Scott Brown

Scott Philip Brown (born September 12, 1959) is an American diplomat, attorney, and politician who served as the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.

Brown is part of a 9th generation New Hampshire family and was born on September 12, 1959 at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard located on Seavey's Island in Kittery, Maine.

Brown's father, Claude Bruce Brown, and mother, Judith Ann "Judi" (née Rugg), divorced when he was about a year old.

When he was a young child, his mother moved with him to Wakefield, Massachusetts.

He often spent his summers in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where his father served as a city councilor for 18 years.

He also spent summers in Portsmouth, New Hampshire during his youth.

His father and his grandfather were Republicans.

His father has said that young Scott became interested in running for political office in the mid-1960s while accompanying him on a campaign for state office.

Brown had a difficult childhood; after her divorce, his working mother received welfare benefits.

While initially trailing Coakley by a large margin, Brown saw a sudden late surge and posted a come-from-behind win to become the first Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts since Edward Brooke in 1972.

He graduated from Wakefield High School in 1977.

Brown has said the rescue efforts of Army National Guard during the Northeastern United States blizzard of 1978 impressed him.

When he was 19, he joined the Massachusetts Army National Guard, received his basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and attended Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) classes at the campus of Northeastern University.

He received a Bachelor of Arts in History, cum laude from Tufts University in 1981 and a Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School in 1985.

During his undergraduate career at Tufts, Brown was a member of the Kappa chapter of Zeta Psi International Fraternity.

He was trained in infantry, quartermaster, and airborne duties, and in 1994 he joined the Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG).

He was active in the Guard for 35 years rising to the rank of colonel.

As the Army National Guard's head defense attorney in New England, Brown defended Guard members who had disciplinary difficulties such as positive drug tests, and provided estate planning and real estate advice to those who were about to deploy to war zones.

He spent ten days to two weeks with the Guard in Kazakhstan and a week in Paraguay.

Before his Senate tenure, Brown served as a member of the Massachusetts General Court, first in the State House of Representatives (1998–2004) and then in the State Senate (2004–2010).

He was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service in preparing for troops mobilization for Operation Noble Eagle (the mobilization of National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve personnel to provide security on military installations, airports, and other potential homeland targets) shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and later for mobilization support for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom of the Iraq War.

He credits his military experience with causing him to focus on veteran's issues as well as issues of war and peace.

He has served on the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the Hidden Wounds of War Commission, and the Governor's Task Force on Returning Veterans during his career as a legislator.

He is a former United States Senator for Massachusetts (2010–2013), and also was the 2014 Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire.

In 2010, Brown faced Democratic candidate Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in a special election which occurred after the 2009 death of longtime Senator Ted Kennedy.

Brown experienced sexual abuse from a camp counselor who threatened to kill the 10-year-old boy if he told anyone – which he did not disclose, even to his family, until his autobiography Against All Odds (2011) – and physical abuse from his stepfathers.

During various periods of his childhood, Brown lived with his grandparents and his aunt.

He shoplifted many times, and was arrested for stealing record albums and brought before Judge Samuel Zoll in Salem, Massachusetts at the age of 13 or 14.

Zoll asked Brown if his siblings would like seeing him play basketball in jail and required Brown to write a 1,500-word essay on that question as his punishment.

Brown later said, "that was the last time I ever stole."

On May 2, 2011, Brown announced that he would soon go to Afghanistan for training as part of his Army National Guard service.

Brown ran for a full Senate term in 2012, but lost to Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren.

After his defeat, Brown joined the board of directors of Kadant paper company, joined Fox News as a commentator, and joined Nixon Peabody where he provided legal services.

After re-establishing residence in New Hampshire, Brown then campaigned for the U.S. Senate from New Hampshire in the 2014 elections.

Brown won the Republican nomination by a significant margin, but was defeated by incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in the general election.

In 2017, he was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate as U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.

From January to August 2021, Brown served as dean of New England Law Boston, a private law school.

In April 2022, Brown became head of The Competitiveness Coalition, a newly formed conservative coalition group.

Brown is of English ancestry, from a family that has been in New Hampshire since the colonial era.

His earliest American ancestor was 17th century immigrant Francis Matthews, who sailed from Devonshire, England.