The Honorable Charles Blanchard was elected to the board of trustees of The Aerospace Corporation on September 10, 2014.
Blanchard is a partner in Arnold and Porter’s Washington, D.C. office, where he is a member of the government contracts and national security practices. Blanchard works with clients in the contracting and national security communities, drawing upon his extensive experience in government and private practice.
Prior to joining the firm, Blanchard served as general counsel and chief ethics officer for the U.S. Air Force. In this role, he provided oversight and guidance for legal advice provided by more than 2,600 Air Force military and civilian lawyers worldwide. Prior to that, he served as general counsel at the U.S. Department of the Army, chief counsel to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and was a two-term member of the Arizona State Senate. In 2003, he served as interim Homeland Security director for former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. Blanchard was also a partner in a private practice, where he focused on complex commercial litigation, antitrust, state constitutional law and election law.
Blanchard graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School, where he served as an articles editor for the Harvard Law Review; he also holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. After graduating from Harvard, Blanchard served as a law clerk for D.C. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, as well as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
The Aerospace Corporation is a California nonprofit corporation that operates a federally funded research and development center and has almost 3,500 employees. It provides technical guidance and advice on all aspects of space missions to military, civil, and commercial customers to assure space mission success. The Aerospace Corporation is headquartered in El Segundo, Calif., with multiple locations across the United States.
