President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts, 9/22/10

WASHINGTON – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key administration posts:

• William R. Brownfield, Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State
• Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States, Government Accountability Office
• Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, Member, Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation
• Kurt Walter Tong, for the rank of Ambassador during his tenure of service as United States Senior Coordinator for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum, Department of State

President Obama also announced his intent to appoint several individuals to serve on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Their biographies are below.

President Obama said, “I am impressed by the sound judgment and tremendous dedication these individuals have demonstrated throughout their careers, and I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”

President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key administration posts:

William R. Brownfield, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State
William R. Brownfield is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service.  He has served as Ambassador to Colombia, Venezuela and Chile.  In Washington, Mr. Brownfield’s assignments have included Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Executive Assistant in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, Member of the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff, and Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs. He has also served overseas in El Salvador, Argentina, Panama, and Switzerland.  A native of Texas, Mr. Brownfield received his B.A. from Cornell University, graduated from the National War College.

Gene L. Dodaro, Nominee for Comptroller General of the United States, Government Accountability Office
Gene L. Dodaro has served as Acting Comptroller General of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) since March of 2008. Before his tenure as Acting Comptroller General, Dodaro served as GAO’s Chief Operating Officer, and, before that, as Assistant Comptroller General for GAO’s largest unit, the Accounting and Information Management Division. A 37-year veteran of GAO who rose through the agency ranks, Dodaro is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a member of the Association of Government Accountants, and has received recognition from numerous organizations including the National Public Service Award, the Roger W. Jones Award for Executive Leadership and the Arthur S. Fleming Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in the Federal Government.  Dodaro graduated from Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, Nominee for Member, Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation
Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy is an Associate Scholar of the John Carter Brown Library, a center for advanced research in history and the humanities at Brown University.  He has served as a Director of Kennedy Enterprises since 2005.  Mr. Kennedy wrote Danger's Hour: The Story of the USS Bunker Hill and the Kamikaze Pilot who Crippled Her, chronicling the worst suicide attack against the United States before September 11th. Prior to that, Mr. Kennedy co-founded the Urban Ecology Institute (UEI) at Boston College in 1998 where he taught in the English and Biology Departments.  Mr. Kennedy served as an Assistant District Attorney for three years in Philadelphia. Mr. Kennedy graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1988. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia Law School in 1992 where he served as President of the Student Legal Forum.

Kurt Walter Tong, Nominee for the rank of Ambassador during his tenure of service as United States Senior Coordinator for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum, Department of State
Kurt W. Tong is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. He is currently serving as Economic Coordinator in the State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Mr. Tong has served overseas in the U.S. Embassies in Manila, Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul. Most recently, he held the position of Director for Korean Affairs at the Department of State. Prior to that, he was Director for Asian Economic Affairs at the National Security Council. Mr. Tong was a Visiting Scholar at the Tokyo University Faculty of Economics. He holds a B.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

President Obama also announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key administration posts:

Tom Bernstein, Appointee for Chair, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Tom A. Bernstein is President and Co-Founder of Chelsea Piers, L.P., formed in 1992, to develop and operate the Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex along Manhattan’s Hudson River.  In addition, Mr. Bernstein was one of the two principals of Silver Screen Management, Inc., and the affiliated Silver Screen companies, which from 1983 to 1998 financed 75 films with the Walt Disney Company.  Mr. Bernstein was appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council in 2002, and he now serves on the Executive Committee and as Chair of the Committee on Conscience. For many years, Mr. Bernstein has been a Board member of Human Rights First, where he now serves as Vice-Chair. In January 2010, Mr. Bernstein was appointed Chair of the Board of Directors of the Fund for Cities of Service, formed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  Mr. Bernstein also serves as Chair of the Partnership for Public Service and is a member of the Yale University Council and the Board and Executive Committee of the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, GA.

Joshua Bolten, Appointee for Vice Chair, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Joshua Bolten is a Visiting Professor at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.  He served in the White House under President George W. Bush as Chief of Staff from 2006 to 2009, Director of the Office of Management and Budget from 2003 until 2006, and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2001 to 2003.  His nearly 20 years in government service also includes positions at the Office of the US Trade Representative, the US Senate Finance Committee, and the US State Department.  In the private sector, he worked at Goldman Sachs International in London, and O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, DC.  In addition to serving on the US Holocaust Memorial Council since 2009, he is a member of the board of the ONE Campaign, which is dedicated to combating extreme poverty and disease, and is co-chair of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

Matthew L. Adler, Appointee for Member, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Matthew L. Adler is the Chief Investment Officer of Adler Group and President of Adler Realty Services where he oversees fund management and acquisitions for the commercial real estate company founded by his grandfather. In addition, Mr. Adler is on the Board of Directors of Miami-based Union Credit Bank. Prior to joining Adler Group, he spent two years as a financial analyst for New York-based Insignia Financial Group, Inc.  Mr. Adler serves on numerous community-based organizations including: immediate past chairman of the Network and member of the board of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, member of the Jewish Federations of North America’s National Young Leadership Cabinet, vice chairman of Mount Sinai Medical Center Foundation’s Young Founders Board, trustee member of Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and member of the Miami Chapter of the Young Presidents Organization.

Katharine D. Dukakis, Appointee for Member, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Katharine Dukakis is an author, social worker, and advocate for human rights worldwide.  She has served on the Board of Directors of the Refugee Policy Group and Refugees International, and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the President’s Commission on the Holocaust. Mrs. Dukakis went on to become a founding member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and now serves as a member of its Committee on Conscience. She is also a member of the advisory board of Mapendo International, a humanitarian organization that rescues and protects at risk refugees in Africa, and the board of the New England Center for Children, a school for autistic children in Southborough, MA.  In 2007, the Kitty Dukakis Treatment Center for Women at the Lemual Shattuck Hospital was established in honor of her advocacy work on addiction and mental health.

Judge Karen Chaya Friedman, Appointee for Member, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Karen Chaya Friedman is an Associate Judge of The District Court of Maryland in the First District of Baltimore City.  Prior to her appointment to the District court, she served for nine years as a Judge on the Baltimore City Orphans' Court. Judge Friedman's civic leadership includes chairing the Elijah Cummings Youth Program in Israel and the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Fund for the Enrichment of Jewish Education, which provides funding for projects that enrich Jewish education in the Greater Baltimore area. She also serves on the Board of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore and is the former Chair of CHANA – Counseling, Helpline, and Aid Network for Abused Women.  Judge Friedman is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors.

Mark Goodman, Appointee for Member, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Mark Goodman is the Founder of Terawatt Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in clean energy technologies.  His finance and investment career includes positions at First Chicago and Brookline Ventures. As a Teaching Fellow while completing his doctorate in philosophy and later as a Lecturer, Mr. Goodman taught philosophy and liberal arts courses at Boston College and Emerson College.  In his doctoral dissertation he explored philosophical and poetic responses to the Holocaust in the works of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and Jewish poet Paul Celan.  He is on the Board of the Boston Chapter of the American Jewish Committee.

Ronald Ratner, Appointee for Member, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Ronald A. Ratner is a member of the Board of Directors for Forest City Enterprises, Inc. and President and CEO of Forest City Residential Group, which manages all of the company’s multifamily housing efforts, including development, ownership, management and financial activities. An active supporter of community and civic organizations, Ratner currently serves on the boards of The Ohio State University and Brandeis University, and is a director of the National Multi Housing Council. Ratner holds a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and completed the master’s program in architecture at UCLA.

Menachem Z. Rosensaft, Appointee for Member, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Menachem Z. Rosensaft is General Counsel of the World Jewish Congress, Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, and Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Syracuse University College of Law.  Born in the Displaced Persons camp of Bergen-Belsen, he is vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants.  In June 2009, Mr. Rosensaft served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the International Conference on Holocaust Era Restitution Issues in Prague.  He has previously served two terms on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, and chaired its Content Committee, Collections and Acquisitions Committee, and Committee on Governance.  Mr. Rosensaft is also a past president of Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan and a former national president of the Labor Zionist Alliance.

Kirk Rudy, Appointee for Member, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Kirk Rudy is a Co-Founder and CEO of Endeavor Real Estate Group.  He currently serves on the Austin Area Anti-Defamation League Executive Committee, and was the 2002 President of the Real Estate Council of Austin. Mr. Rudy’s civic engagement has included service on the Board of Directors of the Austin Area Urban League, the Jewish Community Association of Austin, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Austin Economic Development Corporation, and the Long Center.  He received the Austin Jewish Community Volunteer Leadership Award in 2002 and 2006, the LBJ Humanitarian Award in 2008, and the 2010 Anti-Defamation League Austin Torch of Liberty Award.