Les Aspin began and ended his career at Marquette University. Throughout his lifetime he remained committed to public service and rigorous intellectual discourse.

Dr. Aspin won election to the U.S. House of Representatives eleven times from Wisconsin's First Congressional District. In his more than two decades of service in the House, Aspin was dedicated to the needs of his constituents and exercised influence on U.S. international security policy. He did both to a degree seldom seen in one congressional career. He served as Secretary of Defense from 1993-94, establishing the central strategy that guided the development of defense policy in succeeding years.

Les Aspin was born in Milwaukee in 1938. He graduated summa cum laude form Yale University, received a master's degree in economics, politics, and philosophy from Oxford University and completed a doctorate in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Aspin was an assistant professor of economics at Marquette from 1969 to 1971 before beginning his political career.

It was Dr. Aspin's return to Marquette in 1994 as a distinguished professor of international policy that pushed the Center for Government off the drawing board and into reality. Upon his death in 1995, Marquette renamed the center in his honor, recognizing Les Aspin's contributions as a public servant, his intellectual acuity, and his commitment to educating leaders in government.