Twenty-Five Years Later, Maxwell Deepens Its Tribute to Alumnus Who Gave His Life on 9/11
By Jessica Youngman with reporting by Paige Schoen
October 30, 2026
University Trustee and Maxwell alumnus Sean O’Keefe has enhanced the scholarship fund his family built in memory of his former student, Brady Kay Howell.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Sean O’Keefe was sitting in a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney at the White House, where he served as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. Shortly after 8:46 a.m., an aide stepped in and told Cheney he might want to turn up the volume on the television, which was broadcasting the news. A plane had just struck the World Trade Center.
A few miles away, in an office at the Pentagon, O’Keefe’s former Maxwell School student Brady Kay Howell was at his desk. He was 26, a year into the job he’d dreamed about even before his arrival at Syracuse.
Howell was killed when American Airlines Flight 77 hit the building less than an hour later. It was the third of four hijacked airliners on suicide strikes that day. Howell was one of 2,977 who died, including 30 Syracuse University alumni.
Twenty-five years later, O’Keefe has pledged more resources to the endowed scholarship his family built in Howell’s name.
O’Keefe, a 1978 alumnus of Maxwell’s master of public administration (M.P.A.) program and subsequent four-time presidential appointee, established the Brady Kay Howell Endowed Graduate Scholarship in 2011 with a generous gift of $150,000.
His latest contribution of $200,000 will be matched with $100,000 from The Syracuse Promise scholarship initiative, and O’Keefe hopes to raise additional funding through gifts from Maxwell friends and community members. His goal is for the fund to eventually provide full tuition funding for selected Brady Kay Howell scholars.
“Sean O’Keefe and his family have given so much to the Maxwell School through the years, including the unparalleled expertise and candor he has brought to classrooms, mentorship and career networking for students and alumni, and philanthropic support,” said Dean David M. Van Slyke. “We’re deeply grateful for all of it. This latest pledge to enhance the Brady Kay Howell Endowed Scholarship is especially meaningful on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 in supporting students who share in Brady’s commitment to serve the public.”
That commitment started early for Howell, who grew up in Sugar City, Idaho. He was class president, an Eagle Scout and a devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He received a bachelor’s degree, married his wife, Elizabeth “Liz” Anderson, and came to Maxwell for an M.P.A.
It’s a great way to honor his legacy, and a reminder to every graduate—no matter what dimension of public service they pursue—of why it matters: that public service means doing something greater than yourself and being prepared to accept a measure of sacrifice. In Brady’s case, it was the most extreme sacrifice, but every public servant sets aside some of their own ambitions for the good of others.”
Sean O’Keefe ’78 M.P.A.
University Trustee
Howell soaked up lessons offered by O’Keefe and other Maxwell faculty members while working as a graduate assistant for the school’s National Security Studies (NSS) program, which O’Keefe founded and directed. At the time, the NSS program brought as many as 150 senior military officers, civilian officials, congressional staff and industry executives through Maxwell annually. Howell took advantage of his role’s opportunities; his enthusiasm and work ethic made a lasting impression on O’Keefe.
“He made all kinds of time to do anything and everything necessary to make these programs come together,” said O’Keefe, now a Syracuse University Trustee and University Professor Emeritus of Public Administration and International Affairs. “He was an exemplary student. He put in a lot of effort, a lot of time—he made it an extraordinary experience.”
Howell quickly realized the networking opportunities offered through the NSS and followed in O’Keefe’s footsteps when he was selected for the Presidential Management Internship (PMI) program. After earning an M.P.A. in 2000 he landed a job with the Chief of Naval Operations, working on Navy personnel policy and ship-maintenance funding. In June 2001, he became the first PMI assigned to the director of naval intelligence staff. He was training to brief the Navy’s most senior leaders, had just received a coveted Top-Secret clearance and had passed the Foreign Service exam.
“He desperately wanted to join the career public service and seized the opportunity to join the naval intelligence community—this was a dream job to him,” said O’Keefe.
From his prior posts at the Pentagon, O’Keefe was familiar with the building layout and knew on 9/11 that the plane had struck where Howell would have been working. He hoped Howell wasn’t in his office that morning but learned otherwise a few days later.
Howell was posthumously awarded the Navy’s Superior Civilian Service Medal and the Defense of Freedom Medal, the civilian equivalent of the Purple Heart. He is also listed on the Pentagon’s 9/11 memorial.
The Brady Kay Howell Endowed Graduate Scholarship was originally structured to fund a single graduate assistantship tied to the NSS program. Howell’s family and classmates gave to it as word got around, and O’Keefe has added to it steadily ever since, working toward generating resources for what he calls “a full-fledged graduate assistantship/scholarship” for a graduate student each year at Maxwell.
As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approached, O’Keefe decided to speed that up by making a new personal pledge, enhanced by The Syracuse Promise match, and aimed at building the endowment to the point where it can help the Public Administration and International Affairs Department “recruit students focused on national security before they ever arrive at Maxwell.”
Since it was launched, 17 students have held the assistantship. They include a national security adviser for a U.S senator on Capitol Hill, military judge advocates general, a Treasury Department policy adviser and a cybersecurity specialist at the Department of Homeland Security, among others.
Especially touching to O’Keefe is that every prior Brady Kay Howell scholar has taken the time to learn about Howell.
The Maxwell connection runs through Howell’s family. His brother, Carson, received an M.P.A. at Maxwell in 2005, and his brother-in-law, Brad Mortensen, received an M.P.A. at Maxwell in 1997. Mortensen is now president of Utah State University, having previously led Weber State University. He and his wife Camille came to Syracuse in May 2026 and attended the Public Administration and International Affairs Department’s spring celebration to receive the Brady Kay Howell Distinguished Alumni Award, created in Howell’s memory. Their son, Cameron Mortensen, earned an M.P.A. in 2022.
O’Keefe wants this gift to protect Howell’s memory and what he stood for.
“It’s a great way to honor his legacy, and a reminder to every graduate—no matter what dimension of public service they pursue—of why it matters: that public service means doing something greater than yourself and being prepared to accept a measure of sacrifice,” said O’Keefe. “In Brady’s case, it was the most extreme sacrifice, but every public servant sets aside some of their own ambitions for the good of others. That was never a foreign concept to Brady—that’s exactly how he lived, and it’s how communities get stronger when many citizens commit themselves to the public good.
Support the Fund
To make a contribution to the Brady K. Howell Endowed Graduate Scholarship, visit the Syracuse University giving page.
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