C-Span founder Brian Lamb and Purdue president Mitch Daniels to be featured in Omnibus Speaker Series on April 15

FORT WAYNE, Ind.—The 25th season of Purdue University Fort Wayne’s Omnibus Speaker Series ends with a flourish with a special appearance by Brian Lamb, executive chairman and founder of C-SPAN Networks, and Mitch Daniels, president of Purdue University and former governor of Indiana.

The duo will take the stage together for a free-flowing exchange on Wednesday, April 15, and will engage in a lively conversation that includes how changes in the media impact our society, the state of free speech, and civil discourse in America.

Brian Lamb was born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana. He developed his interest in broadcasting as a child, and followed it through high school and college as he worked at Lafayette radio and television stations.

After graduating from Purdue with a degree in speech, Lamb joined the Navy. His tour included White House duty during the Johnson Administration and a stint in the Pentagon public affairs office.

After the Navy, Lamb returned to Lafayette, but soon moved to the nation’s capital where he worked as a freelance reporter for UPI radio, a Senate press secretary, and in the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy.

In 1974, he returned to journalism and covered telecommunications issues as Washington bureau chief for Cablevision magazine.

It was from this vantage point that C-SPAN began to take shape. Congress was about to televise its proceedings and the cable industry was looking for programming. Lamb brought these two ideas together to create C-SPAN.

Lamb’s work with C-SPAN has been recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Humanities Medal. In 2011, Purdue University recognized him with the formation of the Brian Lamb School of Communication. Daniels was elected Governor of Indiana in 2004 in his first bid for elected office and was re-elected in 2008. He became the 12th president of Purdue University in 2013, at the end of his second term as governor.

In recognition of his leadership as both a governor and a university president, Daniels was named among the Top 50 World Leaders by Fortune Magazine in 2015 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.

Prior to becoming governor, he served as chief of staff to Senator Richard Lugar, senior advisor to President Ronald Reagan and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush. He also was the CEO of the Hudson Institute, a major contract research organization. During an 11-year career at Eli Lilly and Company, he held a number of top executive posts including president of Eli Lilly’s North American pharmaceutical operations.

Daniels earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a law degree from Georgetown. He is the author of three books and a contributing columnist in the Washington Post.

The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are available online two weeks prior to the event. For more information on the Omnibus Speaker Series, go to pfw.edu/omnibus.

The Omnibus Speaker Series is sponsored by English Bonter Mitchell Foundation. This lecture sponsored by Hanning & Bean Enterprises, Inc.

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