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October 2007
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ALUMNI PROFILE |
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Lifelong Service Brings 2007 Recognition Award to Massachusetts-Based Alumnus
James Brett, SPA/BA ’73, has been taking pride in – and taking care of – his neighborhood since he was young. In 1964, he won a contest as newspaper delivery boy of the year. One of the customers on his Dorchester/South Boston, Mass., paper route was John McCormack, longtime member of the U.S House of Representatives (1928-1970). “He congratulated me… and invited me to inauguration,” remembers Brett, noting that McCormack was considered the second most powerful person in the country then, as Speaker of the House and therefore successor to the presidency for the 14 months between President Kennedy’s November 1963 assassination and Lyndon Johnson’s January 1965 inauguration. Although Brett didn’t visit Washington to witness the 1965 inauguration, he did call upon his old neighbor for some job guidance a few years later when he arrived to D.C. to attend AU. “As a freshman, I wrote the Speaker a letter from McDowell Hall. I said, ‘I’m here in Washington, I’ve been accepted to this great university, but my mother is concerned I’m going to have all these loans and I share her concerns…’” said the youngest of six children from a working class family. Within a week, Brett received a telegram at the dorm, inviting him to McCormack’s office. “I met with him, and he was so excited to see me and that I was in Washington and that I was going to college, because he had had a limited education himself,” recalls Brett. “He said, ‘I have something in mind for you. I’m going to have you work 20 hours a week... delivering the mail to members of Congress.’ I said, ‘Mr. Speaker, I don’t know how to thank you’… He said, ‘You can thank me by helping someone else along the way.’ I couldn’t believe the message, just do a good deed. It was so simple.” Turns out it wasn’t quite so simple, since no sooner had he finished thanking Speaker McCormack did Brett learn that his new job would require him to work Monday through Friday from 4 to 8 a.m., to ensure that the mail was delivered to members of Congress before they arrived each morning. “I was living in a dorm with five other guys and they didn’t go to bed til 4 a.m. I had to figure out how to get there, too,” he notes, pointing out that he had no car and the Metro didn’t run to AU back then. But he did figure it out, moving the following semester, buying a car, and eventually changing his school hours to evening classes to accommodate his work schedule. Now, more than 40 years later, Brett looks back with pride on a career that’s been marked by countless hours of working for the good of others. Following that first job on the Hill delivering mail to members of Congress, he became a student member of the Capitol police force for the rest of his time at AU, and went on to a career rich in public service that peaked with his election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he served for nearly 16 years. As a representative of his old neighborhood in the Massachusetts legislature, Brett says he learned quickly to become a student of all facets of the system. “It’s called survival,” he says. “People rely on you to help them with so many problems. So you become a part-time lawyer, doctor, social worker, and priest. Many people had no one to turn to for assistance. Calls could range from looking for assistance to paying their heating bill, constituents looking for elderly housing, making sure the local parks are clean and free of drugs, and finding summer employment for neighborhood kids. I wanted to be their advocate.” In 1996, Brett was invited to a meeting by some New England area business leaders. “At first, I thought they wanted to talk about legislation,” he remembers. “But quickly it became evident they wanted to see if I would be interested in leaving the legislature.” They wanted him to become president of the New England Council, an alliance of schools, hospitals, corporations, and other private organizations throughout Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, established in 1925 to work together to promote economic growth and a high quality of life in the region. “I was chairman of five committees in the legislature then: taxation, banking, criminal justice, Congressional redistricting, and state legislative redistricting. I had a very good run. I was pleased with my contributions, and I said (to myself), I’ve got to leave some day, and quite frankly, you only have so much shelf life.” As president of the New England Council for 11 years now, Brett and his small staff of six identify and support federal policies of importance to New England, and advocate accordingly for members, on both sides of the aisle, on topics ranging from health care to tax policy, energy, trade issues, and more. For Brett, that means working an average of 60 hours per week, with two days in D.C. maintaining his relationship with peers on the Hill and in the White House; two days going to work with any of his New England-based members; and the remainder in Boston. When Alumni Update spoke with Brett, he was still exhaling – and celebrating – from the New England Council’s hugely successful annual dinner, which drew more than 1,300 guests and raised more than $1 million (compared with 250 people and $120,000 when he started 11 years ago, he adds). “It’s the largest business event in New England,” he beamed. “I was just getting some congratulatory notes from members indicating their terrific support. It was a wonderful event. Few business organizations could draw that many people but we can because of our representation and reputation for being the voice for New England in Washington. It’s almost a report card on how well we are received when they show such support… It’s important to find a vehicle to bring people together. That’s our role, our mission.” Having received more than 70 awards during his career for service to the community, Brett says he’s been very blessed in being recognized, and AU has always been a part of that. He's looking forward to coming back to campus on Oct. 27, when he'll be presented with AU's 2007 Alumni Recognition Award at the Port and Politics Cocktail Reception. Brett views his work on nearly a dozen boards for the Boys and Girls club, hospitals, nursing homes, and more as his way of advocating for people who aren’t always in a position to do so for themselves. He considers his proudest accomplishment the work he has done over the years advocating for people with disabilities. “It’s an issue I’ve worked on from the day I got elected. How do we find ways to fund getting people with disabilities employed, transportation, and job training? The highest honor is when I left the legislature and a group home for the disabled with eight residents built two blocks from where I live, named a home for the disabled after me; the Brett House in Dorchester. There isn’t a night or day I go by that house that I don’t think I did some good by being a voice for people who don’t have a voice,” says Brett. “You don’t a have to be a politician or someone with a title to give back. People helped me along the way. That’s what it’s all about; never forgetting where I came from. That’s the highest compliment. I owe it to so many other people.” -Melissa Reichley | |||
