The U.S. Team

Christopher J. Dodd, Special Advisor, Summit of the Americas

Senator Christopher J. Dodd served for thirty years in the United States Senate and six years in the United States House of Representatives, representing the people of Connecticut.

During his tenure in the U.S. Senate, Senator Dodd served as Chair of the Senate Banking Committee; Chair of the Senate Rules Committee; Acting Chair of the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee; and as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he Chaired the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere for many years.

Over his three and a half decades in Congress, Senator Dodd was an active legislator, authoring and/or co-authoring several landmark laws, including the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Affordable Care Act, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Child Care Development Block Grant, and the Help America Vote Act.

Senator Dodd has been actively engaged in Latin America for over 50 years, dating back to his service as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s.

As a longtime member and Chair of the Senate subcommittee covering the Americas, Senator Dodd was an active participant and Chair of the U.S.-Mexico Interparliamentary Group for many years. For his service on the U.S.-Mexico Interparliamentary Group, the government of Mexico awarded Dodd the Aztec Eagle Award.

Senator Dodd was also a key player in negotiating the peace agreements in Central American in the 1980s and 1990s.

After retiring from the U.S. Senate in 2011, Senator Dodd served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the Motion Picture Association for seven years before joining the law firm Arnold & Porter as Senior Counsel.

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Special Advisor, Summit of the Americas

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell made history as the first South American-born Member of Congress that flipped a diverse, majority-minority South Florida district in 2018. With over 20 years of experience providing strategic, policy, fiscal, fundraising, and operational leadership in both the public and non-profit sectors, Debbie is a national leader with a proven track record of success in non-profits, higher education, and Congress.

As the first and only Latina democrat to ever represent a Congressional district in Florida, she led the charge to pass legislation that secured Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans; $400M in aid directly to the Venezuelan people both in Venezuela and neighboring countries; the Cuban Reunification Parole Program; and $200M for Everglades restoration. Mucarsel-Powell authored legislation to provide the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with essential funding to partner with local organizations to conduct mobile COVID-19 testing; extend Medicare coverage for COVID treatment; and create a National Peer Support Warmline under the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to address rising mental health concerns.

A tireless advocate for the Hispanic community and women and girls worldwide, she served as Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Women’sTask Force and launched the first Latina Equal Pay forum which included Rep. Veronica Escobar, Rep. Sylvia Garcia and Maria Cardona.

Prior to her entry into politics, she was honored by the South Florida Business Journal as one of the Forty under Forty recipients for achievements in the South Florida community, which included raising $100 million for the FIU Wertheim College of Medicine.

Debbie continues to be a strong advocate for issues important to her and her community and was tapped to be a Senior Advisor to the Giffords to work on ending the gun violence epidemic that plagues this nation. She continues to appear as an analyst and commentator on MSNBC, CNN, Telemundo, Univision, CBS 4, Newsweek, and several other Spanish and English media outlets. She is also a Fellow at the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.

Kevin Michael O’Reilly, National Coordinator, Summit of the Americas

Kevin Michael O’Reilly became National Coordinator for the Summit of the Americas after serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South America and Western Hemisphere economic affairs.

A career member of the United States Senior Foreign Service, with the rank of Minister-Counselor, he has previously served as Director of the offices of Brazil and Southern Cone Affairs and of Mexican Affairs, and as Senior Director for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs at the United States Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.

While serving as the White House’s National Security Council Director for North American Affairs from 2009 to 2011 he helped develop the U.S.-Canada Beyond the Border partnership, an effort to improve public security and economic competitiveness.

He has also served as Director for Latin American Affairs in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of International Affairs; as a Pearson Fellow in the Office of Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois; and in the Pentagon in the Western Europe and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Division, Strategic Policy and Plans (J-5), of the Joint Staff.

During his career as a Foreign Service Officer, Mr. O’Reilly has served abroad at U.S. embassies in Mexico City, Mexico; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and

Jakarta, Indonesia. An Illinois native, he holds Masters of Arts degrees from the U.S. Naval War College and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He received his Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor degrees from Loyola University Chicago.

David Silverman, Deputy National Summit Coordinator, Summit of the Americas

Dave manages the Summit coordination team responsible for U.S. participation in the Summit of the Americas. Dave joined the State Department in 2001 as an American Citizens Services Specialist focusing on the Western Hemisphere. Since joining the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs in 2003 he’s pursued multilateral coalitions to implement initiatives across a broad range of economic and development issues for the last seven Summits of the Americas (in Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago), including the Ninth Summit of the Americas hosted by the United States in 2022.

Dave served as a senior fellow at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce International Division after the 2015 Summit in Panama to increase cooperation between the business community and governments through the Americas Business Dialogue. Originally from the West Coast, his experience prior to the State Department includes working in public affairs in Stanford, California, serving as a public health volunteer in the Dominican Republic countryside, and playing trumpet in a Latin jazz and salsa band in Washington, DC.

Passionate about diversifying the public service, he volunteers for the Workforce Recruitment Program to help connect post-secondary students and graduates with disabilities with federal employment opportunities. He holds a B.A. in International Affairs with a minor in Economics, and an M.A. in Organizational Sciences from The George Washington University. The plant in his office is named St. Stephen, after a Grateful Dead song.