Convocation: Jeff Blodgett '83

With 28 years experience in community organizing and political management, Jeff Blodgett is the founding director of Wellstone Action, a national center for training and leadership development. The organization’s mission is to ignite leadership in people and power in communities to win change in the progressive tradition of Paul and Sheila Wellstone. Blodgett studied with Paul Wellstone at Carleton College and began his career as a community organizer, working with hard-pressed family farmers during the 1980s farm crisis. He later spent 13 years as a senior aide, advisor, and campaign manager to the late Senator, managing all three of his election campaigns, including the hard-fought 2002 race that was tragically cut short by a plane crash. In addition to his leadership of Wellstone Action, Blodgett also trains, teaches, and writes extensively on political skills, public management, and leadership. A 1983 graduate of Carleton College, he earned his Masters of Public Administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and teaches in the Masters Advocacy and Political Leadership program at the University of Minnesota Duluth. The title of his presentation was “Working for What You Believe In: Leadership and Political Change The Wellstone Way.”