Profile

Profile: Jack Schwartz

Jack is an assistant attorney general and director of health policy development in the Maryland Attorney General’s Office. Formerly chief counsel for opinions and advice, he has served as counsel to the Open Meetings Compliance Board since it was formed and has written and lectured extensively on open meetings and public information issues. Jack has been the lead presenter in the numerous public records sessions that have been held across the state in the wake of last summer’s public records audit conducted by MDDC’s FOI Subcommittee. Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office in 1982, he held a senior staff position at the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C.

PERSONAL:
Born June 25, 1946; married, two children (12 and 10).

Education: J.D. from Yale University Law School, 1975; B.A. from University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1972.

How would you describe yourself? "I strive to be realistic without becoming cynical."

PROFESSIONAL:
Favorite part of job: "I can help make the law a source of genuinely useful guidance and support for those health care professionals trying to provide quality care to the seriously ill."

Least favorite part of job: "The occasional difficulty keeping in balance the two quite disparate aspects of my job, health policy and open government. The latter has a tendency, like peppermint, to take over the whole garden."

Biggest challenge: "To find ways that link policy to measurable, positive change."

Greatest challenge in the information access area from the perspective of Maryland government: "It is (no surprise) finding the right point of balance between maintaining the access that promotes governmental accountability and preserving a fitting degree of individual privacy in an era of easy data aggregation."

FUN:
Fantasy job: "To run a health policy philanthropy, so that I could be the public policy equivalent of a strolling minstrel, singing the policy tunes I want but without needing to hold out a hat."

Favorite type(s) of music: "I like baroque and classical and Miles Davis/John Coltrane era jazz."

Car you drive now: "I drive a 1997 Honda Odyssey and care nothing about cars except that they should inconvenience me as little as possible."

Last book read: "Decoding Darkness" by Rudy Tanzi.

Last movie seen: "Don’t go that often; Shakespeare in Love, maybe?"

Hobbies: "Gardening, theater, spectator sports."

Favorite vacation: "New Mexico and Colorado with the family, especially Mesa Verde and other Anasazi sites."

How would you most like to spend one day: "A bookshop and pub crawl through London."

Favorite quotation: Norman Cousins, "Nobody knows enough to be a pessimist."

If you could be anyone else, who would you be: "The researcher, who knows who it will be, who finds the drug that defeats Alzheimer’s disease."

If you could meet anyone else (at any time in history), who would it be? "Buddha."