Brian Wolff was happy to have made it from Pine Bluff to The Hill in Northwest Arkansas, and then he set his sights on Capitol Hill.
Now he is giving $1 million to the University of Arkansas in honor of a professor who inspired him.
In 1987, Wolff left the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, just six hours shy of graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in economics and journalism, to intern as a producer and copy editor for CNN in Washington.
Wolff, who finished those remaining credits by correspondence, felt fortunate to be the first in his family to go to college. He initially considered a career in journalism, but the political bug took hold and with a recommendation letter from then-Gov. Bill Clinton, he parlayed his national news experience into an internship with then U.S. Sen. David Pryor.
The Pryor internship led Wolff to campaign work with Clinton and Al Gore, which put him on track for positions with other Democrats, including Robert Matsui from California, Rahm Emanuel from Illinois and Chris Van Hollen from Maryland and, most recently, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.
"Brian is the full package: a political maestro who cares deeply about the issues," Pelosi says. "His extraordinary political and fundraising talents, and his great understanding of the power of messaging, mobilization, money and management, have been an unsurpassed asset for Democrats and for America. Brian's friendship and leadership are treasured by all who know him."
For the last decade, Wolff has served as executive vice president of public policy and affairs for the Edison Electric Institute, a group that offers public policy leadership and strategic business intelligence to investor-owned electric companies across the nation.
He gives kudos for his success to the late Diane Blair, who was a political science professor at the University of Arkansas while he was a student and who is now namesake of the Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics & Society.
"Diane Blair was always the type of person who encouraged her students to go after that thing that helps you push through those uncomfortable places and spaces and pursue," says Wolff, a director on the University of Arkansas National Alumni Board. "I want to give back to something that gave so much to me because I wouldn't be doing any of this or having any of this if it wasn't for a foundation of having that at Fayetteville and having a good start for me to be able to step into those uncomfortable spaces elsewhere."
Wolff intends to endow a chair in the Blair Center. Blair died of lung cancer in 2000.
"Diane Blair did so much work around the intersection between the South and Southern politics -- rural politics, for example -- and how that affects the larger society. We're seeing that more and more every year, becoming more and more of a divide," he says. "I wanted to make sure that Diane's work was going to continue and I wanted to be sure also that it was going to be something that was going to live on for a long time, and endowing a chair allows me to do that."
Todd Shields, dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, too, was influenced by Blair.
Not only was Wolff mentored by Blair, Shields says, "he learned firsthand about the power of community connections from former Sen. David H. Pryor, namesake of the college's David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History. Now, just as Diane and David did before him, Brian is looking to help the next generation of students follow in these footsteps, as they, too, strive to make our world a better place. We couldn't be more proud of Brian for his public service, success and encouragement of our students."
PUSHING THE ENVELOPE
Wolff knew early on that he wanted to expand his horizons.
"I think I was always that kid who pushed the envelope in one direction or another so I really had that in my head all the time and I was constantly trying to do things just a little bit different," he says.
His father, Bob, was a maintenance engineer for International Paper Co., and his mother, Sue, was a tax accountant.
"From the time I was really young I knew that we were just a middle-middle class family and that no one had gone to college before. I wanted to go to college and I was determined to go, but like most kids in that spot I didn't know if my parents would afford me to go to Fayetteville," Wolff says.
Wolff's uncle, who lived in Northwest Arkansas, helped him get a job writing tickets on campus, a job he quit as quickly as he could.
"I didn't want the guys in my fraternity to see me giving them tickets," he says. "It was a little bit stressful."
He didn't arrive on campus with a major in mind, but he enjoyed math and science, and he liked communications.
"If you think about it, anyone who is running for office needs to be able to effectively communicate and so I think that I started volunteering for campaigns," he says. "I thought, wow, I really think that I need to think about that."
At CNN, he interned for Larry King. He also learned to operate equipment and write news.
"As you can imagine, it hones your craft in a way that is efficient," Wolff says. "I didn't have a life, but 'wow' that I got to do that and got to experience that."
DROP THE ACCENT
CNN anchor Bernard Shaw pointed out that unless Wolff planned to work in a Southern market, he would need to get rid of his accent.
"He said to me, 'It'll take you at least two years of voice diction to get that twang out of your voice.' And I thought, 'No. OK, I don't really know what that looks like but I don't have two years to do anything. I can't afford to do that,'" Wolff says. "That was a real decision point for me and then it was just a matter of months and I was working as an intern in Pryor's office and then I got hired on staff."
He returned home to Arkansas for the summer before his internship with Pryor, to a family that didn't quite understand his aspirations.
"In their minds, I should have been staying here and getting a job rather than going and doing some internship that was going to lead to where?" he says. "I just think for them it was a little bit harder to understand, a little bit harder to get from a stability standpoint."
He worked all summer -- mowing yards, cleaning friends' houses, serving ice cream -- in Pine Bluff to save up money for his move to D.C., because by then Clinton had announced his intention to run for president.
"I thought, 'That's a bright shiny object to chase,'" he says. "I just remember being dropped at the airport with my bags, I had nowhere to live in D.C. ... I slept on friends' couches until I figured out where I could find a place."
Stephanie Streett, executive director of the Clinton Foundation, met Wolff in college and when she moved to D.C. to work on Clinton's campaign, she slept on Wolff's couch while she looked for an apartment.
"It was an un-air-conditioned place near Georgetown and I think there were six people living there," she says.
They moved back to Little Rock to work on the exploratory committee for the presidential campaign a year and a half later, and following the election she returned to D.C. as Clinton's deputy director of scheduling and then director of scheduling.
"Brian was in D.C. working in different capacities during that time," she says. "We've always stayed connected, we're very close friends. He's someone I call on when I need advice. I have probably four to five really good friends and I would put him on that list. He's one of those."
SURPRISED BY BUSH
With Streett's encouragement, Wolff participated in the Presidential Leadership Scholars Program, based on the experiences of presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Lyndon B. Johnson and George H.W. Bush.
"Certainly my politics has been about Democratic leaders, but my exposure to [George W. Bush] surprised me. It stripped way my partisan views of everything, the stories he told in and around 911 and the stories he told around the hard decisions he had to make. We laughed, he cried ... it was probably one of the most powerful things that happened to me," Wolff says. "I kind of like my boundaries being pushed there and my conventional thinking about being a Democrat, especially in a time when we're living in a very partisan environment."
Wolff joined the board of the Roosevelt Institute, a think tank furthering the ideals of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt, about a decade ago. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt of Portland, Maine, the Roosevelts' granddaughter, is delighted that his political interests extend from national to international. Wolff is part of the biennial trips the organization takes to the Netherlands for the Four Freedoms Award ceremony.
"When we're on these trips to the Netherlands he's always the one to keep it light and to keep the bus trip festive and fun. I admire someone who has a lot of responsibilities in life and a lot of things going who is also able to be just cheerful and fun and make the whole room feel like what they're doing is enjoyable."
She also appreciates his compassion. He has attempted to help her schedule appointments at the Mayo Clinic to address her chronic cough.
"He does it with a light touch and with good humor and I'm touched that he cares," she says. "He's not just saying something because there's nothing else to say, he's genuinely worried about my health and I just think that's very sweet."
Wolff has used his countless connections to help with the mission of the institute.
"He doesn't drop names, but if he thinks there's a good relationship that should be established he can make that happen," Roosevelt says. "Clearly he has a relationship with Nancy Pelosi and other leaders in the House and Senate. I've been with him when Speaker Pelosi has made time in her schedule to come to an event that we were having and that's very meaningful."
Wolff began working with Pelosi after he went to California in 1994 to work for the Clinton/Gore campaign. After the election, he worked with Gore's leadership committee and was introduced to Sens. Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein.
"Through them I met Nancy Pelosi, and next thing you know, I was working for five different people -- Al Gore, plus those women," Wolff says. "I remember Nancy Pelosi wanted to be in leadership and she said 'If I get elected whip I want you to move back to D.C.' In my head I probably didn't even think that would happen. I don't think too many [women] had been in leadership in the House at that point -- and she got elected whip, so in 2001 I moved back to D.C. and that started my 10 years really working with her."
He left that job in 2009 to work for Edison, although he was called back into service recently.
"I've just spent about eight weeks making sure that Pelosi is speaker again. We've been successful together a lot and this process we've been in, the latest, it seemed natural to me that I wanted to get back in and help," he says. "Anytime we have had a changeover in leadership or some type of movement post-election, we engage."
CLIMATE CHANGE
At Edison, he lobbied on policy issues throughout the Obama administration.
"I think that we've always leaned in with regard to climate change, that it's real and that it's something we need to be able to address and how we do our part in lowering carbon emissions, we take that very seriously so I think we have a lot of credibility there especially over the last eight or nine years," he says.
He was recognized in November as a Top Innovator by Fortnightly for pushing for clearer, simplified language by industry leaders to create a better dialogue with customers.
"The electric industry is really in a period of transformation and change that's driven primarily by new technologies, distributed energies and changing customer expectations and Brian has been a real champion in the industry for reshaping and enhancing communication with customers," says Laura Landreaux, president and chief executive officer of Entergy Arkansas. "His leadership role oversees a coalition of electric utilities and he helps bring us all to the table to have a common conversation about where we want to go in the industry."
Wolff thrives in his busy professional environments but enjoys a slower pace at his home in Annapolis, Md., where he spends time with his active field Labradors, Bolt and Power -- named not for his work with Edison but for their champion sire.
"They're happy to go be in the water all weekend and do that sort of thing, so that's kind of about my only thing," he says.
Wolff guest-lectures at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in Stanford, Calif., where he completed the Senior Executive Program in 2014. He enjoys teaching and hopes to do more of it, and he enjoys his professional status now more than ever.
"Now I'm afforded the ability to go in and out of it and still be seen as valuable. I'm just not doing the day-to-day work of that," he says. "You're external to the political organizations and the House and the Senate and the White House. It's interesting, but it's a far better place to be."
SELF PORTRAIT
Brian Wolff
• DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Sept. 5, Litchfield, Ill.
• FIVE PEOPLE I WOULD INVITE TO A FANTASY DINNER PARTY: President George W. Bush; Mike Hemphill, director of Presidential Leadership Scholars; Diane Blair, author and University of Arkansas political science professor; and John Lewis, civil rights leader.
• A BOOK I RECENTLY READ AND LIKED: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics by Donna Brazile, Yolanda Caraway, Leah Daughtry, Minyon Moore and Veronica Chambers.
• MY FAVORITE MEAL: Sushi.
• SOMETHING I ALWAYS HAVE WITH ME: Glasses.
• MY MOST PRECIOUS CHILDHOOD MEMORY IS: Just of being at my grandmother's house in the country outside Arkadelphia. We went all the time and that was to me, just being a little boy and being able to go out and explore.
• I WANT TO BE THOUGHT OF AS: Someone who really cared about public service.
• SOMETHING NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT ME IS: I have a huge infatuation with studying past presidents. It's kind of a geek-out thing for me.
• I WISH I COULD: Teach full-time.
• MY FAVORITE PLACE ON EARTH IS: Probably Annapolis [Md.]. It's a real off-the-grid place for me. I think it's probably one of the things that allows me to go and do, having that place to unwind.
• THE BEST ADVICE I EVER GOT WAS: A teacher told me, "If you ever learn to accept criticism, you'll go far."
• ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: Determined.
High Profile on 01/13/2019