Erie's Tom Ridge to be honored by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance

Erie's Tom Ridge, former U.S. representative, two-term governor of Pennsylvania and the first director of the Office of Homeland Security, is being honored as the 2022 recipient of the William Oliver Baker Award.

The Baker Award is the highest honor presented by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. Past recipients include Leon Panetta, former secretary of the Department of Defense and director of the CIA; George J. Tenet, former CIA director; former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates; and Susan M. Gordon, former principal deputy director of National Intelligence.

Ridge will be recognized at the William Oliver Baker Dinner on May 14 in Washington, D.C.

More: Tom Ridge, in first appearance since stroke, recalls tragedies of 9/11 but also the compassion

Established in 1984, the Baker Award recognizes extraordinary contributions to U.S. intelligence and national security affairs. Baker, who died in 2005, was a prominent scientist, former head of Bell Labs and an adviser to five U.S. presidents.

Kathleen Getz, president of Mercyhurst University, which houses Ridge's archives and named the Ridge College of Intelligence Studies in his honor, said, "The Baker Award is ideally suited to Gov. Ridge, our nation's first Secretary of Homeland Security. ... We congratulate the entire Ridge family on this momentous occasion.”

Ridge, who has a home in Millcreek Township, continues to recover from a stroke on June 16.

An Army veteran, Ridge serves as chairman of the National Organization on Disability, co-chairman of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense and is a board member of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.

Contact Jim Martin at 814-881-5229 or jmartin@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNMartin.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Former Gov. Tom Ridge to be honored for work in national security