For 18 years, Alan K. Simpson represented the State of Wyoming in the United States Senate. As Assistant Majority Leader for ten of those years, he was an influential member of the body's Republican leadership. Partisanship aside, he was noted throughout his service for independent thinking, personal integrity and for a dry sense of humor that evaporated pretension on both sides of the aisle. Simpson grew up in Cody, Wyoming, where members of his family have practiced law for over a century. He was admitted to the Wyoming bar in 1958, as briefly served as Assistant Attorney General of the state. For many years, he practiced law in Cody, and served as City Attorney. In 1964, he began a 13-year career in the Wyoming House of Representatives. He was first elected to the United States Senate in 1978. In his three terms in Washington, he favored a conservative approach to fiscal matters and a moderate view of social issues. One of his proudest achievements in the Senate was the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act -- the Simpson-Mazzoli bill -- which combined improved border security with a program for legally hiring temporary guest workers and a means for undocumented workers and their families to pursue legal residence and citizenship. After leaving the Senate in 1997, Senator Simpson became Director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He continues to practice law, alongside his two sons, with the family firm in Cody. In 2010, he was appointed by President Obama to lead a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Along with his co-chair, former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, he produced a report that was widely praised for its realistic approach to restructuring the finances of the United States. In this podcast, recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 1998 Summit in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, shortly after he left Washington, Senator Simpson discusses his family background and his career in public service. He asserts his own belief in a higher authority and urges the Academy's student delegates to be forgiving of themselves and others, and to keep their sense of humor in the face of life's adversities.