As a 10-year member of Congress, Lynn (Morley) Martin (born 1939) sat on the powerful House Rules, Armed Services and Budget committees. She was also vice chair of the House Republican Conference--the first woman ever elected to a congressional leadership post. As secretary of Labor in the Bush Administration, Martin was outspoken on workplace reform--a subject about which she continues to lecture and write extensively while serving on the boards of several large corporations.

Lynn Martin was born Lynn Morley in Evanston, Illinois, on Dec. 26, 1939, the second of two daughters of Lawrence William Morley, an accountant, and Helen Catherine (Hall) Morley. She grew up on Chicago's North Side and graduated in 1957 with honors from William Howard Taft High School in Chicago.

An English major, Morley graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1960 from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana with a teaching certificate. During college she switched from the Democratic to...