赵小兰简介英语赵小简介英语.doc

Elaine Lan Chao (Chinese: 趙小蘭;[1] born March 26, 1953) served as the 24th United States Secretary of Labor in the Cabinet of President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. She was the first Asian Pacific American woman and first Chinese American to be appointed to a Presidents cabinet in American history.[2] Chao was the only cabinet member to serve under George W. Bush for his entire administration.[3] She is married to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the current U.S. Senate Minority Leader.[4] Childhood and education The eldest of six daughters, Chao was born to Ruth Mulan Chu Chao (趙朱木蘭 Zhào Zhū Mùlán), a historian, and Dr. James S.C. Chao (趙錫成博士 Zhào Xīchéng), who began his career as a merchant mariner and later, after getting established in New York, built a successful shipping company (Foremost Shipping Co.).[5] Elaine Chao’s parents had fled to Taiwan from mainland China after the Chinese Communists took over after the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Chao attended Taipei’s Tsai Hsing Elementary School in kindergarten and first grade. Chao, her mother and two younger sisters came to the U.S. aboard a freight ship in 1961, when she was eight years old. Her father had arrived in New York three years earlier after receiving a scholarship. It took three years for her father to save enough money to pay for his family’s passage from Taiwan and for visas to be obtained for them.[6] Elaine went to Syosset High School. Elaine Chao received her B.A. in Economics from Mount Holyoke College in 1975 and her MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1979. Chao also studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dartmouth College, and Columbia University. In addition, Chao has received 34 honorary doctorate degrees from the following schools: Villanova University, St. Johns University, Sacred Heart University, Drexel University, Niagara University, Thomas More College (Kentucky), Bellarmine University, University of Toledo, University of Louisville, Goucher College, Ken