Donald L. Ritter

This article is about the Lehigh University metallurgy professor and U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania. For the Canadian installation artist, see Don Ritter.

Donald Lawrence "Don" Ritter (born October 21 1940) was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. He represented Pennsylvania's 15th congressional district from 1980 to 1993.

Early life and education

Ritter was born in Washington Heights, Manhattan, the son of Frank and Ruth Ritter. He attended P.S. 70 Elementary School, the Joseph H. Wade Junior High School, the Bronx High School of Science and then Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, graduating with a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering in 1961, and received an M.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1963, and an Sc.D. (Doctor of Science in Physical Metallurgy)from the same school in 1966. He worked as a research assistant at M.I.T. (while getting his doctorate) from 1961 to 1966.

Academic and private work

He was a scientific exchange fellow for the United States National Academy of Sciences-Soviet Academy of Sciences, Baikov Institute in Moscow from 1967 to 1968. He was an assistant professor at the California State Polytechnic University - Pomona, and a contract consultant for General Dynamics, Pomona from 1968 to 1969.

He was a metallurgy faculty member and assistant to the vice president for research at Lehigh University from 1969 to 1976, and later the manager of research program development at Lehigh University from 1976 to 1979. He also worked as an engineering consultant to industry.

House of Representatives

After winning a 5-way primary election, Ritter was elected as a republican to the 96th United States Congress in 1979 and to the six succeeding Congresses. He held the seat for seven terms or 14 years, losing it in 1992 to challenger Paul F. McHale, Jr.

U.S. Congress: After defeating a 16 year incumbent, Don represented the Lehigh Valley (Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton area) of PA. As a senior member of the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce and United States House Committee on Science and Technology, Dr. Ritter sought to bring a greater degree of science to the legislative process, particularly to environmental and energy regulation, and was often referred to by peers as a "scientist-congressman". His district had a substantial industrial (corporate and labor union), and university constituency with the former relating to government regulation and the latter to government sponsored research and education. Ritter was a supporter of free market and small government policies although when it came to the steel and apparel industries in his district, he would cast trade votes favorable to them. At the same time Ritter supported NAFTA when it was being debated in the House. Ritter was the leading advocate in the Congress for the use of Risk assessment to put hazards, particularly energy and environmental ones, in more rational perspective and thus, he believed, better prioritize and reduce risks that were most dangerous to people's health and the environment. In that regard, Ritter often clashed with the Washington environmental lobbying groups. Ritter was a congressional champion for the Total Quality movement in the USA, building bridges into the U.S. Congress for world TQM founders and leaders such as W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran and Armand Feigenbaum. He also started Quality Valley USA in his district to further TQM and the economic advantage to be derived from it by its citizens and workers. Ritter advocated environmental policies that would bring real and tangible benefits to his constituents and to America in general. In his district, he promoted the Lehigh River as a "linear environmental center-of-gravity" to serve the leisure, recreation and creative economic development needs of his constituents. Later, Ritter authored, along with neighboring congressman Peter Kostmeyer, legislation that created the Lehigh-Delaware National Heritage Corridor which has since become a primary environmental and recreational focus in the Lehigh Valley. Ritter also championed human rights and, having lived in the USSR and speaking Russian, was opposed to what he saw as Soviet expansionist activity, not only in Afghanistan but also via Cuba, in Central America, in Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and Ukraine. In addition to his service on the Congressional Helsinki Commission, he was the founding chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Baltic States and Ukraine whose co-chairman was Sen. Don Riegle (D-MI). Substantial numbers of Hungarian, Polish, Slovak and Ukrainian-Americans resided in his district and supported Don's anti-Communist politics and actions.

With respect to Ritter's 14 year voting record in the U.S. Congress, he enjoyed consistently high rankings from conservative interest groups and correspondingly low rankings from liberal ones.

Congressional experiences with Afghanistan

Ritter's experience with Afghanistan began with the Soviet Union's invasion of that country in 1979. He spent the next 10 years in Congress working with Afghans to evict the Soviet invaders. Ritter speaks fluent Russian and had studied Russian literature, culture and history as a hobby while at MIT. He authored the "Material Assistance" to Afghanistan legislation in the Congress (Ritter-Tsongas) in 1982, created the Congressional Task Force on Afghanistan ((Ritter-Humphrey) to promote such "material assistance" of all kinds to the Afghan resistance, convened meetings on Afghanistan with representatives of the State Department, DIA, CIA and FBI to enhance U.S. assistance to the Afghan resistance fighters, and used his ranking position on the Congressional Helsinki Commission, extending its purview away from its traditional focus on Eastern Europe and the USSR, to call attention to an Helsinki Accords-illegal invasion of a neighbor and the destruction actions inflicted on Afghan society by the Soviets.

Post Congressional Career

National Environmental Policy Institute, NEPI, 1993-2002

For nearly ten years after leaving Congress, he served as Founder and Chairman and President of the National Environmental Policy Institute (NEPI). NEPI was one of the leading groups seeking environmental policy changes in the 1990s that sought greater involvement of States and localities in national policy making. NEPI promoted the use of risk assessment and peer-reviewed science in the regulatory decision process. NEPI's aim was to replace some of the Washington-based politically-charged environmental decision making with what it believed was more fact and science-based, common sense decision making by engaging an expanded, less partisan contingent of citizens and decision-makers from the States, cities and localities. NEPI conducted two large "Working Groups" of some 40 to 50 individuals from different perspectives, Reinventing EPA and Environmental Policy, which at the time built on V.P. Al Gore's Reinventing Government initiative and Democratizing Environmental Policy. Both involved greater involvement of the scientific community and bi-partisan representation from the States and localities plus leadership in the Congress and the Administration. Numerous publications resulted from NEPI and collaborating institutions and individuals. NEPI's annual national "Reinventing EPA and Environmental Policy" Conferences in Washington drew participation of some 250-300 people and leadership from those same bodies as mentioned above: Governors, Mayors, State Legislators, Chairmen of Congressional Committees, Cabinet members, EPA Administrators and White House officials, environmental advocacy group, leaders, and leading legal and scientific figures. NEPI also conducted Working Groups on policy implication of highly technical but policy-significant issues of bioavailability and sediments.

Afghanistan

Ritter founded and chaired the Afghanistan Foundation in 1996. Since 2002, he has been active in developing a market economy in Afghanistan: personally as a businessman/investor in Afghan companies and public-policy wise in promoting free-market policies of the Afghan government via the Afghan-Amerian Chamber of Commerce (AACC) and the Afghan International Chamber of Commerce (AICC).

Personal

Ritter was a resident of Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley for 25 years and now resides in Washington, D.C. He has spent some one-third of his time in Afghanistan since post September 11, 2001, late 2002. He was formerly married to Edith Duerksen Ritter. They have two children, Jason Alexei and Kristina Larissa.

Sources

• United States Congress. "Donald L. Ritter (id: R000277)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• The Political Graveyard

External links

• Donald Lawrence Ritter biography on the Lehigh University Engineering Heritage Initiative