Episode 13: James M. Strock

James M. Strock is an American entrepreneur, speaker and citizen servant. He is the author of three books on leadership, management and communication. Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, he is a frequent speaker at conferences and corporate events across the U.S. and in other nations. Strock previously served as the founding Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and as Assistant Administrator for Enforcement (chief law enforcement officer) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Strock received a bachelor's degree from Harvard College (Phi Beta Kappa) and a juris doctor from Harvard Law School. While in law school, he served as a teaching assistant to Professor Richard Neustadt of the Kennedy School of Government. He subsequently attended New College, Oxford for a year, sponsored by the Ambassadorial Scholarships program of Rotary International. He served to captain in the reserves, Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army, 1989-96. He received the Ross Essay Prize of the American Bar Association in 1985.

Strock served as a special assistant to U.S. EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus (1983-85). From 1985-86, he served as special counsel to the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, reporting primarily to Senator Alan K. Simpson. He practiced environmental and corporate law for Davis Graham & Stubbs in Denver, Colorado in 1986-88. He served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations as general counsel of the United States Office of Personnel Management under Director Constance Horner (1988-89). He was appointed Assistant Administrator for Enforcement, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by President Bush in 1989.

In 1991, California Governor Pete Wilson appointed Strock to his cabinet as the founding Secretary for Environmental Protection. Strock served through May 1997. Among the honors accorded the agency was an Innovations in American Government Award selected by the Ford Foundation and the Kennedy School at Harvard. During this time, he served as a member of the Intergovernmental Policy Advisory Committee, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Strock founded Serve to Lead, Inc. in 1997, which provides services in leadership development, as well as in the environmental, social and governance space. He is an independent member of the Board of CVR Energy, a trustee of the Theodore Roosevelt Association and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Authors Guild. Strock appeared in the Showtime television series, American Candidate. He has appeared on Fox, CNN, C-Span and other networks and has written for or been quoted in many newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA today and San Jose Mercury News. Strock has published three books: Serve to Lead: Your Transformational 21 Century Leadership Systems, Winner, Business Category, and Third-Place Non-Fiction Grand Price, New Generation Indie Book Awards; Reagan on Leadership: Executive Lessons from the Great Communicator, Reagan Centennial Edition, foreword by Tom Peters; and Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership: Executive Lessons from the Bully Pulpit.