S. Richard "Rick" Rolf

S. Richard Rolf's multifaceted career has spanned the gamut of crisis management and media strategist, political, diplomatic and corporate policy advisor and troubleshooter, public servant, writer and educator. Rolf is the Principal of Ascendant Stratagem, developing innovative media ventures as well as a offering a range of public policy and strategic positioning consulting services. He is a Senior Fellow at Portland State University’s Hatfield School of Government where his popular course, “Truth Lies. Politics and Policy”, has attracted significant media attention nation-wide. Recent Engagement In his most recent public service posting, Rolf accepted a special term appointment to serve as the Senior Policy Advisor to the Bonneville Power Administration where he assumed leadership roles in the Agency's top strategic priorities. Generating nearly four billion in annual revenue, Bonneville is the largest marketer of carbon-free renewable energy in North America. Rolf directed the international governmental and public affairs role in the U.S.- Canadian Columbia River Treaty pre-negotiation review. The review was the most intensive official domestic consultation process in U.S. History to provide a framework to the White House for revising an international treaty. Success required forging consensus among seventeen Indian tribes, eleven federal agencies, four state governments and a broad array of often contentious economic and environmental interests. Political and Governmental history For more than a decade, Rolf served as senior foreign policy adviser, chief campaign strategist and spokesman for legendary anti-war US Senator Mark O. Hatfield, one of the most dominant figures in the US foreign policy debates and decisions of the post-Vietnam Cold War era. Rolf was later a member of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s “Strategic Insider” group, advising Richardson during his quest for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President. He was subsequently an advisor to Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s foreign policy team in mock preparations for the national security debate with Senator John McCain. Rolf was widely credited with conceiving and executing one of the most daring final-hour US Senate campaign "turnarounds" of the 1990's in the most consequential and nationally riveting US Senate race of that year. In 1992, Rolf was himself a “progressive Republican” candidate for U.S. Congress. His career in policy and politics began with an unpaid internship in the office of U.S. Senator Hatfield at the age of twenty-two. Within months, Rolf joined a small cadre of congressional staffers dedicated to bringing down Uganda’s “Butcher of Kampala”, General Idi Amin. Rolf fought for passage of the first (and to date, last) historic unilateral American boycott of a government engaged in genocide. With Senator Hatfield leading the charge, the historic "coffee boycott" passed against great odds, forcing Amin to flee the country and ending his murderous reign of terror within six months of the legislation's passage. Later, as Director of Policy and Communications for Hatfield who was then Chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Rolf went on to play a key role in most of the epic foreign and military policy battles of the post-Vietnam cold-war era, including opposition to the wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, production of the MX missile and preventing the production of deadly chemical and biological weapons. He was a senior adviser to the bi-partisan Congressional Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus. Rolf has been dispatched numerous times to execute official and unofficial diplomatic initiatives with high-ranking government and opposition leaders in countries around the world, including the former Soviet Union, Nicaragua and El Salvador where he was actively involved in facilitating negotiations between warring factions to end the conflict. He was a White House appointed observer to monitor the first Presidential elections in Guatemala that claimed to be authentically democratic. Rolf also developed the framework and helped spur negotiations leading to an unprecedented collaboration between Fidel Castro’s Cuba and the US to buttress US drug interdiction operations in the Caribbean, the only cooperative bi-lateral engagement between the two countries over the history of the US embargo and cessation of official diplomatic relations. Rolf served on the Board of the Nuclear Freeze Foundation formed by Senator’s Ted Kennedy and Mark Hatfield to advise them on arms control policy and legislative strategy. He was a key legislative staff author of the Nuclear Freeze Resolution and a leader and strategist in the powerful international Nuclear Freeze movement. The Nuclear Freeze was a critical impetus to induce President Reagan to end a policy of refusal to engage Soviet leaders in arms control talks and enter into negotiations with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, which ultimately led to the end of the nuclear arms race. Senator Ted Kennedy said of Rolf that he “authored some of the most consequential and widely quoted speeches on foreign policy in the 1980’s”. Rolf was also deeply involved in legislative efforts to increase the US commitment to world hunger, human rights, nuclear non-proliferation and anti-poverty programs in the developing world, as well the establishment of the US Peace Institute. Private Sector As President of Rolf Communications Inc., Rolf provided counsel to the US Secretary of Energy and was a senior advisor to many prominent national and global corporations and organizations such as Xerox, Coca Cola, ATT Wireless, PacifiCorp, Amtrak, and the White House Commission on Math, Science and Technology. Attributions and Education In addition to published commentary, television and radio interviews and opinion pieces, Rolf has been acknowledged for his contributions to several books, including, “What About the Russians?”, “The Causes of World Hunger”, “The Progressive Republican Vision for America”, and “Freeze, How you Can Prevent Nuclear War”. He has also written and optioned a major motion picture screenplay. Rolf is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, with a Master of Public Administration degree. He also earned a master’s degree with Honors from Georgetown University where he concentrated on foreign policy and human values studies. His undergraduate degree in International Affairs was earned at Lewis and Clark College where he was later awarded the “Distinguished Alumni” award. In addition, Rolf earned Harvard’s NISM degree for senior managers in national and international security and completed Stanford University’s Mass Communications program.