Washington, D.C. -- The Senate today confirmed President Clinton's nominations of three individuals to executive positions at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Leigh A. Bradley was confirmed as General Counsel. Eligah Dane Clark was confirmed for the eight-year term as Chairman of the Board of Veterans' Appeals (BVA) and Edward A. Powell, Jr. was confirmed as Assistant Secretary for Management.
Bradley, an Air Force veteran from the service's Judge Advocate General's Department, recently completed four years as Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Navy. Bradley was a Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama after serving from 1987 to 1993 as Associate Deputy General Counsel at the Department of Defense, where she provided advice on civilian and military personnel policy and administration. Also during the period, she served as legal advisor to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.
The General Counsel is VA's chief legal officer and is responsible for the interpretation of all laws affecting the department and for the review of all regulations implementing such laws.
Clark is a U.S. Marine Corps colonel who since 1994 has served in the Navy Marine Court of Criminal Appeals, where he currently is the Senior Appellate Judge. A Marine enlistee in 1968, Clark was commissioned an officer through the Enlisted Commissioning Program in 1969. Since 1977, he has held a number of positions of increasing responsibility within the Marine Corps legal system, including the Chief Circuit Judge/senior trial judge, with assignments in the District of Columbia, California and Okinawa from 1987 to 1994.
The BVA is administered and supervised by the Chairman. The BVA renders final decisions on all veterans' appeals for entitlement to benefits administered by VA.
Powell is a Navy veteran who served in the Defense Intelligence Agency and has an extensive background in finance, investment banking, strategic marketing and management. Since 1989, Powell has owned and supervised Mechanism Design, Inc. of Richmond, Va., a precision machine parts manufacturing firm. He is a former First Vice President of Investment Banking for Sovran Bank (now NationsBank), a former professor of business ethics and policy at the University of Richmond, and a business planning consultant to various companies.
The Assistant Secretary for Management serves as VA's chief financial officer and senior procurement executive and is the principal advisor to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs on matters related to financial management, budget formulation, resource planning, performance measurement and acquisition and materiel management.
