OFFICE  OF  SURFACE MINING
For Release November  1,  1990
Dick Leonard  (202)  208-2719

JACKSON  NAMED  DIRECTOR  OF O.S.M.'S  BIRMINGHAM  FIELD  OFFICE

Harry M.  Snyder,  Director of the Office of Surface Mining
Reclamation and Enforcement  (OSM),  has announced  the selection
of veteran government  career employee Jesse Jackson as  director
of OSM's  Birmingham Field  Office.

Jackson fills  the vacancy created by the departure of Bob Penn, 
who is  transferring to Big Stone Gap,  Va.,  as  field  office
director.

Jackson was  in  the  forefront  of  laying  the groundwork  for
OSM.   He was recruited  from the U.S.  Bureau of Mines as a
project leader  to help  organize  OSM in  1977.   Since  1982, 
Jackson has been chief  of the Division of Technical Assistance  in
the Eastern Field  Operations  Center  in Pittsburgh,  Pa-   Before
moving  to Pittsburgh,  Jackson had been a  senior  scientist at
OSM's Washington Headquarters  and assistant Regional Director at
Charleston, W.Va.

Jackson holds a bachelor's  degree in chemistry from Southern
University and  a master's  in public  administration  from the
University of Pittsburgh.

OSM administers  national  standards  requiring environmental
protection during coal mining and  land reclamation afterward,  and
OSM reclaims  abandoned mine lands.   The agency provides  support
and  oversight  for  approved  State  regulatory and reclamation
programs,  and directly  carries out  such activities on Federal
and Indian  lands.   OSM was  established in the Interior
Department under authority of  the Surface Mining Control and
Reclamation Act of  1977.

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