Byron L. Dorgan
United States Senator
Monday, October 29 - 9:00 a.m.

Byron L. Dorgan was re-elected to a third term in the U.S. Senate in November 2004 with nearly 70 percent of the vote after serving two previous terms in the Senate and six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Since 1996, he has served in the Democratic Leadership as an Assistant Democratic Floor Leader, and since 1998, also as Chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. He is the first North Dakotan to serve in the Senate Leadership.

Senator Dorgan presently serves on four Senate Committees. He is Chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, Chairman of the Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee within the Appropriations Committee. Also, he is Chairman of the Energy Subcommittee within the Energy & Natural Resources Committee, and he is a senior member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee where he chairs the Interstate Commerce, Trade and Tourism Subcommittee.

Throughout his career in both the House and Senate, Senator Dorgan has worked to advance the interests of rural America. Top priorities have been creating good-paying jobs and greater economic opportunity in North Dakota, and working to establish strong farm policies for family farmers and ranchers. Senator Dorgan conceived and created the Red River Valley Research Corridor, an effort to connect North Dakota’s world class colleges and universities to federal high tech research and training efforts.

Senator Dorgan is a national leader standing up for American workers and American businesses and demanding fair trade policies. He supports trade “and plenty of it” but says international trade agreements should not erode American labor, environmental and worker safety standards. Senator Dorgan is also working to position North Dakota to play a vital role in the nation’s effort to achieve energy security by reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. He is working to make significant long-term investment in renewable fuels, such as bio-fuels, wind energy and ethanol. He is also working to develop clean coal technology, increase energy efficiency, and the use of hydrogen.

Steve Hinchman
Senior VP of Worldwide Production, Marathon Oil Corporation
Monday, October 29 - 9:20 a.m.

Steven B. Hinchman is senior vice president of Worldwide Production for Marathon Oil Corporation and serves as a member of Marathon's Executive Committee. He joined Marathon in 1980 and assumed his current position in January 2002.

In September 2000, Mr. Hinchman was appointed senior vice president of Production Operations. He joined the Company as a field engineer and subsequently held a number of technical, staff and managerial positions of increasing responsibility in the Company's domestic and international exploration and production organizations.

Mr. Hinchman received a bachelor's degree in petroleum engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1980, and a master's degree in the same field of study from the Colorado School of Mines in 1987.

Mr. Hinchman is a member of the board of directors of the American Petroleum Institute and chairman of that organization's Upstream Committee. He is a member of the board of directors of the Independent Producers Association of America and serves on the Association's Executive Committee. Mr. Hinchman is also a member of the Executive Committee of the U.S. Oil & Gas Association. In 2005, he received the distinguished Penn State Alumni Fellow Award.

He is a Visiting Committee Member of the Petroleum Engineering Department of the Colorado School of Mines and a member of the board of directors of the Sam Houston Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He is also a member of the Industrial and Professional Advisory Council of the Department of Energy and Geo-Environmental Engineering at Pennsylvania State University.

Samuel W. Bodman
U.S. Secretary of Energy
Monday, October 29 - 12:30 p.m.

Samuel Wright Bodman became the 11th Secretary of Energy upon a unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate on February 1, 2005. He leads the Department of Energy with a budget in excess of $23 billion and over 100,000 federal and contractor employees.

Previously, Secretary Bodman served as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury beginning in February 2004. He also served the Bush Administration as the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Commerce beginning in 2001. A financier and executive by trade, with three decades of experience in the private sector, Secretary Bodman was well suited to manage the day-to-day operations of both of these cabinet agencies.

Born in 1938 in Chicago, he graduated in 1961 with a B.S. in chemical engineering from Cornell University. In 1965, he completed his ScD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For the next six years he served as an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and began his work in the financial sector as Technical Director of the American Research and Development Corporation, a pioneer venture capital firm. He and his colleagues provided financial and managerial support to scores of new business enterprises located throughout the United States.