Green Bay, Wis.– Dubbed “America’s most powerful flight attendant,” Sara Nelson will be the first in a new speaker series named in honor of University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Emeritus Professor Harvey J. Kaye.

Nelson–the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO since 2014, representing 50,000 of aviation’s first responders at 17 airlines–made headlines in 2020 in a historic fight to ensure aviation workers retained their paychecks, health care, and other benefits for 16 months during the COVID pandemic while banning stock buybacks and dividends across the industry and capping executive compensation for two years after the relief period ends.

Nelson’s presentation at 7 p.m., Tuesday in Rose Hall 250 launches the first in a series of public lectures by prominent national figures at the university to speak about issues connected to democracy, justice and labor.

The Harvey J. Kaye State of Democracy Speaker Series will host four featured speakers each year that span the subject matter and intellectual spirit of UW-Green Bay’s problem-focused mission.

Commemorating the public engagement and broad intellectual spirit of Kaye’s career, future speakers will engage with some of the most urgent questions facing our democracy, including in the fields of workers’ rights, racial inequality, public health, technology and journalism.