About David B. Swoap

David B. Swoap is the former Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services under President Ronald Reagan, and former Secretary of Health and Welfare for the State of California. He also served as Director of the California Department of Social Welfare under Governor Reagan.

As Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services, he was second-in-command of a department with employees of approximately 155,000 and a budget larger than that of the Department of Defense. His responsibilities included direct oversight of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, AFDC, SSI, and the Food & Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Public Health Service, programs serving refugees and the aging, and many other entitlement and human services programs.

Prior to his tenure with President Reagan, he served as Legislative Director for U.S. Senator William Armstrong (R-Colo.) and as a professional staff member for the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. He also was a senior research associate with the House Republican Study Committee.

Mr. Swoap served as a Member of the Maryland Board of Physicians under Governor Robert Ehrlich. He served as well as Vice Chairman of Sacramento Advocates and as a partner of Franchetti & Swoap, both government affairs consulting firms.

Presently, Mr. Swoap is a Member of the International Board of Advisors of Hope Unlimited, an international charitable relief program serving street children in Latin America, which he and three others founded in 1991. Hope Unlimited now serves approximately 400 children, either in a residential and vocational training setting or as day students, at sites in Campinas, Brazil (near Sao Paulo) and Vitoria, Brazil (near Rio de Janeiro). Hope Unlimited has a six- to seven-year commitment to each child enrolled full-time, and its program encompasses five complete facets of residential care, academic schooling, vocational training, apprenticeship and job placement, and spiritual development.

Mr. Swoap is a former Rotary Foundation Fellow (1961-62) at The University of the Philippines and previously was a member of the Rotary Clubs in San Francisco and Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia. He became a Rotary Paul Harris Fellow in 1992.

He is a member of Phil Beta Kappa and holds a B.A. degree with honors from Denison University and an M.A. degree from Claremont Graduate School (both in government). He is an elder in the Presbyterian Church.

Mr. Swoap has been named as one of the Outstanding Young Men of America and is listed in Who’s Who, Who’s Who in the East, and similar references.

He is a resident of Clearwater, Florida.