Nebraska Magazine - Summer 2011

FOR MEMBERS OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA–LINCOLN

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA–LINCOLN INAUGURATION INTO THE BIG TEN JULY 1, 2011

SUMMER 2011

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA–CHAMPAIGN • INDIANA UNIVERSITY • UNIVERSITY OF IOWA • UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN • MICHIGAN

UNIVERSITY • OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY • PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY • PURDUE UNIVERSITY • UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–MADISON

2011 ALUMNI AWARDS | WRITING CONTEST | THE JOYFUL SERVANT | THE FEARLESS COMMUNICATOR

STATE UNIVERSITY • UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA • UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA–LINCOLN • NORTHWESTERN

Nebraska in the Big Ten N

ow it’s official. The University of Nebraska–Lincoln is a member of the Big Ten Conference.

The Big Ten represents much more than a new group of teams with which we will compete; this new relationship, which includes our membership in the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), is an enormous leap forward for UNL academics.

The Big Ten is a historically prestigious and stable academic community of scholars and students, highly regarded in academic circles.

Consider the power of the universities that comprise the Big Ten: They attract 12 percent of all federal research funding annually. They grant 14.5 percent of all doctoral degrees conferred in the U.S. each year and 25 percent of all agricultural doctorates each year.

Research collaborations with faculty at other institutions, already important and under way, are on the increase. The CIC leverages faculty, funding, facilities, investments and ideas to help the collective whole compete and succeed. Among its core projects are library collections and access; technology collaborations to build capacity at reduced costs; leveraging purchasing and licensing through economies of scale; and leadership and development programs for faculty and staff.

The CIC also offers more for our students – course-sharing mechanisms by which students may take courses at other consortium institutions and study-abroad collaborations.

As we have interacted with our new colleagues we have also been able to better identify the assets and strengths that we bring to the Big Ten that will make it a stronger academic conference. The Daugherty Water for Food Institute, our laser facility, our work in the digital humanities and our collaborative nature, are just a few of those assets.

It may be surprising how an athletic conference helps fashion the way people perceive a university and a state, as well as how a university and a state perceives itself. To prospective faculty, students and businesses, and when we look in the mirror, we are a Big Ten university in a Big Ten state.

It remains up to us to take full advantage of these new opportunities.

Chancellor Harvey Perlman

2 summer2011

T

he Big Ten Conference has done such a thorough job of reaching out and recognizing our culture and helping us assimilate into theirs that the July 1 milestone for us to become an official league member almost seems like a non-event.

With a steady flow of Nebraska Athletic Department and Big Ten employees traveling between Chicago and Lincoln this past year, we don’t envision any surprises in terms of compliance, business office practices, academic counseling, the Big Ten Network or any other major issue.

Our respect for the Big Ten’s stability and tradition was a big factor in our desire to join the league, but we also appreciate the collegiality we’ve experienced after spending much of the past year preparing to become the league’s 12th member.

We feel very comfortable making this move because we see a great deal of common ground and overall concern about the student-athlete. Big Ten schools tend to look at the world the way we do, so it’s a good fit for us athletically, academically and culturally.

The Big Ten also shows great concern about the welfare of all of its members, and that’s healthy because the long-term viability of the league serves everyone well.

We know the great majority of Nebraskans are looking forward to new venues and new experiences, and our hope is to maximize our strengths so we can be as competitive as possible in this historic first year as a member of the oldest conference in college athletics. Go Big Red! Athletic Director Tom Osborne

Our new conference membership, effective July 1, enhances partnerships in academics, athletics, alumni and philanthropy

T

he University of Nebraska Foundation looks forward to helping the University of Nebraska–Lincoln forge a beneficial relationship with the Big Ten. I’ve appreciated calls from many foundation executives and advancement officers throughout the conference who welcomed us and encouraged us to become involved in the Big Ten Development Conference. This group is focused on sharing ideas and best practices on topics of philanthropic engagement and private support of our institutions. Nebraska was given an energetic welcome at the first forum I attended. It was apparent each school believes the advantages of the conference are far more valuable than the advantages of any individual institution.

The universities of the Big Ten are highly successful in attracting private support, and in many ways this support is responsible for the quality and reputation of their prominent academic and research enterprises. Most of these schools are either leading fund-raising campaigns of $1 billion or greater or have recently completed campaigns. The Big Ten fund-raising organizations definitely set a high standard; however, our alumni and friends are loyal and passionate — never underestimate the generosity of Nebraskans. This culture of giving has resulted in more than $1 billion in commitments to the Campaign for Nebraska: Unlimited Possibilities and its goal to reach $1.2 billion by 2014.

Our affiliation with the Big Ten causes people to look at the University of Nebraska differently, as a more significant international institution. Perhaps more importantly, it causes us to look at ourselves differently. We now have greater expectations, greater aspirations and greater responsibilities. I believe all Nebraskans feel my exuberance in embracing this opportunity.

Clarence L. Castner President, University of Nebraska Foundation

U

niversity leaders often describe the relationship between Nebraska and the Big Ten Conference as a good cultural fit. This is absolutely true from an alumni perspective, and one of the reasons alumni and friends recognized, months ago, just how special this relationship could be.

In the year leading up to Nebraska’s official inclusion in our new conference, Big Ten alumni have welcomed us with open arms. Big Ten alumni clubs and chapters have celebrated UNL alumni with dozens of events nationwide.

Big Ten alumni associations have reached out to the Nebraska Alumni Association in many ways, from recommending hotels for our athletic trips to partnering on alumni programs. One of our favorite alums, Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez, stopped by a UNL alumni gathering we recently hosted in Madison, Wis., simply to express his appreciation for the Big Ten’s newest member.

Our new conference partners share much with Nebraska, and alumni quickly recognized these similar values and philosophies.

I believe this is at the heart of the recent surge we have seen in UNL alumni involvement. New UNL alumni chapters have emerged in Indianapolis and Ohio. Revitalization efforts are underway in Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The enthusiasm stretches beyond Big Ten borders. The Nebraska Alumni Association has seen record numbers in membership, alumni engagement and event crowds. Everyone, it seems, wants to be a part of the university’s exciting progress.

The Big Ten Conference affiliation brings much to look forward to, and I truly believe it will elevate our university, city and state to unprecedented new heights in the years to come. But today, many alumni already feel at home, and that is reason to celebrate!

Diane Mendenhall Executive Director, Nebraska Alumni Association

NEBRASKAMAGAZINE

3

BY TOM NUGENT It took Lincoln native Susan D. McClanahan more than two decades to build a major New York City textbook development company from scratch.

But after she’d accomplished that remarkable feat, she wasn’t satisfied.

A few years prior to selling the textbook development firm to a British publisher (for more than $15 million), this quintessential entrepreneur decided to launch a second business career ... this time by creating entertaining but affordable books for children that had an underlying educational value.

That second company also took off ... and when she sold it to publishing industry giant

American Greetings in 2001, McClanahan was set for life, or so one would think.

But there was much more to the story.

“I was miserable,” said McClanahan. “My whole identity had been in being a mother to my two girls, who were leaving for schools far away, and in running my two companies. I felt like I had no purpose, no reason to get up in the morning. Something was missing. Everything was missing – plus, I found out I was getting a divorce.”

Suddenly, at the advanced age of 55, Susan McClanahan realized that she didn’t know what she was supposed to be doing with her life, and she didn’t know where to look for it.

The Joyful Servant O

ne summer afternoon back in 2001, a fabulously successful New York City publishing entrepreneur sat down at the kitchen table in her gorgeous Park Avenue apartment and felt tears welling up from deep inside.

“I sat in that kitchen chair, and I cried for a solid week,” said 65-year-old Susan McClanahan (B.A. ’68).

“It was very strange, really, because at first glance, you’d have thought that I had everything in the world going for me. I had been very successful in business for many years, and I was financially secure.

“This should have been a high point of my life. I’d spent more than 30 years working 12 hours a day (sometimes seven days a week) … all of which had led me to this amazing apex.

But all I could do was sit frozen in that chair with a haunting sense of meaninglessness.”

She was also in the late stages of a painful divorce that hadn’t done much for her, either.

In spite of these troubling issues, however, McClanahan had some huge positives going for her. For starters, she was the loving mother of two thoroughly charming adolescent daughters – Abby and Sabina. They lived in a splendid Park Avenue apartment complex on the Upper East Side of New York. (Her exclusive Big Apple digs were recently featured in a lavish spread in Traditional Home magazine.)

By most standards, Susan’s life should have been idyllic.

But something was wrong, she said. There was a deep, black hole somewhere in the middle of her life, and she was going to have to find a way to fill it.

NEBRASKAMAGAZINE 27

LIVING ON “SLIM JIMS AND BEER!” usan McClanahan grew up in Lincoln as SSwiss-German-descended Susan Diffenderfer, the daughter of a insurance

executive and a loving, stay-at-home mom (the granddaughter of a Presbyterian minister) who taught her three children to pray before every meal: Bless this food to our use, and us to Thy service.

In many ways, it was a perfect childhood, she said.

“We lived on Park Street in Lincoln,” she recalled, “and there must have been 40 kids living on that block when I was growing up in the 1950s. My dad called us the ‘Park Street Tigers.’ Every morning I’d jump out of bed bright and early and run out to Park Street, and we’d play games all day long until 9 at night.”

Susan said her home life as a child was right out of the TV sitcom “Father Knows Best!” Her own loving and deeply devoted father, who often took her to ballgames or ice-skating on the lakes near Lincoln, was an “extremely kind and thoughtful man” – the type of man who hated gossip at the dinner table and often instructed his three kids: “If you don’t have something nice to say about somebody, don’t say anything at all.”

Father Knows Best! But there was a dark side to David Diffenderfer’s world, although he managed to keep it hidden from his family for many years.

Secretly tormented by increasing money worries and tortured by a back problem that kept him in constant pain, unbeknownst to anyone her dad was struggling with clinical depression. On one occasion, when Susan was working as a youthful “Candy Striper” volunteer at a local hospital, her father was admitted for several days because of the back ailment.

Unobserved, she stood outside his door one afternoon and listened to him weeping.

“I’d never heard my father cry before,” she remembered. “It was a moment that I would never forget.” Little did she know that her idyllic, “green childhood” would come abruptly to an end.

In 1960, when Susan was 14 years old, her father committed suicide.

Suddenly, she and her older sister and younger brother were on their own and struggling to make ends meet – along with their frightened, grief-stricken mother.

“We wound up living on Social Security,” Susan recalled. “We had very little money. It was the kind of character-building experience that stays with you throughout your life.”

By the age of 16, Susan was already working every day after school ... while also

28 summer2011

earning top grades in high school and vowing that she would “never be poor again.”

When she landed on the campus at UNL in 1964 (a few years behind her sister Dee Dee (BA ’60), Susan was determined to “get every single thing” she could out of the education that had been “gifted” to her when she received a full scholarship ($400 a year) from the University of Nebraska Foundation.

Once again, she found herself working many hours to pay the bills ... while also burning the midnight oil in order to earn high grades. She lived at home during most of those years and did her best to help her mother.

In spite of the long hours of work and the endless worry, she found time for “the great passion” of her college years: poetry.

She loved the poems of Dylan Thomas: Do not go gentle into that good night ...

Rage, rage at the dying of the light.

And the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats: Man is in love, and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say?

And the iron-hard lyrics of Emily Dickinson: Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all.

As her years of struggle unfolded at UNL (“I lived on Slim Jims and beer!”), McClanahan had the good fortune to take a writing course from a professor named Wilbur Gaffney.

“He was a small, gray-haired man,” she recalled, “with little wire-rimmed glasses that made him look like a character out of Dickens. But he was a fabulous writing teacher. He had been an editor in New York City. He had us write a 100-word essay every Friday, and then he would just rip it apart, while highlighting indefinite pronouns, misspellings and just plain bad writing. (And his critique of your prose was the most painful part of the entire exercise.)

“But years later, when I was in New York building a publishing company, I looked back on that time with Professor Gaffney and I realized: He had taught me almost everything I needed to know to be a successful publisher.”

FIRED FROM HER FIRST JOB, SHE TRIED AGAIN rmed with her UNL English degree and a A head full of dreams, McClanahan in the summer of 1968 decided to make a

supremely daring move.

“I had $400 in my pocket,” she recalled, “and a ticket on a United Airlines flight from Lincoln to La Guardia Airport in New York.

I also had a promise from two UNL friends who’d told me I could room with them while

I looked for a job.”

She went.

“Yes, I was scared to death,” she remembered. “But I was also exhilarated. I believed in myself; I knew that whatever happened, I would find a way to survive.

“I remember waking up in the middle of that first night and walking over to the window of the apartment. I looked out at the dazzling skyline of New York City and I told myself: ‘Something great is going to happen to you in this town, something great!’”

The next morning, her two roommates handed her a copy of the New York Times Want Ads. “Good luck!” they told her, with a pat on the back ... and then they headed off to their own jobs in Manhattan.

Within a week, she’d landed a job as a secretary. But her typing was slow, and the boss wanted her to translate his French correspondence. Unfortunately, she’d only studied French for three years in high school. (“Thank God I was a terrible secretary,” she mused.)

After about six months, they let her go.

Although disappointed, she would not let this setback get her down.

“I’m very fortunate,” she said. “Even as a kid, in the difficult years after my father’s suicide, I always had this ... deep strength.

This bit of hope. It was a gift somehow, and it always seemed to pull me through.”

Within a few weeks, she was back at work – and excelling at a series of publishing jobs that eventually led to a solid position as an editor at venerable Macmillan Publishers, where she spent several years learning everything she could about children’s textbook publishing.

By 1976, at 29, McClanahan had mastered the art and science of book publishing. She knew how to design, write, edit and distribute powerfully effective books for kids ... and she was now eager to make her mark as a publishing entrepreneur.

So she took a deep breath ... and she took the leap.

Resigning from Macmillan, she formed her own editorial enterprise (McClanahan & Co. Inc.), which would specialize in creating the content for schoolbook publishers.

During the next 21 years, McClanahan built the company into one of America’s most respected development houses. With 40 employees working in an old John Jacob Astor mansion in Manhattan, the firm expanded so fast that it was three times named one of Inc. magazine’s “500 Fastest Growing Companies.”

Then lightning struck. In 1997, a surging British publisher (Pearson Education) was shopping around for American education

companies that could beef up its rapidly growing empire. After a year of complicated negotiations, Pearson bought McClanahan’s outfit for more than $15 million.

But she wasn’t done yet. For many years, she’d dreamed of building her own retail publishing entity (rather than merely servicing other publishers). Now those dreams crystallized around the launch of her brandnew McClanahan Book Co. Inc. (in 1990).

Once again, McClanahan nursed a commercial start-up from daring launch to a solid success. Within a few years, she had put out more than 350 titles that were being sold at retail outlets all across America. And nobody in the New York publishing world was surprised when mighty American Greetings stepped in to buy this creative new McClanahan company in 2001.

Susan McClanahan had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams ... twice.

A DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL . . . AND AN AWAKENING a new life began. For the first time in Nday.owmany years, she wasn’t working every She wasn’t struggling from moment to

moment in order to prove herself. But now that her chaotic life as an entrepreneur had come to an end, she felt a great void in her soul. She had sold both companies and her two daughters had left for school. And then she learned that she was getting a divorce.

She sat at her kitchen table and cried.

McClanahan said she was living on the edge of an annihilating despair ... when a friend unexpectedly asked her to accompany him to services at the nearby Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, located in the heart of Manhattan.

She went.

And once again, the deep inner “spark” that has defined her life burst into healing, hopeful flame.

“I started an international Bible study called ‘Bible Study Fellowship’ and began reading the Bible in earnest,” she said, “and I found that the words that were written there were for me, for my life.”

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. –John 6:44 Within a year, McClanahan had become a Stephen Minister and then a deacon. Soon she was also volunteering at the nearby James Lenox House, a non-profit residential facility for independent living located not far from her Park Avenue apartment.

Then, moving with her usual speed and energy, she began volunteering to help with fund-raising at several other non-profit

organizations that specialize in sheltering the elderly or in educating children. These days, for example, she sits on the board of directors at Achieve3000 (an Internet-based children’s literacy company), where she mentored the founders for 10 years – and also at the Churchill School and Center, a New York school for learning-disabled kids for which she has helped raise millions over the years.

“Susan McClanahan is an amazingly dedicated and amazingly compassionate volunteer,” said Lenox House Executive Director Joseph H. Girven, who described himself as “astonished” by the amount of time and energy she puts into helping elderly residents there. “She can’t do enough to help people get to church or go shopping or just get out for a breath of fresh air, and she really seems to enjoy herself doing it.”

Lenox House Director of Development Bill Epke, who often works with McClanahan on projects to assist the elderly and the infirm, explained: “Susan is an extraordinary person, there’s no doubt about that. I’ve gotten to know her well at Lenox House, and her dedication to helping our residents is an amazing thing to watch. She inspires all of us with her unflagging energy and optimism.”

For the once-upon-a-time publishing entrepreneur, the transition to public service has brought “untold blessings,” along with a lot of work.

Suddenly, she’s full of energy again ... and running from morning to night as a fundraiser and volunteer.

Now 65, and having survived two different brushes with breast cancer, she said she’s enjoying a “second life” as a “servant” who’s been fortunate to attain the “the peace that passeth understanding.”

That peace, she said, is based on serving others and doing her best to serve God fully each day.

On one recent morning at the Lenox House, she recalled, she was privileged to be allowed to shave an elderly, ill resident who couldn’t manage the job himself.

“I’d never shaved a man before,” she said with a smile, “so I had to proceed very carefully” – especially after a nurse told her that the gentleman was on a medication that can cause severe side effects in some patients.

But she got her friend shaved, and they headed off to church.

“When I left the Lenox House that day, I felt like my life had come full circle,” she recalled.

“I felt that I’d finally learned the most important lesson of all, by understanding that there is no end to happiness when one is serving others.” n

SIX WEEKS AFTER MAJOR SURGERY, SHE RAN THE BOSTON MARATHON fter about 20 miles, Susan McClanahan A said, you run head-on into “the notorious wall” – that grim and forbidding

physical barrier, dreaded by most marathon runners, before which your entire body yearns to curl up and go home.

But the wall is only part of the problem, when it comes to the Boston Marathon.

In Beantown, you see, that 20-mile mark is also the beginning of the third hill in a row, near the end of a grueling race. This stretch, aptly named “Heartbreak Hill,” is the toughest part of the race, where most runners soon find themselves gasping for air and struggling, as their bodies seem to be melting underneath them.

For McClanahan, who was 63 years old when she successfully completed the Boston endurance event (her fourth such 26-mile marathon) in April of 2009, getting to the top of Heartbreak Hill was a ferocious test of willpower and endurance. “I didn’t even think about the 20-mile mark,” she said. “I just knew I had to get up that hill!

“The Hill forces a marathon runner to look deep within,” added the New York City publishing mogul and community activist, who ran the event that day with a 27-yearold pal from UNL, Carly Wendt (BA ’03).

“To get to the top, you have to find strength you never knew you had,” said McClanahan, whose four-hours-and-fourminutes finishing time was actually faster than that recorded in 2009 by famed Boston Marathon runner and organizer Bill Rodgers. “In that situation, you call upon all your reserves of energy and you just keep telling yourself: ‘I think I can … I think I can’ – just like the little engine that could.”

And she did. Crossing the finish line that day, she quickly spotted her two young daughters – Sabina and Abby – waiting in a crowd of well-wishers and friends. “We were all in tears,” she recalled. “I felt so grateful to be there, and to be running … it was a victory run, for sure.”

Completing the Boston Marathon at age 63 might seem like a formidable challenge, but McClanahan’s story doesn’t end there.

Incredibly enough, she entered the grueling event only six weeks after undergoing major surgery for breast cancer.

So what’s the secret behind her astonishing endurance and determination?

It’s faith, she said. “Prayer! I did a lot of it during the run. I think we’re all capable of achieving any goal, any dream that’s in our hearts and minds, with the help of God.” NEBRASKAMAGAZINE 29

During more than 15 years as a high-profile communications specialist for the U.S. State Department and the National Security Council, Susan Phalen thrived in pressure-packed jobs that sent her into dangerous combat zones. She completed nine different tours of duty inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified “Green Zone” and two short tours in Afghanistan, and then spent 18 months running communications operations for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

These days, as the recently appointed communications director for the House Committee on Intelligence, Phalen directs the communications efforts of the House panel that oversees the entire intelligence apparatus of the U.S. government, which includes 17 different U.S. spy agencies.

Ask Phalen if her high-stress job ever scares her, and she’ll cheerfully explain: “Over the years, I’ve discovered that I like doing things that scare me. I also like facing up to difficult challenges – and then finding a way to get the job done.”

By Tom Nugent 30 summer2011

The back hatch door of the desert sand-colored seventon truck swung open, and the young woman in the green-painted combat helmet and the 30-pound Kevlar bullet-proof vest jumped out onto the sidewalk, followed by a group of journalists.

Welcome to Fallujah.

The U.S. Marines in the truck bade her farewell ... and then a moment later she was the sole, unarmed escort of the 18 U.S. and international journalists in her charge.

For the next half mile, they were entirely on their own.

Perched behind the wheel of his armored vehicle, the U.S. Marine Corps captain gave her a quick, farewell salute. Another Marine closed the back hatch on the empty truck. A moment later, the steel-plated combat personnel carrier was clattering away into the distance.

Susan Phalen (B.J. ’92) would not be getting any more help from the U.S. military, as she led the group of journalists through the empty streets of Fallujah, a battle-scarred city of 420,000 located about 40 miles west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

On this historic day – Oct. 15, 2005 – Phalen shouldered a grueling responsibility: running a U.S. government public-information operation of historic importance.

This was Election Day, all across the Republic of Iraq ... and Phalen was in charge of coordinating the reporting activities of dozens of newspaper reporters, still photographers and radio and TV journalists from all across the globe, as they watched the story unfold at major polling places all across Iraq. (She’d sent other members of her Baghdad-based public affairs team to cities like Mosul, Kirkuk, Hilla and Basrah with their own teams of journalists.

But since Fallujah was known as “hell on earth” at that particular moment in time, she was leading that team herself.

Her logic was simple, and compelling: she knew she wouldn’t be able to live with it, if she sent another team into “hell” and they wound up taking a hit.)

As the senior adviser for Iraq Communications at the U.S. State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, the then-35-year-old former UNL journalism major was responsible for telling the world about that day’s Constitutional Referendum.

The voting she was about to observe was part of a nationwide election in which the war-torn country’s newly enfranchised voters would decide the fate of a recently

proposed (and hotly debated) new constitution.

For more than 30 million Iraqis, the vote marked a giant step forward on the road to a functioning democracy. It would also provide a major turning point, the Americans hoped, in neutralizing the brutal, two-year-old insurgency that had drenched the shellshocked nation in blood.

Hurrying along the broad, mostly deserted avenue in Fallujah on that bright October morning six years ago, Phalen could feel the stress building beneath her heavy combat helmet.

“We had been warned by the Marines not to walk together in groups,” she recalled during a recent interview on Capitol Hill in Washington, “and for a very good reason: the insurgents were much more likely to try to snipe at or attack a clustered group of people than a long, strung-out group walking down the street.

“For that reason, after the Marines dropped all of us off, we stretched out into a long line with lots of space between us

and we walked quickly but cautiously to the polling place on our own.”

There was no time to waste.

It was about a half mile from the drop-off point to the local elementary school where the voting took place – and the fast-moving Phalen led her group there quickly and without incident.

“It was a very strange feeling,” she later recalled.

“You’re walking down the street in your ‘battle rattle’ [military protective gear], and you’re constantly scanning the windows and the alleys of the buildings as you pass by, looking for anything suspicious: snipers, suicide bombers or even children who might serve to warn terrorists up the road that we were coming.

“Yeah, I was frightened. So scared, in fact, that my mouth was like cotton. But I was the team leader. I needed to project confidence. And it was easier to focus on the task at hand, rather than the fear. Pretty soon, you’re so caught up in doing your job that you don’t have time to be scared.”

NEBRASKAMAGAZINE 31

Once they were inside the elementary school, a media frenzy began. As throngs of Iraqis stood in line to vote, the media clamored for interviews, photos and videotape of the election process.

“What we had in Iraq was an event that we called the ‘Purple Finger Parade,’” said the veteran federal communications guru. “Basically, it came down to watching thousands and thousands of Iraqi citizens line up at the polling booths in order to vote and then dip their right index fingers into a small bottle of bright purple ink.

“The indelible ink was used to prevent people from trying to vote more than once. As the voting took place, it was my job to assist the journalists in getting interviews, videotape and photos – so that they could report this amazing event to the world. And that was a huge responsibility ... because both the White House and the State Department wanted the world

32 summer2011

to see ordinary Iraqis voting freely that day.”

The message for the outside world needed to be crystalclear, remembered Phalen. “We didn’t want to create the predictable ‘kinetic war footage’ of U.S. soldiers guarding polling places or patrolling the streets in Humvees,” she recalled.

“Instead, we were determined to let the world see the millions of Iraqis across the country braving the threat of death and lining up to vote – peacefully and happily – in a free, democratic election.”

And that’s exactly what happened.

As the Purple Finger Parade continued, Phalen watched smiling Iraqis dip their index fingers in the purple ink and then hold their ink-stained fingers up to proudly show the media and the world.

“It was so inspiring,” she recalled. “Heck, in America we don’t vote if it’s raining outside, but in Iraq – under the threat of death from terrorists – millions of people showed up all across the country and voted.

“Fortunately, the voting proceeded without a hitch in most locations and

we did manage to help generate the kind of images and stories we had hoped for. The new Iraqi constitution was overwhelmingly approved – and we were pretty successful at conveying the meaning of that. And in a very real way, I think that was a significant contribution to the war effort in Iraq.”

No doubt. But how scary was it to spend an entire day working in a type of setting that Iraqi insurgents had vowed to attack with suicide bombers?

“It was a bit unsettling at first,” said Phalen. “But during those nine tours of duty inside the Green Zone, I learned that if you focus on your fear, you won’t be very effective on your job. When you’re in a war zone, you know the worst could happen at any time. On the other hand, you could fall off a curb in downtown Washington and get hit by a bus.

“I guess I decided a long time ago that if something like that happens, then it’s your time to go. But I’ve always believed that life should be about living, and enjoying the excitement and trying to meet the challenges.

“That’s why I ran with the bulls at Pamplona a few years ago ... and it’s why I just came back from a vacation in Tanzania – where I climbed all the way to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro!”

The daughter of an Air Force officer originally from Omaha and a homemaker originally from Lincoln (they met at UNL), Susan Phalen grew up as a self-described “Air Force Brat” who lived in half a dozen different states before deciding to return to her Lincoln roots for college.

After arriving on the UNL campus back in the fall of 1987, Phalen made a quick decision: She did not want to live with her older sister Kathy

(B.A. ’91). No, Susan wanted “freedom from family constraints.” She wanted independence ... and so instead of moving in with Sis, she requested placement in a freshman dorm and soon found herself stationed on the sixth floor of Sandoz Hall.

What followed was a rather rocky and unsettling introduction to college life. “My wakeup call was calculus,” she said with a wince of remembered pain.

“Until I got to UNL, I’d always felt like I was great in math.

But that class was at 8:30 in the morning, five days a week. I missed more classes than I attended ... and when I did manage to show up, I had no idea what they were talking about.”

Not terribly surprised by the “F” she received in CALC 101, Phalen struggled in other classes, too. “After that first year,” she said with a sly grin, “I was invited to not come back.

“Let’s face it, I wasn’t such a great student,” she said. “I wound up flipping burgers at Big Al’s fast-food joint in the Springfield Mall in Alexandria, Va. I did that for six months, and it wasn’t much fun, let me tell you. I gained a lot of weight and I really felt miserable.

“And then one day, I suddenly realized: If I don’t get my act together, I’ll be flipping burgers for the rest of my life.”

Newly motivated and determined to succeed academically, Phalen returned to campus and promptly found her calling in journalism ... where she discovered that she loved interviewing people and then “editing the tapes down” into vivid, fast-moving radio programs with enough oomph to keep listeners glued to the airwaves.

Her next move was pure Susan Phalen – a gutsy decision (made while visiting a friend on the island of Guam, soon after her UNL graduation) to walk into a radio station and apply for a job as a radio talk show producer, sight unseen.

The president of the station was so impressed by Phalen’s nerve that he hired her on the

spot, and she spent the next 18 months producing an afternoon political talk show and then eventually working in the newsroom interviewing island residents and writing and reporting news stories.

After a year and a half of radio reporting, the upwardly mobile Phalen decided it was time to make her move on Washington.

As good fortune would have it, her mother and father were already living in the D.C. area by then. “I was 25 years old and living in my parents’ basement,” she recalled. “But I wasn’t worried, because I knew in a city like D.C., something interesting would eventually pop up.

“I hit the bricks hard, looking for journalism or public relations work around Capitol Hill ... and it wasn’t long before I landed a job at the Republican National Committee, where I spent the next couple of years producing GOP sound bites for radio stations all around the country.”

What followed the Republican radio stint was a meteoric rise as an inside-the-beltway wordsmith who specialized in political PR. By the late-1990s, Phalen was riding high in the saddle as the press secretary for Rep. Henry Bonilla of Texas. She put in several years of working the daily grind of press releases and political receptions on the Hill, then moved on to the State Department – where she quickly established herself as a savvy PR-meister who knew how to properly spin stories in order to put Uncle Sam in the best possible international light.

Sandwiched around a brief interlude during which she worked in the press office of George W. Bush’s 2000 election campaign, Phalen’s State Department career soon made her a familiar figure among reporters who were covering the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

During her nine different tours in Baghdad’s Green Zone, Phalen organized hundreds of media tours intended to “show the world the progress being made in Iraq” in dayglo-bright colors. The tours also emphasized many of the “real positives” (such as building schools and health clinics) that flowed from the invasion of 2003.

An acknowledged Washington PR pro, the 41-year-old Phalen seems ideally suited for her current role as the mouthpiece for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Said Mike Rogers, the veteran Michigan Republican congressman who now chairs the hugely influential Committee and the 20 House members who serve on it: “I think we’re very fortunate to have Susan Phalen on staff, because she’s a seasoned professional whose background includes a powerful mix of conflict zone, national security and Hill [congressional] experience.

“Susan spent seven years at the Department of State and during three of those years she was the senior adviser for Iraq communications.

She was also instrumental in drafting and implementing the State Department’s strategic communications plans for the three national-level elections that took place in Iraq in 2005. That track record speaks for itself, and it’s a good indication of just how effective she is as a communicator who knows how to shape clear, compelling messages for the people we serve each day.”

Intelligence Committee Chief of Staff Michael Allen added: “Susan is enthusiastic and diligent and exceedingly competent. She’s also quite witty, with a delightfully deadpan sense of humor – and so it’s a lot of fun to have her around an office that most of the time has to deal with some very serious matters.”

Now at the top of her game as a battle-hardened Capitol Hill communicator, Phalen pointed out that she’s “having more fun than ever” on a job she truly loves.

During one recent Tuesday afternoon on Capitol Hill – after she spoke to a reporter about the unclassified portions of an intelligence issue – Phalen took time out to wolf down a tuna fish sandwich and talk about her remarkable life in Washington.

Still single at age 41, she sat at a small table in the U.S. Capitol Building’s basement cafeteria and talked about how she handles the daily pressure in the looking-glass world of Washington politics.

“I think what helps me keep my feet on the ground is knowing that this job isn’t

the Intelligence Committee. But if I start thinking I’m somehow special because of that, then I’ve lost my perspective and I’m not going to be able to do my job well.

“I do think that’s a hazard you face in Washington – the danger that you’ll start taking yourself too seriously. I take the job seriously, that’s for sure, but not myself. And I also understand that someone else could just as easily be doing this job ... and eventually someone else will be.”

For the cheerfully upbeat Phalen, meeting the professional challenges of daily life on the Hill is part of a philosophy of life that insists on “grabbing all the gusto” you can get – and not tomorrow, but right now.

“I just came back from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro a

about me,” she said at one point. “Really, it’s not about Susan Phalen, and it’s not about what I want or who I am.

“It’s my responsibility to work those things out, you know? And for me, understanding that fact is the key to avoiding getting a ‘big head’ about my job. On a typical day, I might be talking to [NBC news correspondent] Andrea Mitchell or Wolf Blitzer [CNN’s Situation Room anchor] about issues related to

couple of weeks ago,” said the fearless communicator, when asked to describe a recent challenge and how she went about handling it.

“It was 19,335 feet from the bottom to the top,” she added with a chuckle of pure delight, “and there was no way I wasn’t gonna make it to the summit!”

NEBRASKAMAGAZINE

33

Susan Phalen was 29 years old on that hot summer afternoon in 1999 . . . and she was scared witless.

The location was Pamplona, Spain.

The event was … the Running of the Bulls!

“When the bulls were released and the crowd took off running, it scared the crap out of me,” Phalen said.

“I started running down these narrow streets, and it was truly terrifying. Actually, I wasn’t really frightened of the bulls – it was the frenzy of the crowd that shook me.

“The chaos … the screaming … the panicked shoving … everybody’s running for their life and the adrenalin is just unbelievable. You can see the wildness in their eyes, and the fear, and I didn’t expect that.

“To be honest, I got spooked and I jumped out of the run before we got to the bullring [at the end of the 903-yard scramble through downtown Pamplona].

I was relieved that I hadn’t been injured, of course, but I hadn’t even seen a bull during the event, and I really wasn’t satisfied.”

After traveling all the way from Washington, D.C., to Spain to participate in the week-long, century-old festival at Pamplona, Phalen felt that she had let herself down by “jumping out” of the run early.

And her response?

The next morning at 8 a.m. sharp, she was back at the starting line … and ready to join the mob for the second-day running of the snorting, fire-breathing behemoths.

Ignoring the risks involved (15 people have been killed

during the annual event since it started back in 1910, and 200-300 are injured every year, mostly from falls) … the adventure-loving Phalen took off with the howling throng and this time made it all the way to the bullring.

“This time I did see bulls,” recalled the Capitol Hill communications guru. “As a matter of fact, I came very close to one bull who’d ripped somebody’s pants off – and he had a pant-leg hanging off one horn!

“I ran right next to him for a few seconds, and there was tons of adrenalin.”

Although she was pleased

with herself for completing the run, Phalen said she still regrets the anxiety she inflicted on her “poor mother” during her Pamplona adventure.

“When I called her after the first run, she was so relieved to hear I was safe that she started crying,” Phalen said.

“The poor thing had been so worried that I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was planning to run it again … but now she knows.”

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