President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts, 6-29-09

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals for key administration posts: Peggy E. Gustafson, Inspector General, Small Business Administration and George H. Cohen, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, Director.

President Obama said, "At this important time for our nation, I am grateful that these dedicated and skilled individuals have chosen to join our team and serve their country. I look forward to working with them in the coming months and years."

Peggy Gustafson currently serves as General Counsel to Senator Claire McCaskill, where she advises the Senator on government oversight issues and helped write two bills that have significantly strengthened the federal offices of Inspectors General: the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008 and the legislation that created the office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. From 1999-2007 she served as General Counsel in the Missouri State Auditor’s Office. In that capacity she worked closely with the auditors on issues of the scope of the auditors’ duties, the auditors’ need to access records, and all other legal issues arising in the course of the audits. Ms. Gustafson also served as an assistant prosecuting attorney and as an assistant county counselor for Jackson County, Missouri. A native of Chicago, Illinois, she received her B.A from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa in 1989, and her Juris Doctor from Northwestern University in Chicago in 1992.

George Cohen has had an extensive and distinguished career as a labor lawyer, negotiator, and mediator. During the period 1966-2005 he was a senior partner at Bredhoff & Kaiser, a Washington, D.C. law firm with a national practice, specializing in representing private and public sector labor organizations in collective bargaining involving a wide variety of industries and government entities. Prior to entering into private practice, Mr. Cohen served as an appellate court attorney with the National Labor Relations Board. He is a graduate of Cornell University and its Law School and earned a LLM degree from Georgetown Law. In the past three years he has been engaged in a solo practice as a mediator. He is a member of the prestigious Mediation Panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and has successfully mediated numerous complex, high profile disputes. From the mid 1970's thru 2005, Mr. Cohen was an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law School where he taught the Art of Collective Bargaining and other labor courses.