Michael A Stephens

Michael Stephens joined Cornerstone as a Senior Consultant in 2010. At Cornerstone, Michael Stephens provides strategic advice in the areas of health, education, and natural and cultural resources policy. His technical expertise in the legislative process, including drafting of bill and report language, is available to our clients. Michael currently serves as the Director of Policy for the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH). In this role he is responsible for efforts to enhance the partnership of the accredited schools of public health with the federal government. He coordinates Association policy activities including supervision of the ASPH advocacy program, and liaison with other organizational partners who share ASPH’s public health education, practice and research goals. Prior to joining ASPH, Mr. Stephens served as senior staff to the Appropriations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives for over thirty years. This included service as Clerk and Staff Director of four of the Committee’s twelve subcommittees. He served eight years from 1987 to 1995 as the Clerk of the Labor, HHS and Education Subcommittee where he had budget oversight responsibility for the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Education. More recently he served from 2000 through 2009 as Minority and Majority Clerk of the Interior Subcommittee with oversight responsibility for the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities. Mr. Stephens has a B.A. from Duke University and completed his Masters of Public Health degree at the University of North Carolina. In addition to his legislative career, he served on active duty in the United States Marine Corps from 1968 to 1971 and in the Marine Corps Reserves until 1993 when he separated as a Lieutenant Colonel. He is married to Sharman Stephens and has three children, David, Julie and Sarah.