President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts, 9/10/09

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

President Obama also announced the appointment of the following individuals to posts in the administration:

President Obama also announced that the following individual will remain serving in his current posts at the Department of Defense:

President Obama said, "I am grateful that these fine individuals have agreed to serve my administration at this important time for our nation. I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead to strengthen our economy, keep our nation safe, and provide new opportunities for all our people."

Erroll G. Southers, Nominee for Assistant Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (Transportation Security Administration)
Erroll Southers has had an impressive career in public safety and homeland security issues. Currently, he is the Assistant Chief for the Los Angeles World Airports Police Department’s Office of Homeland Security and Intelligence. He also serves as the Associate Director at the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events at the University of Southern California, where he was previously an Adjunct Professor of terrorism, homeland security and public policy. Prior to this position he served in the Office of Governor Schwarzenegger as the Deputy Director of Homeland Security for the State of California. His career has also included serving as a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and positions with the Rio Hondo Policy Academy and the Santa Monica Police Department. He is a senior fellow with the School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles and holds a Masters of Public Administration from the University of Southern California where he is currently pursuing a doctorate in Policy, Planning and Development.
 

Barbara Haskew, Nominee for Board Member, Board of Directors, Tennessee Valley Authority

Board Member, Board of Directors, Tennessee Valley Authority
Barbara S. Haskew is Distinguished Professor of Economics at Middle Tennessee State University. She has served MTSU in leadership positions for over 20 years including Dean of the College of Business and Vice President and Provost of the University. Dr. Haskew’s interest in and research about utility and energy issues was reinforced by her eight years as Manager of the Rate Staff for the Tennessee Valley Authority. In this position she led the development of wholesale and retail rates designed to meet the Agency’s goals. Dr. Haskew earned her PhD at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville with emphases in development and labor economics.
 

Neil McBride, Nominee for Board Member, Board of Directors, Tennessee Valley Authority

Neil G. McBride is a national leader in the field of public interest law. He lives and works in East
Tennessee, where he has been involved in TVA issues for 35 years. He is General Counsel with the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands, a nonprofit law firm that gives free legal help in civil cases to people who have nowhere else to turn. After beginning his legal career as a public interest advocate in Washington, D.C., he moved to the Appalachian coalfields of East Tennessee in 1973. He was one of the region’s earliest advocates for more transparency in TVA decision making and also advocated for TVA to provide more effective energy efficiency programs to its customers and for environmental policies that would better serve the long-term interest of the Tennessee Valley. McBride is a member of the Tennessee Bar Association’s policy-making body, the House of Delegates and a member of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, the Association’s primary voice on how the law serves low-income Americans. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law, where he teaches a course on nonprofit corporations. He is a graduate of Hamilton College and of the University of Virginia School of Law.
 

Steven Jacques, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Housing and Urban Development

Steven Jacques is currently a principal in Jacques & Colby, a full-service public affairs consulting and management firm specializing in non-profits and municipalities. He has a deep background in national politics and public affairs, having served in leadership roles in various presidential campaigns dating back to 1976. He served in both the Clinton and Carter Administrations, and, most recently, was the Senior Lead Advance for Obama for America throughout the recent presidential campaign. In 2005 he was named Senior Fellow of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas, and served as Associate Director, Director of Communications for the Dole Institute in 2006-2007. Previously, Jacques served as Director of Communications & Strategic Communications Planning for the U. S. State Department from 1998 - 1999, and as Director of Communications and Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary for Export Administration of the U.S. Commerce Department from 1999 - 2001. He also served on the White House staff as staff assistant for advance in 1978 - 1979 and has led hundreds of White House advance teams preparing for Presidential and Vice Presidential visits throughout the U.S., Middle East, Europe and Russia during the previous two Democratic presidential administrations. Jacques has served on the boards of several civic and non-profit organizations in St. Louis and Kansas City. He is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, with a master's degree in International Affairs and bachelor's in Political Science.
 

Patrick Gallagher, Nominee for Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Commerce

Dr. Patrick Gallagher is currently the Deputy Director and Acting Director of the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In his present position, Dr. Gallagher provides high-level oversight and direction for NIST. Dr. Gallagher received his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Pittsburgh in 1991 and joined NIST in 1993 as an instrument scientist at the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR). Dr. Gallagher became Director of the NCNR in 2004, where he served until assuming his current duties as NIST Deputy Director in September 2008. From 1999 to 2001, Gallagher was a NIST agency representative at the National Science and Technology Council. He remains active in the area of U.S. policy for scientific user facilities and has chaired the Interagency Working Groups on neutron and light source facilities under the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). In 2006, the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded Dr. Gallagher a Gold Medal for his leadership in interagency coordination of policy for scientific user facilities in the United States. Dr. Gallagher has been a member of numerous advisory, study and review committees including the Math and Physical Sciences Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation; the Committee of Visitors for Basic Energy Science in the Department of Energy for the Division of Materials Science and Engineering and the Division of Scientific User Facilities; the Solid State Sciences Committee, the Neutrino Advisory Committee and the New Materials Growth and Synthesis Committee of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Research Council; the Neutron Sciences Advisory Board of Oak Ridge National Laboratory; and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Advanced Photon Source for Argonne National Laboratory.
 

Harris Sherman, Nominee for Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Department of Agriculture

Harris Sherman is the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources and a member of Governor Ritter’s Cabinet. As Director, he oversees Colorado’s energy, water, wildlife, parks, forestry and state lands programs. During his tenure, he has successfully started and expanded the State’s minimum stream flow program, developed the State’s first mining reclamation program, revised and modernized the State’s oil and gas regulatory programs, started Colorado’s Natural Areas Program, participated in the largest expansion of the State’s wilderness and parks programs, and formulated the State’s role in managing synthetic fuel development. This is the second time in Mr. Sherman’s career that he has been DNR director, earlier serving under Governor Richard Lamm. Mr. Sherman is also co-chair of the Governor’s Forest Health Advisory Council, as well as a member of the Colorado Wildlife Commission, the Colorado Water Conservation Board, and Great Outdoors Colorado. Previously, between his two periods as DNR director, Mr. Sherman practiced law with the international law firm of Arnold & Porter LLP where he served as Managing and Senior Partner of the firm’s Denver office. His practice focused on natural resources, environmental, water, public land, real estate, and Indian law.

Mr. Sherman has also participated in a wide variety of public and private agencies and organizations. He has been Chairman of the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission; Chair of the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board and Chair of the Denver Regional Air Quality Council. He has served as a Commissioner of Mines; as a Commissioner of the Denver Water Board; Trustee of Colorado College, Trustee of the University of Colorado Natural Resources Law Center, and Trustee of the Keystone Center. He is currently a Trustee of the Boettcher Foundation, one of Colorado’s oldest charitable foundations. Mr. Sherman received his B.A. degree from Colorado College and his law degree from Columbia University Law School.

Linda Breathitt, Federal Representative, Southern States Energy Board

Linda Breathitt has devoted a major part of her career to the energy sector. She has worked as a regulator, energy policy advisor and consultant in bi-lateral and multi-lateral energy programs in developing countries. Linda currently consults in the field of energy and resides in her home state of Kentucky. She spent five years in an international law firm in its Washington DC office beginning in 2003. President Bill Clinton appointed Linda to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in November 1997 where she served a five year term. Before joining FERC Linda served as Chairman of the Kentucky Public Service Commission. Linda currently serves as a Director of Winchester, KY based Delta Natural Gas. She is also on the Advisory Board of the Martin School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of KY and on the National Advisory Board of the Speed Museum in Louisville, KY. Linda serves on the Board of Directors of LexArts in Lexington, KY and was recently appointed by Governor Steve Beshear to the Kentucky Commission on Women.
 

L. Preston Bryant, Jr., Chair, National Capital Planning Commission

L. Preston Bryant, Jr., is Virginia secretary of natural resources in the cabinet of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a position he has held since 2006. As secretary, Bryant oversees all state environmental, historical, and wildlife agencies, including 35 state parks, 57 natural area preserves, and 34 wildlife management areas. He also leads Gov. Kaine’s sustainability efforts and chaired the governor’s year-long commission on climate change. Since 2007, Bryant has served as chairman of the Fort Monroe Federal Area Development Authority, which is charged with developing the reuse plan for historic Fort Monroe upon its 2011 BRAC closure. From 1996-2006, Bryant was an elected member of the Virginia House of Delegates, representing the City of Lynchburg and Amherst County. As a state legislator, he sponsored landmark legislation to protect more than one million acres of nontidal wetlands, restructure the state’s stormwater management programs, and establish a nutrient credit trading program to facilitate improvements to more than a hundred wastewater treatment plants. Bryant also was a manager and partner from 1996-2005 at Hurt & Proffitt, Inc., a Virginia-based civil engineering, surveying, and planning firm. Bryant has B.A. from Randolph-Macon College, a master’s of humanities from the University of Richmond, and an M.A. from the University of London.
 

Jack Leslie, Appointee for Chairman of United States African Development Foundation.

Mr. Leslie currently serves as Vice Chairman of USADF and as Chairman of Weber Shandwick, the world’s leading public relations and public affairs firm. As a crisis communications advisor, Mr. Leslie consulted with the NY Port Authority after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, with American Airlines following September 11, 2001 and testified before Congress on US public diplomacy programs directed at the Muslim world after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Mr. Leslie is former Chairman of the Board of USA for UNHCR and a participant in UNHCR Missions to Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Tanzania. He has a longstanding interest in African development, has been deeply involved in the work of USADF, and has been on missions to 13 sub-Saharan countries. In 1976, he joined the staff of Senator Edward Kennedy, the sponsor of legislation establishing the USADF. Mr. Leslie is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

Sean Stackley, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, Department of the Navy, Department of Defense
Since July 2008, Mr. Stackley has served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. As the Navy’s Acquisition Executive, he is responsible for the development and procurement of Navy and Marine Corps platforms and warfare systems. Prior to his appointment, Stackley served as a Professional Staff Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he was responsible for overseeing Navy and Marine Corps programs, U.S. Transportation Command matters, and related policy for the Seapower Subcommittee. He began his career as a Surface Warfare Officer and has served in a range of Industrial, Fleet, Program Office, and Headquarters assignments in ship design and construction, maintenance, logistics, and acquisition policy. Stackley is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and also holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.