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Who is Eli Segal?

Submitted by garrett on Fri, 12/15/2006 - 01:00

I roll into work this Monday and all I can think about is black coffee. Walking down to the break room, past the festive looking mini Christmas tree, four large mysterious boxes from Denver, the small smÃ¶rgÃ¥sbord of mini cookies and the popcorn that I bet no one eats, I arrive at the break room. Then it hits me. I don't even like coffee. Then it hits me again. Four. Large. Boxes. From Denver. The SCA photo archive from the Denver Public Library is here! Whoever said all Mondays are lame obviously never got anything from the Denver Library. As we begin to tear through the piles of slides, negatives, and prints, I come across a group of photos of celebrities/politicians holding SCA memorabilia. Among them are Bill Clinton, Nancey Reagan, and a happy looking man named Eli Segal.

The photo is dated 1992 and I do not know who this is. Seeing as I was 9 in 1992, who won the kickball game and what is on tap for snack were much higher priorities than national politics. My interest sparked, I begin my search. Who is Eli Segal?

Eli Segal came to prominence as the maestro of Bill Clinton's 1992 Presidential campaign. After orchestrating such a successful campaign, one is usually first inline to reap the benefits offered from the new leader of the free world. Mr. Segal could have taken money and/or power in almost any form imaginable. What he did next would be unthinkable to some, but perfect to others. He took a small office and no money and chose to help the Clinton administration follow through on its campaign promise to jump start the national conservation programs. After becoming the CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service he successfully merged several existing conservation programs into Americorps. He also created the Welfare-to-Work Partnership and saw it through its initial opposition from businesses to currently include over 22,000 employers. To learn more about this champion of service see:

Garrett, your entry brought

Submitted by Bob Coates (not verified) on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 14:55.

Garrett, your entry brought back memories of my start here at SCA. I was finishing graduate school when Eli Segal was transitioning from the Clinton Presidential campaign to become of head of newly formed Corporation for National Service. During graduate school, a student group of which I was a part, hosted a conference on national service and Eli Segal came as did corps members from youth corps across the country. As a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, this sparked my interest - I was thinking this was the beginning of a new movement for a domestic national service program. This interest led me to return to my home state of New Hampshire after school to start a youth corps program. It was then that I discovered SCA and the New Hampshire Conservation Corps. That t-shirt is an NHCC t-shirt presented to Eli Segal not long after he started as head of AmeriCorps. I was hired by SCA to explore AmeriCorps funding and how SCA might become a partner with the Corporation for National Service. It became a job of working with the CNS to get the then Regublican Governor of New Hampshire to embrace AmeriCorps because it was seen by most Republicans as a “Clinton program.” SCA helped establish AmeriCorps in NH and we capped it off by invited the Governor’s wife to swear-in the first SCA AmeriCorps program at Monadnock State Park. The program is in its 13th year - far longer than anyone expected at the time. SCA played a pivotal role in helping to secure AmeriCorps’ future by getting Governor Merrill to accept it and form a state commission - New Hampshire being the first-in-the-nationl primary state, the CNS felt it was critical that NH not reject AmeriCorps and a refusal to set-up a commission could have had a dilatorious effect. Eli was the perfect pick to get it all started. He was a small business entrepeneur who had amassed some wealth building a puzzle and games company around Boston and was co-chair Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. He could have had his pick of plum government jobs as you noted. He was a quiet soft spoken guy. The start-up of AmerCorps looked like a political campaign in full motion. I visited the first offices they had in DC - they were far from plush and it looked every bit like a campaign. Inevitably the start-up guy moves on and Eli did, giving way to the highly respected former US Senator from Pennsylvania, Harris Wofford. Harris was able take mature the start-up and change the atmosphere around AmeriCorps, making it bi-partisan. He, Sargent Shriver and Bill Moyers of PBS TV fame, had been on the start-up under President Kennedy in the early 60’s of the Peace Corps. Eli’s legacy lives on and as you know, he did not, passing away from cancer less than a year ago. In his honor the Board of Director of the CNCS named the AmeriCorps Educational Award after him. A nice tribute to a nice man who understood the value and the impact of national and community service. Thanks for posting the photo of this “happy looking man” and for asking “who is Eli Segal?” Bob Coates

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I imagine those boxes have

Submitted by Josh Stearns (not verified) on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 14:51.

I imagine those boxes have been wonderful to explore. I hope you all will continue to post pictures from the SCA archives throughout the 50th anniversary. For those who are interested in Eli Segal there is a great book called “The Bill : How Legislation Really Becomes Law: A Case Study of the National Service Bill” by Stephen Waldman. It is a good primer on the way politics works and a great bit of history about AmeriCorps.