The Honorable Patrick J Murphy

The Honorable Patrick J. Murphy is America's first Iraq War veteran elected to the U.S. Congress and later served as the 32nd Under Secretary of the Army until January 2017. Secretary Murphy is currently the Distinguished Chair of Innovation at the United States Military Academy at West Point, a Senior Fellow at the Association of the U.S. Army, a media executive, and the Executive Chairman of Work MerkTM, a professional education platform that bridges the gap between corporations and higher education. As the Acting Secretary and Under Secretary, he led the management and operation of the Army—a Fortune 10-sized organization with a workforce 1.3 million, $148 billion budget as well as being the nation’s largest employer of millennials with over 130 thousand hired in 2016. Transforming a more innovative and responsive workforce led to an expansion of the Soldier for Life initiative, which saved $340M in FY16 and was instrumental in reaching recruitment goals for the first time in five years. Secretary Murphy also facilitated unprecedented public-private partnerships generating over $250M in savings, from Major League Baseball to 20th Century Fox. His aggressive and authentic use of social media to tell the Army story helped lead to an 18% growth across all platforms while managing a $240 million advertising budget. Also led coordination effort to allow first-ever access by registered veterans to Army Air Force Exchange online stores in order to better connect active troops with 20 million veterans, increasing in annual revenue to over $6.7 billion. An award-winning media executive, he founded the production company Taking the Hill, which creates television, films and digital content. His current projects include Unconquered (Epix, 2018), Almost Sunrise (PBS, 2017), and Thank You For Your Service (Dreamworks/Universal Films, 2017). Previously, Patrick was host and executive producer for Taking The Hill (2011–2015), and The Triumph Games (CBS Sports, 2015–2016). He authored the book Taking the Hill: From Philly to Baghdad to the United States Congress, (Henry Holt, 2008) and has been profiled in When Trains Collide (PBS, 2017), Strange History of Don't Ask Don't Tell (HBO, 2012), Taking The Hill (Discovery, 2007), Patrick Murphy: Born To Lead (PBS, 2004), and a 2016 Washington Post article where he was nicknamed the ‘Soldier’s Secretary.' The nation’s youngest Democratic U.S. congressman from 2007 to 2011, from the the Eighth Congressional District of Pennsylvania, Congressman Murphy served on the Armed Services, Select Intelligence, and Appropriations committees responsible for the $3.4 trillion budget. He authored and co-authored several Veterans initiatives including the 21st Century GI Bill, the Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and Hire Our Heroes legislation. The 21st Century GI has allowed 2.7 million post-9/11 veterans access to higher education, leading to over 450 thousand post-secondary certificates earned as of 2017. After joining the Army at nineteen he graduated from the Airborne and Air Assault courses and served in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps as a criminal prosecutor and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. Following 9/11, immediately volunteered and served two overseas combat deployments – Tuzla, Bosnia (2002) and Baghdad, Iraq (2003–2004). While serving in Iraq as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, he led a Brigade Operational Law Team (BOLT) and earned a Bronze Star for his service. At age 27, Captain Murphy was the youngest professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Taught constitutional law and the law of war, eventually leading the first-ever Law of War military academy competition at the Institute of Humanitarian Law in San Remo, Italy. He has also taught at the University of Chicago and has lectured at Harvard, Stanford, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Institute of Humanitarian Law in San Remo, Italy. He is a graduate of King’s College Army ROTC Program and the Widener University Commonwealth School of Law, where he currently serves as a Trustee. He and his wife Jenni have two young children, Maggie and Jack, and reside in Pennsylvania.

[Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.]