About UChicago Argonne, LLC
Board of Governors
Deborah L. Wince-Smith
- Member, UChicago Argonne, LLC Board of Governors for Argonne National Laboratory
- President, Council on Competitiveness
Deborah L. Wince-Smith is president of the Council on Competitiveness. Founded in 1986, the council is the only national organization that brings together leading CEOs, university presidents, and labor leaders to promote U.S. productivity growth, success in global markets, and a rising standard of living for all Americans. Currently celebrating its 20th anniversary, the council's regional, national and global portfolio aims to strengthen America 's innovation capacity, the foundation for competitiveness and prosperity. The council's flagship effort, the National Innovation Initiative, released in December 2004 Innovate America . Recommendations from this private sector report inspired a series of competitiveness initiatives announced by President Bush in his 2006 State of the Union address, as well as major innovation and competitiveness bills introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
An internationally recognized expert on innovation strategy, science and technology policy, regional economic development and global competition, Wince-Smith was most recently nominated by President Bush to serve as a member of the Oversight Board of the Internal Revenue Service. Wince-Smith serves on a number of boards and committees, including the Board of Directors of the NASDAQ Stock Market; as chairman of the Secretary of Commerce's Strengthening America's Communities Initiative, which produced the first detailed assessment of federal investment and policy in regional economic development in almost forty years; the National Science Board's Task Force on Transformative Research; the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board's Nuclear Energy Task Force; the National Research Council's Committee on Innovation Models for Aerospace Technologies; the Board of Governors for Argonne National Laboratory, the University of California President's Council for Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories; and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. She is a trustee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and a national juror for the MIT Lemelson Award for Invention.
From 1989 to 1993, Wince-Smith served as the first Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy in the Department of Commerce Technology Administration. In that capacity, she developed policies and national initiatives to strengthen U.S. productivity and economic competitiveness. She served on White House policy councils, chaired the Interagency Committee on Federal Technology Transfer, and directed the President's National Technology Initiative. She was also the U.S. representative to the multilateral Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Consortium with government and private sector leaders from the United States, Europe, Japan, and Canada. During the Reagan Administration, Wince-Smith served as the Assistant Director for International Affairs and Competitiveness in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where among other responsibilities, she designed and negotiated the landmark 1988 Head of Government Science Technology Agreement with Japan and developed President Reagan's 1988 Competitiveness Initiative. As a Program Manager at the National Science Foundation from 1976-1984, she managed U.S. research programs with Eastern European countries and U.S. universities.
Trained as a classical archaeologist, Wince-Smith graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna cum Laude from Vassar College and received her master's degree from King's College, Cambridge University . She is a frequent speaker at conferences and symposia and an author on innovation and competitiveness.
