National Summits and Special Events
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One of the primary ways the Tennessee Valley Corridor, Inc., advances ongoing collaboration and cooperation among key Corridor institutions, organizations, businesses and elected leaders is through the Corridor’s annual National Summit.
The upcoming 2010 TVC National Technology Summit in Washington, D.C. will be the 23rd in a series of regular economic development Summits the Corridor has organized to help strategically link the technology-rich Tennessee Valley Corridor – from North Alabama through East Tennessee into Southwest Virginia, Western North Carolina and Southern and Eastern Kentucky.
Under the leadership of the Corridor’s ten Congressmen and a Corridor-wide board of leading business, government, education and economic development leaders, these regular Summits have become the region’s best vehicle to convene, inform and mobilize top leaders on issues of importance to advancing federal missions and to leveraging those federal missions and the Corridor’s research institutions for new regional job creation.
Keynote speakers at past Summits have included: current U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander, Bob Corker, Jeff Sessions and Jim DeMint; Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen; current Congressmen Zach Wamp, Hal Rogers, Jimmy Duncan, Rick Boucher, Heath Shuler, Phil Roe; Lincoln Davis, Robert Aderholt, Parker Griffith, Bart Gordon, Gresham Barrett and Bob Inglis; FedEx founder and chairman Fred Smith; Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Tom Kilgore; former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff; former U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman; former U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George W. Casey, Jr.; former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge; former U.S. Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary; former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Frederico Pena; former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce David Sampson; former NASA administrator Dan Goldin; former U.S. Senator Bill Frist; former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, former Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher and former Tennessee Governor Don Sundquist; former Congressmen David Davis and Bud Cramer; and dozens of other national and regional leaders.
In between these National Summits, the Corridor also organizes or supports subject-specific conferences, meetings and seminars in support of the Corridor’s core initiatives. Recent events have focused on:
- New Industrialism and Reindustrialization
Below: Congressman Hal Rogers (R-KY) and Michael Chertoff, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security talk over dinner at the 2005 National Summit in Washington D.C.
- Homeland Security and Community Preparedness
- Workforce Training
- Venture Capital
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Below, from left to right: Former Senator |
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