Smith as Speaker
Hedrick Smith – Straight Talk About America Today
Hedrick Smith is an experienced speaker who attracts attentive audiences and excellent reviews. Widely followed are his May Day speech in Seattle (left), his TEDx Talk on “the Great Divide” (3rd down) and his keynote speech at the 2013 Boulder World Affairs Conference was warmly received (bottom). In the past two years, he has appeared as a campus lecturer and master class leader at more than 50 college and university campuses from Harvard Kennedy School to UC Berkeley, as well as addressing such important civic groups as the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, Seattle Town Hall, the Union League of Chicago, Leadership Alabama, Denver Forum, Boston University Library, and the Emerson Center in Vero Beach, Florida.
For his presentations, Mr. Smith draws on his wide-ranging New York Times and PBS documentary reporting to deliver penetrating analysis of public policy issues and to address contemporary issues of economic and politics reform, spiced with humor, anecdotes and personal vignettes. He is especially good at engaging students in dialogue and during question-and-answer sessions with larger audiences.
His new best-selling book, “Who Stole the American Dream?” provides a rich source of material for lectures on the major power shift that has transformed the landscape of power in Washington since the late 1970s; on the ”wedge economics” that have created glaring inequalities in the U.S. economy, leaving the middle class stuck in a rut; on the accidental beginnings of the 401 (k) system that is now heading nearly half of the Baby Boomer generation for poverty in retirement; on the “upside down mortgages” of the 2000 decade that moved $6 trillion in accumulated wealth form mostly middle class homeowners to Wall Street banks and wealthy investors over the past decade; on the million foreigners working in the U.S. pushing Americans out of high tech jobs.
As a reporter, Hedrick Smith talks to Americans high and low. Since the 1960s, he has covered six American presidents and their administrations. His wide-ranging contacts enable him to take audiences inside Wall Street and behind the scenes in the Washington power game, and also to capture ordinary Americans Main Street struggling with today’s tough economics and polarized politics – jet airline mechanics,small businessmen, real estate brokers, software managers, and many more.
To see Hedrick Smith in action as a speaker and on television interviews click here.
To inquire about speaking opportunities, contact us at:
Hedrick Smith Productions
4630 Montgomery Ave, Suite 400
Bethesda, MD, 20814
(301) 654-9848
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