Capping a career of public service dedicated to law enforcement, Dr. Lee P. Brown was elected Mayor of the City of Houston on December 6, 1997, sworn in on January 2, 1998; and reelected in 1999 and again in 2001. During his three terms in office, Dr. Brown presided over the most prosperous six-year period in the history of the City. Under his leadership, Houston started its first light rail system and obtained voter approval for its extension, along with increases in bus service, park and ride and HOV lanes; opened three new state of the art sport facilities (football, Baseball and Basketball); revitalized the downtown area; constructed the City's first convention center hotel and doubled the size of the convention center; constructed the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts; built and renovated new libraries, police and fire stations; undertook a $2.9 billion development program at the airport system consisting of new terminals, runways, consolidated car rental facility, in addition to renovating other terminals and runways.
During his tenure, Mayor Brown also built a new water treatment plant; advanced the City's affirmative action program; installed programs in all City libraries so everyone could have access to the world wide web; created the Corporate University for training City employees and public servants from other countries; built the state of the art Houston Emergency Center which combines all of the City's emergency communication systems; increased the number of foreign consulates; led trade missions to Asia, Africa and Mexico: opened new parks; developed master plans for parks, libraries and technology; implemented E-government and implemented a new style of governance called Neighborhood Oriented Government. Prior to his election as Mayor of the Nation's forth-largest city, Dr. Brown served in President Bill Clinton's Cabinet as Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy from 1993 to 1996. In that position, he changed the nation's drug control strategy by placing a greater emphasis on prevention, education and treatment.
Dr. Brown rose through the law enforcement ranks - first as a patrolman with the San Jose, California Police Department; then as a Sheriff of Multnomah County, Oregon; followed by Commissioner of Public Safety in Atlanta Georgia; Chief of Police in Houston, Texas and Police Commissioner for New York City, New York. During this time, Brown conceived of and pioneered the concept known today as community policing, which approximately 80 percent of all American police departments have adopted in one form or another.
He has an undergraduate degree in criminology from Fresno State University, a master's degree in sociology from San Jose State University and holds a master's degree and doctorate degree in criminology from the University California at Berkeley, where he also is an UC-Berkeley Fellow. He was selected as UC-Berkeley's 2004 Alumnus of the Year. He also holds honorary doctorate degrees from Florida International University, Portland State University, State University of New York, Fresno State University, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Paul Quinn College and Howard University. He is an honorary visiting professor at six universities in China.
Dr. Brown also had a very distinguished career in academia. He was a part time Professor at San Jose State University; Professor and Chairman of the Department of Administration of Justice at Portland State University; Associate Director of the Institute for Urban Affairs and Research and Professor of Public Administration at Howard University; University Professor at Texas Southern University and a Senior Scholar at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and Professor of Sociology at Rice University. After leaving the Office of the Mayor, he served as a Visiting Scholar in the School of Social Sciences at Rice University.
Dr. Brown is currently the Chairman and CEO of Brown Group International, member of the Board of CAMAC International and Chairman of the Board of Unity National Bank.
His many awards and honors include the Library Journal's Politician of the Year Award; Ebony Magazine's Most Influential African American; Manager of the Year from the National Management Association: the International Leadership Award from B'nai B'rith; the Peace and Justice Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Change; United States Correspondent to the United Nation's Program on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders; Distinguished Award from the American Transportation Association and Father of the Year from the National Father's Day Committee.
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