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General Mick Zais

Senior Fellow, Center for Education Opportunity

Do right and bear the consequences.

- Sam Houston

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General Mick Zais is from Columbia, South Carolina, and serves as a Senior Fellow in the Center for Education Opportunity at AFPI. Zais most recently served as President Donald J. Trump’s Deputy Secretary of Education and, for a short period, as Acting Secretary. Before that, he ran for and was elected South Carolina’s 17th State Superintendent of Education, the second Republican to hold that office. Zais also served for 10 years as president of Newberry College, a private institution founded before the Civil War. During 31 years as an Army infantryman, paratrooper, and ranger, he served in Vietnam, Korea, Panama, and Kuwait. He was a social aide in the Nixon White House; at West Point, he taught organizational behavior, leadership, and management consulting; and in the Pentagon, he was Chief of War Plans. An ardent philatelist, Zais has been married for 42 years to Susan. They have two adult children. His son is a cyber security professional and sergeant in the South Carolina National Guard. His daughter, the former Miss South Carolina USA, is a full-time mom. Zais and Susan have six grandchildren between the ages of three and 10.

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