Unhappy Hour Speakers
Join us on April 4th for our Unhappy Hour. A collabortative social event with Polk County Women Attorneys group, we'll have Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Celeste Bremer and Courts Architect Emily Donovan speaking about the wage gap between men and women.
Celeste F. Bremer
U. S. Magistrate Judge
U. S. Magistrate Judge Celeste F. Bremer was appointed to the bench in 1985. Prior to this, she was a prosecutor, a partner in a civil litigation firm, and in-house counsel for Deere & Company and Economy Forms Corporation. Her caseload includes civil and criminal matters, along with mediation and court administration.
She has served as liaison with the GSA and Administrative Office for the Courtson a major Repair and Alteration project for the Davenport U. S. Courthouse (AIA Citation awarded 2006), and has been involved with several major renovations of the Des Moines U. S. courthouse. She was appointed by Chief Justice Roberts as a member of the Judicial Conference Space and Facilities Committee, which is responsible for the U. S. Courts Design Guide. She has given presentations on court design at AIA Academy of Architecture for Justice seminars.
She teaches regularly at the Federal Judicial Center, trains mediators nationally and internationally, and has taught graduate classes in Organizational Leadership and law school classes at Drake University. She has her doctorate in Adult Education from Drake University, and her law degree from the University of Iowa College of Law.
Emily Gloe Donovan
Courts Architect, Southern District of Iowa
Emily Gloe Donovan is a graduate from Iowa State University where she received a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1993, studying a semester in Rome. She is currently working as a US Courts Architect acting as a liaison between the Southern District of Iowa Federal Judges, and the GSA and design architects for the new Des Moines Federal Courthouse.
Previously she has worked at several architecture firms including Substance Architecture, RDG Planning and Design, Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck Architecture, often working on historic renovation/preservation projects such as the Randolph Hotel conversion, the Bergman Mansion, Hoyt Sherman Place Theater and the Salisbury House in Des Moines. She also operated her own architecture business for three years while her kids were young, and renovated their entire 1880’s house in Sherman Hill with her husband.