Former Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh will be the main speaker and recipient of a Presidential Medal of Honor at the 159^th annual commencement of Saint Vincent College on Saturday, May 7 at 2 p.m. in the Robert S. Carey Student Center. At the ceremony about 290 students will be awarded bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Also at the commencement, Charles G. Manoli, Sr., professor emeritus of history, will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Saint Vincent College.

In addition to serving as Governor of Pennsylvania, Gov. Thornburgh served as Attorney General of the United States under two presidents and as the highest-ranking American at the United Nations during a public career which spanned over 25 years. He currently is counsel to the national law firm of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP, resident in its Washington, D.C. office.

Elected governor of Pennsylvania in 1978 and re-elected in 1982, Gov. Thornburgh was the first Republican ever to serve two successive terms in that office. He served as chair of the Republican Governors Association and was named by his fellow governors as one of the nation’s most effective big-state governors in a 1986 Newsweek poll.

During his gubernatorial service, Gov. Thornburgh balanced state budgets for eight consecutive years, reduced both personal and business tax rates, cut the state’s record-high indebtedness and left a surplus of $350 million. Under his leadership, 15,000 unnecessary positions were eliminated and economic development, education and welfare reform programs were implemented. Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate, among the ten highest in the nation when he was elected, was among the ten lowest when he left office. Following the unprecedented Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979, he was described by observers as "one of the few authentic heroes of that episode as a calm voice against panic."

After his unanimous confirmation by the United States Senate, Gov. Thornburgh served three years as Attorney General of the United States, from 1988 to 1991, in the cabinets of Presidents Reagan and Bush. During that time, Gov. Thornburgh mounted an unprecedented attack on white-collar crime as the Department of Justice obtained a record number of convictions of savings and loan and securities officials, defense contractors and corrupt public officials. He established strong ties with law enforcement agencies around the world to help combat drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism and international white-collar crime. The Legal Times noted that Gov. Thornburgh as Attorney General "built a reputation as one of the most effective champions that prosecutors have ever had." He is one of only 20 persons, including seven Presidents, to be named as honorary Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

As Attorney General, Gov. Thornburgh played a leading role in the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act. He also took vigorous action against racial, religious and ethnic "hate crimes," and his office mounted a renewed effort to enforce the nation’s anti-trust and environmental laws. During his tenure as Attorney General, Gov. Thornburgh twice personally argued and won cases before the United States Supreme Court.

All told, Gov. Thornburgh served in the Justice Department under five presidents, beginning as United States Attorney in Pittsburgh, from 1969-1975, and Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, 1975-1977, emphasizing efforts against major drug traffickers, organized crime and corrupt public officials. In August 2002, he was appointed examiner in the WorldCom bankruptcy proceedings, the largest ever filed to report on wrongdoing and malfeasance that led to the company’s downfall. Last year, he was named by CBS to head a panel investigating a "60 Minutes" report about President Bush’s Air National Guard service.

During his service as Under Secretary-General at the United Nations, Gov. Thornburgh was in charge of personnel, budget and finance matters. His report to the Secretary-General on reform, estructuring and streamlining efforts designed to make the United Nations peacekeeping, humanitarian and development programs more efficient and cost-effective was widely praised. He also has served as a consultant to the United Nations and the World Bank on efforts to battle fraud and corruption.

Throughout his career, he has traveled widely, visiting more than 40 countries and meeting with leaders from Canada, Mexico, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Russia, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Australia and Central and South America. He served as an observer to Russia’s legislative and presidential elections, is chairman of the U.S. Committee for Hong Kong and is a member of the board of advisors of the Russian-American Institute for Law and Economics.

A native of Pittsburgh, Gov. Thornburgh was educated at Yale University, where he obtained an engineering degree, and at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law where he served as an editor of the Law Review. He has been awarded honorary degrees by 31 other colleges and universities. Gov. Thornburgh served as director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and was a visiting lecturer at the George Washington University Law School. He has lectured on more than 125 other campuses, including Moscow State University, debated at the Oxford Union and frequently appears as a guest commentator on network news and talk shows.

Gov. Thornburgh is a member of the board of directors of Elan Corporation and serves on the boards of the University of Pittsburgh, The Urban Institute, the National Museum of Industrial History and the Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation. He was the founding chairman of the State Science and Technology Institute, serves as vice-chairman of the World Committee on Disability and chairs the Legal Policy Advisory Board of the Washington Legal Foundation.

He is a member of the American Law Institute, the American Bar Foundation, the American Judicature Society and the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1992 he was honored by the American Legion with its highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal.

Gov. Thornburgh was an elected delegate to Pennsylvania’s historic Constitutional Convention where he spearheaded efforts at judicial and local government reform. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States House of Representatives in 1966 and the United States Senate in 1991.

Born July 16, 1932, Gov. Thornburgh is married to Ginny Judson Thornburgh, a former schoolteacher from New York, who holds degrees from Wheaton College and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She presently serves as vice president and director of the Religion and Disability Program of the National Organization on Disability, based in Washington, D.C. and co-authored and edited, That All May Worship, an award-winning handbook for congregations working to include people with all types of disabilities.

The Thornburghs have four sons and six grandchildren. As parents of a son with mental retardation, they have taken a special interest in the needs of persons with disabilities and, with their son, Peter, were named "Family of the Year" in 1985 by the Pennsylvania Association of Retarded Citizens. Both Ginny and Dick Thornburgh were featured speakers at the Vatican Conference on Disabilities held in November 1992. Gov. Thornburgh’s autobiography, Where The Evidence Leads, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in September 2003.