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VALID is proud to announce that Sue Swenson, President of Inclusion International will be presenting at the Official Opening on February 4 at this year’s Having A Say Conference in Geelong, the largest disability conference in the Southern Hemisphere.
Sue served the Obama administration as deputy and acting assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services, leading the nation’s largest disability policy office and managing over $15billion in federal funding.
Sue got involved with disability advocacy because her middle son, Charlie, had profound disabilities. She was educated at the University of Chicago (AB, AM) and earned an MBA at the University of Minnesota.
Sue was very active in the Minneapolis schools as well as in State and federal advocacy while working as a professional services marketing director before being named a Kennedy Fellow in the US Senate in 1996. There she worked for the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Disability Policy on both the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Developmental Disabilities Services and Bill of Rights Act.
Sue served the Obama administration in the US Department of Education as assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services. These two federal programs regulate and fund States to help them support people with disabilities in American schools and workplaces. She represented the US Department of Education on the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities. Sue previously served as the commissioner for developmental disabilities in the US Department of Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration, as executive director of the national chapter of The Arc, and as executive director of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation.
Media release here