DOUGLAS F. SMALL
Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Employment and Training
U.S. Department of Labor
In May 2006, Mr. Douglas F. Small was appointed by the Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training to be the career Deputy Assistant Secretary of Administration and National Activity for the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA). As one of two Deputies, Mr. Small oversees the following program areas: Performance Results and Technology; Policy, Development and Research; Financial and Administrative Management; Foreign Labor Certification; and Apprenticeship programs.
In addition to overseeing these programs, Mr. Small provides quality leadership, guidance, and has helped to transform the workforce investment system to meet the needs of the 21st century global economy. He promotes an open communicative environment that inspires and encourages service motivation, spirit, pride, and trust. During his brief tenure in this position, he has brought a wealth of knowledge and experience that has helped to shape ETA’s diversity initiatives that support the accomplishment of the Agency’s mission, vision, and guiding principles.
ETA’s mission is to contribute to the more efficient functioning of the U.S. labor market by providing high-quality job training, employment, labor market information, and income maintenance services primarily through state and local workforce development systems. ETA’s vision is to promote pathways to economic liberty for individuals and families working to achieve the American Dream. On behalf of American taxpayers, the ETA administers effective programs that have, at their core, the goals of enhanced employment opportunities and business prosperity. He has helped to introduce a number of initiatives to engage business, education and the workforce system in developing the talent of America’s workers.
Through the High Growth Job Training Initiative, Community-Based Job Training Grants, and most recently, the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development initiative, Mr. Small and ETA officials are working to improve the public workforce system and transform the way local and regional economies approach workforce and economic development. He has significantly helped to integrate and leverage resources from the workforce system, education, and industry in order to prepare our workforce to be competitive in the 21st century.
Prior to re-entering Federal service in 1999, Mr. Small had several years experience as a school teacher in Boise, Idaho and Tokyo, Japan; worked and traveled to 17 Foreign National countries with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of International Training, where he helped to develop a program on Cost Analysis for Training Officers and Foreign Service Nationals; and later he became a business owner for his own consulting firm, which provided organizational development, HR consultation and management, and training courses to private and Federal organizations. In 1999, Mr. Small was selected to manage the Division of National Program Development for the National Office of Job Corps.
Before becoming the Deputy, he served as the Administrator of ETA’s Office of National Response, where he led the Department’s response to major economic dislocations due to mass layoffs, plant closures, and disasters. He later was assigned by the Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training to be ETA’s Northeast Regional Administrator in Boston through October 2005. Prior to his return to the National Office, he completed the Department of Labor’s Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program and received his appointment to the Senior Executive Services (October 2004).
Mr. Small is a graduate of the University of Idaho; he also completed coursework at the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia (October 2001) and received a Senior Executive Fellowship at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (July 2003).
