The Thomas S. Foley Award for Distinguished Public Service 2025
Thursday April 24, 2025
VIP Reception from 5 p.m., Dinner from 6 p.m.
Please join Heather Foley and the Foley Institute for the presentation of the annual Thomas S. Foley Award for Distinguished Public Service to Secretary Leon Panetta.
Former Secretary of Defense and former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Leon E. Panetta will receive this year’s Thomas S. Foley Award for Distinguished Public Service in a ceremony to be held in Spokane.
Premier sponsors
Dr. Edmund O. Schweitzer and Mrs. Beatriz Schweitzer
Media sponsor: The Spokesman-Review
Benefactor sponsor: Avista
Honorary Event Committee
- Senator Patty Murray
- Senator Maria Cantwell
- Congressman Michael Baumgartner
- WA Secretary of State Steve Hobbs
- WA Attorney General Nick Brown
- Spokane City Council President Betsy Wilkerson
- WA State Senators Leonard Christian, Jeff Holy, Marcus Riccelli, Mark Schoesler, Shelly Short, Judy Warnick
- WA State Representatives Hunter Abell, Tom Dent, Mary Dye, Andrew Engell, Mark Klicker, Timm Ormsby, Skyler Rude, Joe Schmick, Suzanne Schmidt, Mike Volz, Alex Ybarra
The Distinguished Service Award is given to individuals who have demonstrated integrity, courage, and a commitment to democratic values in public service and whose body of work has had a lasting impact.
“Secretary Panetta has a long and distinguished history of public service, and has worked in both Democratic and Republican administrations,” said Cornell Clayton, director of the Foley Institute. “His illustrious career includes directorship of the Office for Civil Rights during the Nixon administration, 17 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, directorship of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and White House Chief of Staff for the Clinton administration.”
In 2009, he was nominated to be Director of the CIA by President Obama, where he served until 2011 when he was appointed as Secretary of Defense and confirmed by a unanimous vote in the U.S. Senate. Secretary Panetta has remained extremely active in public service and is currently Chairman of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy at California State University, Monterey Bay.
The Foley Institute was established at WSU in 1995 to honor the lifetime of service by Thomas S. Foley. A Spokane native who represented the citizens of the 5th congressional district for 30 years, Foley served as the 49th Speaker of the House of Representatives and later served as U.S. ambassador to Japan. He remains the highest elected official ever to hail from Washington State.
The institute’s mission is to recognize his extraordinary legacy of public service and his belief that democracy requires an educated and informed public. Since its inception, the institute has developed a reputation for quality educational programs and engaging young people in public service.
Questions should be addressed to the Foley Institute. Contact: Richard Elgar relgar@wsu.edu | 509-335-3477
Watch the Inaugural Thomas S. Foley Award For Distinguished Public Service in 2024 at a Foley Institute event at Gonzaga University