 
Ex officio Members' Biographical Summaries
The President’s Committee
for People with Intellectual Disabilities (PCPID)
The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General
Eric H. Holder Jr. was sworn in as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States on February 3, 2009 by Vice-President Joe Biden. President Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate Mr. Holder on December 1, 2008.
In 1997, Mr. Holder was named by President Clinton to be the Deputy Attorney General, the first African-American named to that post. Prior to that he served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. In 1988, Mr. Holder was nominated by President Reagan to become an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
Mr. Holder, a native of New York City, attended public schools there, graduating from Stuyvesant High School where he earned a Regents Scholarship. He attended Columbia College, majored in American History, and graduated in 1973. He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1976.
While in law school, he clerked at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund and the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division. Upon graduating, he moved to Washington and joined the Department of Justice (DOJ) as part of the Attorney General’s Honors Program. He was assigned to the newly formed Public Integrity Section in 1976 and was tasked to investigate and prosecute official corruption on the local, state and federal levels.
Prior to becoming Attorney General, Mr. Holder was a litigation partner at Covington & Burling Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) in Washington.
Mr. Holder lives in Washington with his wife, Dr. Sharon Malone, a physician, and their three children.
The Honorable Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior
Ken Salazar, a fifth generation Coloradan, was confirmed as the 50th Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior on January 20, 2009 in a unanimous vote by the U.S. Senate. Prior to his confirmation, Salazar served as Colorado's 35th United States Senator, winning election in November 2004 and serving on the Finance Committee, which oversees the nation's tax, trade, social security, and health care systems. He also served on the Agriculture, Energy and Natural Resources, Ethics, Veterans Affairs, and Aging Committees.
As a U.S. Senator, Salazar was a leader creating and implementing a vision for a renewable energy economy that is less dependent on foreign oil. He was involved in every major bipartisan legislative effort on energy since 2005, including helping craft the Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007. Salazar also tackled the challenge of providing affordable health care by fighting to broaden the Children’s Health Insurance Program and by working to improve health care for older Americans.
Salazar has been a champion for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities, leading efforts to pass the 2007 Farm Bill and to create food and fuel security for America. He worked to help veterans in rural communities get better access to health care by creating the Office of Rural Health in the Department of Veterans Affairs and by pressing that agency to open new rural outreach clinics in Colorado. He also exercised a leadership role in championing a new defense and foreign policy that restores American security and influence around the world and pressed for a change in mission in Iraq to better advance America's national security interests. Salazar worked to strengthen our military to ensure that we are able to confront emerging threats.
From 1999 to 2004, Salazar served as Colorado's thirty-sixth Attorney General, winning statewide elections in 1998 and 2002. He chaired the Conference of Western Attorneys General and received the Profiles in Courage award from his fellow state attorneys general for his dedication to preserving and promoting the rule of law. As Colorado’s Attorney General, Salazar led efforts to make communities safer, fight crime, strengthen the state's sex offender laws, address youth and family violence, enhance and enforce Colorado's consumer protection laws, combat fraud against the elderly, and protect Colorado's environment. He established the first Colorado Attorney General Fugitive Prosecutions Unit to apprehend and prosecute fugitive murderers, the first-ever Attorney General Gang Prosecution Unit, and an Environmental Crimes Unit.
From 1987 to 1994 Salazar served in the Cabinet of Governor Roy Romer as Chief Legal Counsel and Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, where he crafted reforms for oil, mining, and gas operations to better protect the environment and the public. He fought to uphold Colorado's interstate water compacts, created the Youth in Natural Resources program to educate thousands of young people about Colorado's natural resources, and authored the Colorado constitutional amendment creating Great Outdoors Colorado. He served as the first chairman of that movement, helping make it one of the most successful land conservation efforts in the United States.
Secretary Salazar's family settled in the American West before the United States was a country. After settling in New Mexico four centuries ago, his family planted roots in Colorado's San Luis Valley, where they have farmed and ranched the same land for five generations. Raised on a remote ranch without electricity or telephone, Salazar learned the values of hard work, family, and faith. A farmer for more than thirty years, Salazar was a partner with his family in El Rancho Salazar. He and his wife have owned and operated small businesses, including a Dairy Queen and radio stations in Pueblo and Denver. Thanks to his parents’ lessons, he and his seven brothers and sisters all became first generation college graduates.
Salazar worked for eleven years as a water and environmental lawyer with some of the top firms in the West. During his time in the private sector and as Colorado’s Attorney General, Salazar worked on cases from the trial courts to the Colorado and United States Supreme Courts. He received a political science degree from Colorado College in 1977, and graduated with a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1981. He also received honorary doctorates of law from Colorado College in 1993 and the University of Denver in 1999. Salazar and his wife, Hope, have two daughters, Melinda and Andrea, and one granddaughter, Mireya.
The Honorable Gary Locke, Secretary of Commerce
Gary Locke is a tireless and successful champion of American products, services and jobs. As the popular two-term governor of the nation’s most trade-dependent state, Locke broke down trade barriers around the world to advance American products. Locke has worked closely with business, labor and government at all levels to successfully negotiate complex issues.
Since 2005, Locke has been a successful business advocate and adviser, helping U.S. companies break into international markets, particularly in Asia, and expand their international business. A partner in the Seattle office of the international law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine Limited Liability Partnership (LLP), Locke co-chairs the firm’s China practice and is active in its governmental relations practice.
Locke was elected Washington’s 21st governor in 1996, making him the first Chinese American governor in U.S. history and the first Asian American governor on the mainland. In 2000, Locke was overwhelmingly re-elected to a second term. He served as chair of the Democratic Governors Association and gave the Democratic response to the State of the Union address in 2003.
To open doors for Washington State businesses, Locke led 10 productive trade missions to Asia, Mexico and Europe, significantly expanding the sales of Washington products and services. He successfully fostered economic relations between China and Washington State. His visits are credited with introducing Washington companies to China and helping more than double the state’s exports to China to over $5 billion per year. He also opened a Washington State trade office in Germany to advance trade relations with European countries.
Locke is widely praised in Washington State for winning a nationwide competition to win production of Boeing’s newest jetliner, the 787, which created thousands of jobs in the state. Locke successfully aligned leaders from state, county and local government, businesses and unions, communities and tribes in this comprehensive, successful effort.
As part of his considerable trade and economic development efforts, Locke launched Washington’s Competitiveness Council with business and labor leaders working together to effectively position Washington State for success at home and around the world. During the eight years of the Locke Administration, the state gained 280,000 jobs.
Locke personally negotiated and signed a Washington State-Canada salmon treaty after negotiations between the U.S. State Department and Canada reached an impasse on protecting wild salmon runs. He also conceived and launched the West Coast Governors’ Initiative on Climate Change and successfully launched public and private initiatives to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and increase energy conservation.
Locke earned a Bachelor’s degree in political science from Yale University, and a law degree from Boston University.
The Honorable Hilda L. Solis, Secretary of Labor
Hilda Solis was confirmed as Secretary of Labor on February 24, 2009. Prior to confirmation as Secretary of Labor, Secretary Solis represented the 32nd Congressional District, a position she held from 2001 – 2009.
In the Congress, Solis’ priorities included expanding access to affordable health care, protecting the environment, and improving the lives of working families. A recognized leader on clean energy jobs, she authored the Green Jobs Act which provided funding for “green” collar job training for veterans, displaced workers, at risk youth, and individuals in families under 200 percent of the federal poverty line.
In 2007, Solis was appointed to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission), as well as the Mexico — United States Interparliamentary Group. In June 2007, Solis was elected Vice Chair of the Helsinki Commission's General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions. She was the only U.S. elected official to serve on this Committee.
A nationally recognized leader on the environment, Solis became the first woman to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2000 for her pioneering work on environmental justice issues. Her California environmental justice legislation, enacted in 1999, was the first of its kind in the nation to become law.
Solis was first elected to public office in 1985 as a member of the Rio Hondo Community College Board of Trustees. She served in the California State Assembly from 1992 to 1994, and in 1994 made history by becoming the first Latina elected to the California State Senate. As the chairwoman of the California Senate Industrial Relations Committee, she led the battle to increase the state's minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.75 an hour in 1996. She also authored a record seventeen state laws aimed at combating domestic violence.
Solis graduated from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and earned a Master of Public Administration from the University of Southern California. A former federal employee, she worked in the Carter White House Office of Hispanic Affairs and was later appointed as a management analyst with the Office of Management and Budget in the Civil Rights Division.
The Honorable Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services
Biography: To be Posted!
The Honorable Shaun L.S. Donovan, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
On January 26, 2009, Shaun Donovan was sworn in as the 15th United States Secretary for Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He has devoted his career to ensuring access to safe, decent, and affordable housing nationwide, and will carry on that effort in the Obama Administration. Secretary Donovan believes that America's homes are the foundation for family, safe neighborhoods, good schools, and solid businesses, and that housing represents and confers stability - a base from which to raise America's children. He joins HUD with the commitment to make quality housing possible for every American.
Secretary Donovan previously served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). When he became Commissioner of HPD in early 2004, Shaun Donovan engaged the agency in a top-to-bottom strategic planning process. This resulted in new and innovative policy and programmatic solutions, and better measurement of results. During his service, HPD's New Housing Marketplace Plan to build and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing was the largest housing plan in the nation.
Before his service as HPD Commissioner, Secretary Donovan worked in the private sector on affordable housing portfolios, and was a visiting scholar at New York University, where he researched and wrote about the preservation of federally-assisted housing. He was also a consultant to the Millennial Housing Commission on strategies for increasing the production of multifamily housing. The Commission was created by the United States Congress to recommend ways to expand housing opportunities across the nation.
Secretary Donovan rejoins HUD after his previous service as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing, where he was the primary federal official responsible for privately-owned multifamily housing. At that time, he ran housing programs that helped 1.7 million families access affordable housing. He also served as acting FHA Commissioner during the presidential transition.
Prior to his first service at HUD, Shawn Donovan worked at the Community Preservation Corporation (CPC) in New York City, a non-profit lender and developer of affordable housing. He also researched and wrote about housing policy at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University and worked as an architect. Secretary Donovan holds Masters degrees in Public Administration and Architecture from Harvard University.
The Honorable Raymond L. LaHood, Secretary of Transportation
Raymond L. LaHood became the 16th Secretary of Transportation on January 23, 2009.
In nominating him, President-elect Obama said, “Few understand our infrastructure challenge better than the outstanding public servant that I’m asking to lead the Department of Transportation.”
Secretary LaHood’s primary goals in implementing President Obama’s priorities for transportation include safety across all modes, restoring economic health and creating jobs, sustainability – shaping the economy of the coming decades by building new transportation infrastructure, and assuring that transportation policies focus on people who use the transportation system and their communities.
As Secretary of Transportation, LaHood leads an agency with more than 55,000 employees and a $70 billion budget that oversees air, maritime and surface transportation missions.
Secretary LaHood said he would bring President-elect Obama’s priorities to the Department and see them effectively implemented with a commitment to fairness across regional and party lines and between people who come to the issues with different perspectives.
Before becoming Secretary of Transportation, LaHood served for 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives from the 18th District of Illinois (from 1995-2009). During that time he served on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and, after that, on the House Appropriations Committee. Prior to his election to the House, he served as Chief of Staff to U.S. Congressman Robert Michel, whom he succeeded in representing the 18th District, and as District Administrative Assistant to Congressman Thomas Railsback. He also served in the Illinois State Legislature.
Before his career in government, Secretary LaHood was a high school teacher, having received his degree from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. He was also director of the Rock Island County Youth Services Bureau and Chief planner for the Bi-States Metropolitan Planning Commission in Illinois.
LaHood and his wife, Kathy, have four children and seven grandchildren.
The Honorable Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan was nominated to be Secretary of Education by President-elect Barack Obama and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009.
In his confirmation hearings, Duncan called education "the most pressing issue facing America," adding that "preparing young people for success in life is not just a moral obligation of society" but also an "economic imperative." "Education is also the civil rights issue of our generation," he said, "the only sure path out of poverty and the only way to achieve a more equal and just society." Duncan expressed his commitment to work under the leadership of President Obama and with all those involved in education "to enhance education in America, to lift our children and families out of poverty, to help our students learn to contribute to the civility of our great American democracy, and to strengthen our economy by producing a workforce that can make us as competitive as possible."
Prior to his appointment as Secretary of Education, Duncan served as the chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools, a position to which he was appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, from June 2001 through December 2008, becoming the longest-serving big-city education superintendent in the country.
As Chief Executive Office (CEO), Duncan’s mandate was to raise education standards and performance, improve teacher and principal quality, and increase learning options. In seven and a half years, he united education reformers, teachers, principals and business stakeholders behind an aggressive education reform agenda that included opening over 100 new schools, expanding after-school and summer learning programs, closing down underperforming schools, increasing early childhood and college access, dramatically boosting the caliber of teachers, and building public-private partnerships around a variety of education initiatives.
Among his most significant accomplishments during his tenure as CEO, an all-time high of 66.7 percent of the district's elementary school students met or exceeded state reading standards, and their math scores also reached a record high, with 70.6 percent meeting or exceeding the state’s standards. At high schools, Chicago Public School (CPS) students posted gains on the ACT at three times the rate of national gains and nearly twice that of the state’s. Also, the number of CPS high school students taking Advanced Placement (AP) courses tripled and the number of students passing AP classes more than doubled. Duncan has increased graduation rates and boosted the total number of college scholarships secured by CPS students to $157 million.
Prior to joining the Chicago Public Schools, Duncan ran the non-profit education foundation Ariel Education Initiative (1992-1998), which helped fund a college education for a class of inner-city children under the I Have A Dream program. He was part of a team that later started a new public elementary school built around a financial literacy curriculum, the Ariel Community Academy, which today ranks among the top elementary schools in Chicago.
Arne Duncan formerly served on the boards of the Ariel Education Initiative, Chicago Cares, the Children’s Center, the Golden Apple Foundation, the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, Jobs for America's Graduates, Junior Achievement, the Dean's Advisory Board of the Kellogg School of Management, the National Association of Basketball Coaches' Foundation, Renaissance Schools Fund, Scholarship Chicago and the South Side YMCA. He also served on the Board of Overseers for Harvard College and the Visiting Committees for Harvard University's Graduate School of Education and the University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration.
In 2008, he was honored by the Civic Federation of Chicago and the Anti-Defamation League. In 2007, he received the Niagara Foundation's Education Award, the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship Enterprising Educator Award and the University High School Distinguished Alumni Award. He also received honorary degrees from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Lake Forest College and National-Lewis University. In 2006, the City Club of Chicago named him Citizen of the Year. He was a member of the Aspen Institute’s Henry Crown Fellowship Program, class of 2002, and a fellow in the Leadership Greater Chicago’s class of 1995. From 1987 to 1991, Duncan played professional basketball in Australia, where he also worked with children who were wards of the state.
Duncan graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1987, majoring in sociology. He was co-captain of Harvard's basketball team and was named a first team Academic All-American. He credits basketball with his team-oriented and highly disciplined work ethic.
His late father was a professor at the University of Chicago and his mother has run a South Side tutoring program for inner-city children since 1961. As a student in Chicago, Duncan spent afternoons in his mother's tutoring program and also worked there during a year off from college. He credits this experience with shaping his understanding of the challenges of urban education. Duncan is married to Karen Duncan and has two children, daughter Clare, 7, and son Ryan, 4.
The Honorable Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security
Janet Napolitano was sworn in on January 21, 2009 as the third Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Napolitano was mid-way through her second term as governor of the state of Arizona. While governor, Napolitano became the first woman to chair the National Governors Association, where she was instrumental in creating the Public Safety Task Force and the Homeland Security Advisors Council. She also chaired the Western Governors Association. Napolitano previously served as the Attorney General of Arizona and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona.
Napolitano's homeland security background is extensive. As U.S. Attorney, she helped lead the domestic terrorism investigation into the Oklahoma City Bombing. As Arizona Attorney General, she helped write the law to break up human smuggling rings. As governor, she implemented one of the first state homeland security strategies in the nation, opened the first state counter-terrorism center and spearheaded efforts to transform immigration enforcement. She's also been a pioneer in coordinating federal, state, local and bi-national homeland security efforts, and presided over large scale disaster relief efforts and readiness exercises to ensure well-crafted and functional emergency plans.
Janet Napolitano graduated from Santa Clara University in 1979, where she won a Truman Scholarship, and received her Juris Doctorate (J.D.) in 1983 from the University Of Virginia School Of Law. After law school she served as a law clerk for Judge Mary M. Schroeder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit before joining the law firm of Lewis and Roca.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Services
(Vacant)
The Honorable Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner, Social Security Administration
Michael J. Astrue was sworn in as Commissioner of Social Security on February 12, 2007. He will serve a six-year term that expires on January 19, 2013.
As head of the Social Security Administration, Astrue has responsibility for administering the Social Security programs (retirement, survivors and disability), as well as the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.
The Social Security Administration is an independent federal agency headquartered in suburban Baltimore with a national workforce of about 62,000 employees and 1,500 facilities nationwide.
Astrue was nominated by former President, George W. Bush, on September 14, 2006, and confirmed by the United States Senate on February 2, 2007.
Social Security provides financial protection to more than 160 million workers and their families, and pays approximately $580 billion annually in benefits to more than 49 million Americans who receive monthly Social Security retirement, disability or survivors benefits. The SSI program pays monthly benefits to more than 7 million Americans who have little or no resources and who are aged, blind or disabled.
Commissioner Astrue has a distinguished history of public service. He is a former employee of the Social Security Administration, having served as Counselor to the Commissioner. He served as General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Legislation. Astrue also served briefly as Associate Counsel to the President of the United States during parts of both the Reagan and Bush administrations. Before becoming Commissioner, he also served as a senior executive of several biotechnology companies.
Born in Fort Dix, New Jersey, and a resident of Belmont, Massachusetts, Commissioner Astrue received his Bachelor’s degree from Yale University and his Juris Doctorate (J.D.) from Harvard University. He and his wife Laura have two children.
The Honorable Naomi C. Earp, Esq., Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Between April 2003 and September 1, 2006, Naomi C. Earp served as Vice Chair of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). During that time, she created and launched the EEOC’s Youth@Work Initiative, a national education and outreach campaign to promote equal employment opportunity for America's newest generation of workers. To date, the EEOC has held more than 1,600 Youth@Work events nationwide, reaching more than 112,000 students, education professionals, and employers.
Chair Earp brought to the EEOC hands-on leadership and management experience, a strong track record of promoting diversity, and expertise in the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) field. Her work experience in promoting diversity in EEO includes a series of progressively responsible leadership positions with various federal agencies, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Institutes of Health, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She also served as an Attorney Advisor at the EEOC during the mid-1980s.
The Honorable John R. Vaughn, Chair, National Council on Disability
Mr. Vaughn is a retired executive in the financial services industry. He is also a former commissioner of the Virginia Department of Rehabilitative Services and Commissioner of the Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired. Mr. Vaughn was appointed to the Florida Rehabilitation Advisory Council for Blind Services and he was also appointed to U.S. Department of Labor Secretary’s Working Committee on Work Place Issues.
National Council on Disability (NCD) members are people with disabilities, parents or guardians of people with disabilities, or other people who have substantial knowledge or experience relating to disability policy or programs. NCD members are appointed to represent people with disabilities, national organizations concerned with people with disabilities, providers and administrators of services to people with disabilities, people engaged in conducting medical or scientific research relating to people with disabilities, business concerns, and labor organizations. A majority of NCD members are people with disabilities. NCD members are broadly representative of minority and other individuals and groups.