April 14, 2009
President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts
WASHINGTON, DC - Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals for key administration posts: Daniel B. Poneman, Deputy Secretary, Department of Energy; Fred P. Hochberg, President and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States; Francisco "Frank" J. Sánchez, Under Secretary for International Trade, Department of Commerce; Miriam E. Sapiro, Deputy Trade Representative; Judith A. McHale, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Department of State; Philip J. "P.J." Crowley, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, Department of State; Bonnie D. Jenkins, Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs (with the Rank of Ambassador), Department of State; Thomasina Rogers, Chairman, Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission; Lorelei Boylan, Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, Department of Labor; David F. Heyman, Assistant Secretary for Policy, Department of Homeland Security; Andrew C. Weber, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs), Department of Defense; Stephen W. Preston, General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency; and Laurie Mikva, Board Member, Legal Services Corporation.
President Obama said, "Our nation will be well-served by these fine individuals, who all bring dedication to our country and impressive expertise in their fields. I am confident that they will be effective advocates on behalf of the American people as we work to strengthen the economy, keep Americans safe at home and abroad, and make America work for our families. I look forward to working with them in the coming months and years."
President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals today:
Daniel B. Poneman, Nominee for Deputy Secretary, Department of Energy
Since 2001, Daniel B. Poneman has been a Principal of The Scowcroft Group, an international business advisory firm based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that he was a partner in the law firm of Hogan & Hartson. From 1993 through 1996, Poneman served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Nonproliferation and Export Controls at the National Security Council. He joined the NSC staff in 1990 as Director of Defense Policy and Arms Control, after serving as a White House Fellow in the Department of Energy. Poneman has served on several federal commissions and advisory panels, and has authored books on nuclear energy policy and on Argentina. He coauthored Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis, which received the 2005 Douglas Dillon Award for Distinguished Writing on American Diplomacy. Poneman received A.B. and J.D. degrees with honors from Harvard, and an M.Litt. in politics from Oxford University. He is an Adjunct Senior Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Aspen Strategy Group.
Fred P. Hochberg, Nominee for President and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States
Mr. Hochberg, formerly the Dean of the New School for Management and Urban Policy has more than 30 years of experience in business, government, civil rights, and philanthropy. From 1998 through 2001, he served as deputy then acting administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA), an agency elevated to cabinet rank by President Bill Clinton, with more than 4,000 employees and 100 offices across the country. At the SBA, he directed the delivery of a comprehensive set of financial and business development programs for entrepreneurs, with particular outreach to women and minorities. He also served on President Clinton's Management Council. Prior to that, he was president and chief operating officer of the Lillian Vernon Corporation, where he led the transformation of a small family mail order company into a publicly traded direct marketing corporation, one of the great success stories of American entrepreneurship. He has served on numerous civic and corporate boards of directors including the Human Rights Campaign, where he was co-chair and is currently on the boards of the Citizens Budget Commission, FINCA International Microfinance, Fusion TELECommunications, the Howard Gilman Foundation, Seedco, and the Port Authority of New Jersey.
Francisco "Frank" J. Sánchez, Nominee for Under Secretary for International Trade, Department of Commerce
Francisco J. Sánchez served as a Policy Advisor on Latin America to the Obama For America Campaign. He was also the Chairman of the National Hispanic Leadership Council for the Obama Campaign. In 1999, Sanchez became a Special Assistant to the President of the United States working in the Office of the Special Envoy for the Americas. While at the White House, Sanchez worked with the National Security Council, the State Department and the U.S. Trade Representative. President Clinton later appointed Sánchez as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Transportation where he developed aviation policy and oversaw international negotiations. Prior to his work in the federal government, Sánchez practiced corporate and administrative law with the firm of Steel, Hector and Davis in Miami, Florida. Before practicing law, he served in the administration of former Florida Governor (now U.S. Senator) Bob Graham, as the first director of the state's Caribbean Basin Initiative Program. For the last fifteen years, Sanchez has worked with several consulting companies on projects involving complex transactions, labor-management negotiations, litigation settlement, negotiation strategy, alliance management, facilitation and training, most recently as a partner with CM Partners. Among his public-sector engagements, Sánchez headed a team in Medellín, Colombia as part of a "Teaching Tolerance" program. He also advised the president of Ecuador in negotiations to settle the 56-year-old border dispute with Peru. He is a contributing author to Negociación 2000, a collection of essays on negotiation published by McGraw-Hill. A Florida native, Mr. Sánchez attended the University of Florida, received his undergraduate and law degrees from Florida State University and holds a master's degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Miriam E. Sapiro, Nominee for Deputy Trade Representative
Miriam E. Sapiro is President of Summit Strategies International, which advises non-profit organizations and companies on international Internet and telecommunications policy issues. She has more than twenty years of experience as an executive in the private sector and as an official in the government during the administrations of Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton. Over the course of her career Sapiro has represented the United States in numerous complex multilateral and bilateral negotiations. In 1999, President Clinton appointed her Special Assistant to the President for Southeast European Stabilization & Reconstruction. Sapiro supervised efforts to revitalize the region, working with USTR and other agencies, as well as other governments and international financial institutions. From 1997 to 1999 she served at the National Security Council as Director for European Affairs, developing and coordinating implementation of security and economic policies. Previously she was a member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff and worked in the Office of the Legal Adviser. Sapiro received her B.A. from Williams College and her J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was an editor of the Law Review. She has taught international law as an Adjunct Professor at New York University School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center and Columbia University.
Judith A. McHale, Nominee for Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Department of State
Ms. McHale is a leading media and communications executive whose career has been devoted to building companies and non-profit organizations dedicated to reaching out to and connecting people around the world. She is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of Discovery Communications. From 1987 to 2006, McHale helped build the parent company of the Discovery Channel into one of the world's most extensive media enterprises, with more than 100 channels telecast in over 170 countries and 35 languages to more than 1 billion subscribers. In the 1990s, McHale launched the non-profit Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership, which supplies free educational video programming to more than half a million students across Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. After two decades at Discovery, McHale extended her commitment to helping build opportunity for people in Africa. With the Global Environment Fund, a private equity firm, she worked to launch the GEF/Africa Growth Fund, an investment vehicle intending to focus on supplying expansion capital to small and medium-sized businesses that provide consumer goods and services in emerging African markets. McHale's commitment to global outreach efforts also includes her service on the boards of the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the National Democratic Institute, and Vital Voices. She previously served on the board of Africare. The daughter of a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, McHale was born in New York City and grew up in Britain and apartheid-era South Africa. Before joining Discovery, McHale served as General Counsel for MTV Networks and helped guide the company's international expansion.
Philip J. "P.J." Crowley, Nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, Department of State
Mr. Crowley is a Senior Fellow and Director of Homeland Security at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. At CAP, he authored a detailed homeland security strategy called Safe at Home and was a frequent public commentator on a wide range of national security issues. During the Clinton administration, Crowley was Special Assistant to the President of the United States for National Security Affairs, serving as Senior Director of Public Affairs for the National Security Council. Prior to that, he was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. In all, he served as a spokesman for the U.S. government for 28 years, including three at the White House and 11 at the Pentagon. He is a retired Air Force colonel and veteran of Operations Desert Storm and Provide Comfort in 1991. During the Kosovo conflict in 1999, he was temporarily assigned to work with then NATO Secretary General Javier Solana in Brussels. Prior to joining the Center for American Progress, Crowley served as a national spokesman for the property/casualty insurance industry, focusing on strategic industry issues that included the impact of terrorism on commercial insurance in the aftermath of the World Trade Center tragedy. He is a native of Massachusetts and a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross.
Bonnie D. Jenkins, Nominee for Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs (with the Rank of Ambassador), Department of State
Dr. Jenkins is the Program Officer for U.S. Foreign and Security policy at the Ford Foundation. Her grant making seeks to strengthen public engagement in US foreign and security policy debate and formulation in order to promote support for multilateralism, the peaceful resolution of disputes, and the rule of international law. Prior to joining the Foundation, Jenkins served on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States ("9-11 Commission"), as counsel. She was the lead Commission staff member on counterterrorism policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and on U.S. military plans to go after Al Qaeda prior to 9-11. She wrote part of the 9/11 report, which has since become a national bestseller. Jenkins also served as General Counsel to the U.S. Commission to assess the organization of the federal government to combat proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and as a consultant to the 2000 National Commission on Terrorism. She also worked at the RAND Corporation in their National Security Division. She recently served as a Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval Reserves and completed a year of deployment at CENTCOM. Jenkins has worked in the U.S. Department of State's Office of Policy Planning as a consultant of the Kosovo History Project. An expert on arms control and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Jenkins also served for nine years as legal advisor to U.S. Ambassadors and delegations negotiating arms control and nonproliferation treaties during her time as a Legal Advisor in the Office of General Council at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. She began her years in government when appointed as a Presidential Management Fellow. Jenkins is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the American Bar Association. She received a Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Virginia; an LL.M. in international and comparative law from the Georgetown University Law Center; an MPA from the State University of New York at Albany; a J.D. from Albany Law School; and a BA from Amherst College. She also attended The Hague Academy for International Law.
Thomasina Rogers, Nominee for Chairman, Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission
Thomasina Rogers is a member of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. She was first appointed to the Review Commission by President Clinton in 1998 and served as Chairman from 1999 to 2002; she was then reappointed to the Review Commission in 2003. The agency Chairman is responsible for the administrative operations of the quasi-judicial agency, along with participating with the other Commissioners in case adjudication. Ms. Rogers previously served as Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 1994 until its dissolution at the end of 1995. Rogers also served for seven years in the Federal Government's Senior Executive Service (SES). During her time in the SES, she served as Legal Counsel to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission where she had primary responsibility for managing the development of the Americans With Disabilities Act employment regulations. She is a member of the American Bar Association and the National Bar Association. Rogers is a graduate of the Northwestern University School of Journalism and the Columbia University School of Law.
Lorelei Boylan, Nominee for Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, Department of Labor
Lorelei Boylan is currently the Director of Strategic Enforcement at the New York State Department of Labor, Labor Standards Division. In this capacity she supervises the Apparel Industry/Fair Wages Task Force, a state-wide specialized unit charged with investigating low-wage industries where workers are at risk of exploitation. Under her leadership, the Task Force has flourished into a groundbreaking investigative unit with a high rate of success in the resolution of wage and hour investigations. The Task Force has developed complex investigations, conducted around-the-clock field work and built coalitions with low wage workers' advocates. Boylan has a wealth of experience in the enforcement field, ranging from private monitoring for retailers with social accountability initiatives to affirmative litigation and field investigative experience. Prior to heading the Task Force, Boylan spearheaded the Bureau of Immigrant Workers' Rights, a newly formed division of the Department of Labor, where she formulated innovative policies to respond to the needs of individuals with Limited English proficiency. She is the recipient of the 2008 Frances Perkins Leadership Award for exceptional leadership in developing the mission of the Department. Boylan practiced law as an Assistant Attorney General in the New York State Attorney General's Office. She was hired under the Honor's Program to represent the State in defensive and affirmative litigation. In this position, Boylan investigated businesses for violations of state and federal labor laws and represented the Department of Health in New York State Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals. Prior to becoming an attorney, Boylan worked for several years for a global monitoring company, counseling firms on compliance with state and federal labor laws, OSHA, Immigration and tax laws. She graduated cum laude from Hunter College and received a J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School where she was a Writing Competition and Articles Editor of the Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law. Boylan speaks Spanish and French fluently and is admitted to practice law in New York State.
David F. Heyman, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Policy, Department of Homeland Security
Mr. Heyman is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Homeland Security Program and an adjunct professor in security studies at Georgetown University. Before joining CSIS, Heyman served in a number of government positions, including as a senior adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Energy and at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on national security and international affairs. Prior to that, he was the head of international operations for a private-sector software/systems engineering firm developing supply-chain management systems for Fortune 100 firms. He has worked in Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. Heyman has authored numerous publications, including "America's Domestic Security" in Five Years After 9/11 (CSIS, 2006); Model Operational Guidelines for Disease Exposure Control (CSIS, 2005)-which has been utilized by cities and states across the country and was the basis for some of the government's pandemic flu planning guidance; DHS 2.0: Rethinking the Department of Homeland Security (CSIS/Heritage Foundation, 2004); and Lessons from the Anthrax Attacks (CSIS, 2002). Heyman has testified before a number of committees in Congress and has appeared in various media outlets including NPR, CNN, BBC, FOX News, and the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
Andrew C. Weber, Nominee for Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs), Department of Defense
Andrew Weber is currently an adviser for threat reduction policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he is responsible for Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction initiatives to reduce the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, where he teaches a course on force and diplomacy in the Foreign Service Program. He was previously a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State, where he served in diplomatic assignments in Saudi Arabia, Germany, Kazakhstan, and Hong Kong. Weber has an MS from Georgetown University and a BA from Cornell University. He lives in Arlington, Virginia with his wife Julie and daughter Eleanor.
Stephen W. Preston, Nominee for General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency
Stephen W. Preston is currently a Partner at WilmerHale, where he is co-chair of the Defense, National Security and Government Contracts Practice Group, and a member of the Regulatory and Government Affairs and Litigation/Controversy Departments. He joined the firm in 1986, and later returned in 2001 after serving at both the Pentagon and the Justice Department. He was the Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Defense from 1993 to 1995, during which time he served for an extended period as Acting General Counsel. From 1998 to 2000, Preston served as General Counsel of the Department of the Navy, a Presidential appointment requiring Senate confirmation. Mr. Preston's responsibilities covered the full range of legal matters confronting the Defense Department and the national security establishment. He was actively involved in criminal, inspector general and congressional investigations, civil fraud and contract claims litigation and alternative dispute resolution. From 1995 to 1998, Mr. Preston served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, responsible for civil litigation in the courts of appeals on behalf of the United States. In addition to overseeing work in a wide variety of substantive areas and assisting the Solicitor General in cases before the Supreme Court, he also argued several significant appeals involving constitutional law, statutory interpretation, federal court jurisdiction and testimonial privileges. Mr. Preston holds a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from Harvard University.
Laurie Mikva, Nominee for Board Member, Legal Services Corporation
Laurie Mikva has a strong record of working to aid indigent people to obtain necessary legal services. From 1993-2008, Mikva worked in Champaign, Illinois, as a staff attorney at Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, Inc., the legal aid provider for central and southern Illinois. Specializing in areas of family law and domestic violence, Mikva represented clients in cases involving divorce, custody, orders of protection and child support. She helped to establish the Domestic Violence Clinic at the University of Illinois College of Law, and supervised students in the Clinic. She collaborated with service providers including shelters, victim advocates, prosecutors, and police to address family violence issues in the community. As Family Law Task Force Chair, she oversaw the provision of family law services throughout the organization, and provided support and training to both legal aid and pro bono attorneys. Between 1988-1991, Mikva worked as an Assistant Public Defender in Urbana, Illinois, where she represented indigent defendants in criminal cases, and parents in juvenile abuse and neglect proceedings. Before that, she worked in the Appellate Division of the Maryland Public Defender's Office, where she represented indigent appellants in criminal cases. From 1984-1985, Mikva was a fellow in the Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program at Georgetown University Law School in Washington, D.C. From 1983-84 she clerked for Judge Luther M. Swygert on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. Mikva received a J.D. from New York University in 1983, where she was a Note Editor for the N.Y.U.Law Review. Mikva is currently employed as a staff attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
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