with the Senator during her campaign, managed her events from the field. He also joined the
Senator's delegations to Vietnam and Israel for the White House during the Clinton Administration.
Among his current activities, Basil works on issues affecting the Labor community, Housing, Education,
Immigration and Economic Development issues in the State.
From 1989 to 1993, Basil attended Cornell University where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Industrial
and Labor Relations, concentrating in Labor Law. During his undergraduate studies, Basil received a
Community Service award from the University for his work at WVBR-FM, an Ithaca, New York radio station.
Basil was both the station's producer and on-air personality bringing music, news and talk show
programming to Upstate New York.
At the age of 22, Basil was a benefits manager at The National Benefit Fund, the support agency for over
two hundred thousand Local 1199 members of the Service Employees International Union
In 1996, Basil graduated from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs with a
Masters Degree in Public Policy, concentrating in Urban Development. He received the Columbia University
Departmental Fellowship and the Public Affairs Research Fellowship, which allowed him to work on several
important projects including:
- Co-authoring a welfare-to-work program currently operating in the City of Indianapolis
- A consulting project with the Philadelphia AIDS Consortium on AIDS/HIV care in the Philadelphia
metropolitan area.
During his two years at Columbia, Basil worked at the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone as a Project
Manager. The Empowerment Zone, then in its embryonic stage, is a federal community development program
charged with forming public/private partnerships between the not-for-profit sector and business
community. While there, he assisted the effort to determine Upper Manhattan's priorities in the
areas of Health Care, Housing, Education and Economic Development.
Later, Basil went back to his home in The Bronx and worked as a Special Assistant to Bronx Borough
President and former mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer. He was actively involved in policy and
decision-making on a variety of issues.
He has consulted on a number of campaigns in New York State and, most recently, to the Texas Democratic
Party for the 2002 election cycle.
He is a member of 100 Black Men of New York, Inc., an Associate of the Community Service Society of New
York, a board member of Young Athletes Inc. and sits on the Advisory boards of both Public Allies, Inc.
and BELL Inc. - Building Educated Leaders for Life.
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