Jack Kemp
"Toyota is a huge auto company in a world made up of different people and different cultures influencing the American consumer market which increasingly is ethnically and racially diverse, heterogeneous. Toyota has a very progressive and consistent approach to meeting our goals and rising in the ranks of companies with best practices."
Former Congressman and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Jack Kemp is co-director of Empower America, a public policy and advocacy organization he co-founded in 1993 with William Bennett and Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. Empower America is dedicated to three founding principles: expanding freedom and democratic capitalism here and abroad; promoting policies to expand economic growth and entrepreneurship for our nation and urban areas; and advancing social policies of reform that empower people, not government bureaucracies.
In September 2001, Mr. Kemp helped form a new non-partisan, non-profit think tank, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies to counter the terrorist propaganda efforts, and he has been writing a weekly syndicated column for the Copley News Service nationwide since February of 2000.
Mr. Kemp received the Republican Party's nomination for Vice President in August of 1996, and since then has campaigned nationally for reform of taxation, Social Security and education.
In 1995, Jack Kemp served as Chairman of the National Commission of Economic Growth and Tax Reform, which promoted major reform and simplification of our tax code in order to unleash the American entrepreneurial spirit, increase economic growth and expand access to capital for all people.
Prior to founding Empower America, Mr. Kemp served for four years as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He was the author of the Enterprise Zones legislation to encourage entrepreneurship and job creation in urban America, and continues to advocate the expansion of home ownership among the poor through resident management and ownership of public and subsidized housing.
Before his appointment to the Cabinet, Mr. Kemp represented the Buffalo area and western New York for 18 years in the United States House of Representatives from 1971-1989. He served for seven years in the Republican Leadership as Chairman of the House Republican Conference.
Before his election to Congress in 1970, Mr. Kemp was a professional football quarterback for 13 years. He was captain of the San Diego Chargers from 1960-1962. He was also captain of the Buffalo Bills, the team he quarterbacked to the American Football League Championship in 1964 and 1965, when he was named the league's most valuable player. He co-founded the American Football League Players Association, and was five times elected president of that Association.
Mr. Kemp was born and raised in Los Angeles, and educated in the LA public schools. He is married to Joanne Main of Fillmore, CA. Both are graduates of Occidental College. They have 4 children (Jeffrey, Jennifer, Judith and Jimmy) and 15 grandchildren. The Kemps reside in Bethesda, Maryland and have a home in Vail, Colorado. They are building a vacation home in Big Sky, Montana at the Yellowstone Private Ski & Golf Club.
