Walter Mondale to address executive MBA graduates at Mount Vernon

Former vice president Walter F. Mondale will address participants and guests at the graduation ceremony of the inaugural class of executive MBA students at Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business on Saturday, June 11.

The afternoon ceremony will celebrate the completion of the intensive 18-month program by 23 business executives and other senior professionals from the Washington, D.C., and Richmond areas. The ceremony starts at 3 p.m. at the Smith Auditorium. It is expected to end at 4:30 p.m. Mount Vernon Estate, the historic home of George Washington, is located at 3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway in Mount Vernon, Va.

Walter Mondale, who has a bachelor's in political science and a law degree from the University of Minnesota, served as attorney general for Minnesota and as U.S. senator before being elected as Jimmy Carter's vice president in 1976. He was the first vice president to have an office in the White House.

In 1984, Mondale was the Democratic Party's nominee for president. He served as President Clinton's ambassador to Japan from 1993 to 1996. In 1997 and 1998, he co-chaired the independent, bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Project.

Mondale has been a Distinguished University Fellow in Law and Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and has served as chairman of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that conducts nonpartisan international programs to help maintain and strengthen democratic institutions.

Mondale has authored The Accountability of Power: Toward a Responsible Presidency, and numerous articles on domestic and international issues.

He is senior counsel with the Minneapolis law firm of Dorsey and Whitney and chairs the firm's Asia law practice group. He is a director of several nonprofit and corporate boards and serves on the executive committee of the Peace Prize Forum, an annual conference co-sponsored by the Norwegian Nobel Institute and five Midwestern colleges of Norwegian heritage.

The executive MBA program, offered at Virginia Tech's campus in metro Washington, D.C., was established in 2004 to provide executives continuing education in accounting, economics, organizational behavior, and decision theory. The program focuses on high-growth companies, globalization, and entrepreneurial executive leadership.

The program admitted its second cohort of students in February and is preparing to enroll a third class for a program starting in September.