Honorees

Michael H. Walsh

1942-1994

Mike was a superstar in everything he did. Born in Binghamton, New York on July 8, 1942 he moved with his family to Portland, Oregon where he became an all-state football player.  He attended and graduated from Stanford University in 1964.  He was in the first class of White House Fellows, serving in 1965 to 1966 as Special Assistant to President Lyndon Johnson’s Secretary of Agriculture. 

He subsequently graduated from Yale Law School. At Yale, Walsh received numerous awards, including Best Individual Argument in the Moot Appellate Court Competition.  He published law articles in the Yale Law Journal and the Yale Review of Law and Social Action (Dicta).

Though he attended college and law school on scholarships, Walsh turned down several lucrative job offers from  large firms in Washington, D.C. in favor of the defenders’ job because “I’m a high risk taker.  I have always been a highly energetic person and I have always enjoyed doing things where argumentatively I made a difference.” (LA Times 1/13/80 & 4/10/80).

After Yale, he began his career representing indigent defendants in the Federal Defenders Office of San Diego.  He next worked on the state court side with Defenders Inc. of San Diego.  He subsequently entered private practice with Sheela, Lightner, Hughes and Castro.  In 1977, at age 35, he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as United States Attorney for the Southern District of California. 

Walsh was not “afraid to make tough and sometimes controversial decisions.”  For instance, he personally prosecuted four U.S. Border Patrol Agents for abusing the civil rights of illegal aliens because the case “needed the full weight of our office behind the prosecution” and because “it is up to the federal government to ‘clean its own house.’”  (Id.) The case marked the first time that brutality charges against illegal aliens made its way into the courts (LA Times 4/10/80).  Upon reaching a settlement, Walsh stated he was pleased with the result because “We set out to establish that illegal aliens have protection of the Civil Rights Act.  We also set out to establish that the federal government has the courage and wherewithal to prosecute federal officers when they knowingly and intentionally violate the civil rights of aliens.  That may sound obvious, but that is not an inconsequential step, because its never been done before.”  (LA Times 1/30/80). 

Walsh also successfully prosecuted another first in the District when a Ku Klux Klan member was convicted of civil rights violations against a resident alien.  Walsh also used the grand jury to investigate the shooting death of a black robbery suspect by a police officer in a case that caused racial tension in the city. (Id.)

In a 1978 interview for Dicta, Walsh stated, “I believe deeply in the adversary system and the due process model of the United States Constitution.  If there’s one overriding objective I have, it is to demonstrate that this [U.S. Attorney’s] Office will always be fair and judicious in its employment of the enormous powers the Office has.” (Dicta Feb. 78).

Mike was a person who could do many things at the same time, and all at a high level. The Los Angeles Times profiled Walsh in 1980 in an article entitled “A Study in Commitment, Intensity” which described him as “hurl[ing] himself into work at a pace and with an intensity that both baffles and awes his peers.” (LA Times 1/13/80).  The profile continued that  Walsh was “an intense man with an exceptional energy; a man with an unceasing desire to do what is right;” “a brilliant attorney,” and “a man who motivates others to achieving high goals.” Walsh described his hard-driving style:  “I believe in commitment, I believe in work, I believe in accomplishment.”

In 1980 he entered the business world, first with Cummins Engine Company in Columbus, Indiana as a vice president.  He was rapidly promoted to executive vice president of the company.  In 1986 he moved to Omaha, Nebraska where he became chairman and chief executive officer of the Union Pacific, the nation’s third largest railroad.  He held that position until joining Tenneco in September of 1991.  He turned the 34th largest industrial company in the United States into a profitable organization as its chief executive officer.

He was also a member of the advisory counsel of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and served on the Board of Overseers of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford.  He completed a 14 year term as trustee of Stanford University.  He was also very active in Common Cause.

He offered this advice on leading a major American corporation as chief executive officer:

Do it – if you choose to do it – because you enjoy this kind of work. 
Do it for the challenge and the opportunity to change things for the 
better.  Do it because you care deeply about outcome – helping to 
make America more competitive or making some other institution. . . 
work better or differently. Those are worthy ends, and well worth the 
trouble.

<– Back to Honorees