Obama-Biden Transition
Project
a 501(c)(4) organization
updated February 23, 2009
Senior advisor on the campaign and
friend to Michelle and Barack Obama. Served as finance chair for
Obama's 2004 U.S. Senate campaign. CEO of The Habitat Co., a real
estate development and
management company; she joined the firm in 1995. Eight years
working for the City of Chicago, first as Deputy Corporation Counsel
for Finance and Development, then as deputy chief of staff to Mayor
Richard M. Daley in 1991, and as Commissioner of the Department of
Planning and Development from 1992-95.
Senior advisor on the campaign. Rouse
served as chief of staff in Obama's Senate
office from the beginning of his term; later he split time between the
campaign and the Senate before
eventually moving over to the campaign full-time. More than 30
years
experience working on Capitol Hill. Prior to joining Obama, he
worked
for Sen. Tom Daschle starting in 1985. Earlier he worked for then
Rep.
Dick Durbin (D-IL). Legislative assistant to Sen. Jim Abourezk
(D-SD),
1971-75.
President and CEO of the Center for
American Progress. Visiting Professor of Law on the faculty of
the Georgetown University Law Center, a position he also held from
1995-97. Chief of Staff to President Clinton at the White
House from Oct. 1998-Jan. 2001; Assistant to the President and Deputy
Chief of Staff, 1997-98. Assistant to the President, Staff
Secretary and a senior policy adviser on government information,
privacy, telecommunications security and regulatory policy, Jan.
1993-95. In 1988 Podesta and his brother Tony founded
Podesta Associates, Inc. Experience on Capitol Hill as Counsel to
Democratic Leader Sen. Tom Daschle, 1995-96; Chief Counsel for the
Senate Agriculture Committee, 1987-88; Chief Minority Counsel for the
Senate Judiciary Subcommittees on Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks;
Security and Terrorism; and Regulatory Reform; and Counsel on the
Majority Staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee,1979-81. Served
as a special assistant to the Director of ACTION, the federal volunteer
agency, 1978-79. Worked as a trial attorney in the Department of
Justice's Honors Program in the Land and Natural Resources Division,
1976-77. Graduate of Georgetown University Law Center,
1976. Graduate of Knox College
in Galesburg, IL, 1971. Author of The Power of Progress: How America's
Progressives Can (Once Again) Save Our Economy, Our Climate, and Our
Country (Crown, Aug. 2008).
Advisory Board
Carol Browner, William Daley,
Christopher Edley, Michael Froman, Julius Genachowski, Donald Gips,
Governor Janet Napolitano, Federico Peña, Susan Rice, Sonal
Shah, Mark Gitenstein, and Ted Kaufman.
Gitenstein and
Kaufman
co-chairs of Vice President-elect Biden’s transition
team.
(see Nov.
5, 2008 press release)
day to
day...
Executive Director
|
Chris Lu
|
Chief of staff in Obama's
Senate office (started beginning of
Sept. 2008; previously Pete Rouse had split between chief of staff and
senior advisor to the campaign). Legislative director in Obama's Senate
office. Lu took leave to serve as Obama's communications director
for the Feb. 5, 2008 Delaware primary campaign. Deputy chief counsel for
the Democratic
staff of the House Government Reform Committee (Rep. Henry Waxman),
1997-2005. Special advisor for communications to
Kerry-Edwards '04. Worked as a litigator at a D.C. law firm and a
law clerk to a federal court of appeals judge. Graduate of
Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was a classmate
of Obama.
General Counsel
|
Cassandra Butts
|
Friend of Obama from law school
days. Senior Vice President for Domestic Policy at the Center for
American Progress through summer 2008. Senior advisor
to Obama
in 2004-05. A senior advisor to Rep. Richard A.
Gephardt (D-MO) and served as the policy director on his 2004
presidential campaign. An Assistant Counsel for the NAACP Legal
Defense &
Educational Fund. Legislative Counsel to Sen. Harris L. Wofford
(D-PA). Graduate of Harvard Law School, 1991 and the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
COMMUNICATIONS
Communications
Director
|
Dan Pfeiffer |
Communications director on
Obama for America, announced July 15, 2008; previously served as deputy
communications director and initially
was traveling press
secretary. Communications
director for
Sen. Evan Bayh's All America PAC (started Sept. 2006); came to the PAC
from Bayh's Senate office, where he started in 2005. Deputy
campaign
manager on Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's unsuccessful
re-election
campaign in 2004. Worked on Sen. Tim Johnson's (D-SD) successful
2002 re-election campaign. Communications director at the
Democratic
Governors Association.
Chief Spokesperson |
Stephanie Cutter
|
Senior advisor and chief
of staff to Michelle Obama on the campaign from June 2008.
Communications director on
Kerry-Edwards 2004 and John Kerry for President, announced Nov. 11,
2003.
Communications director for the 2004 Democratic National
Convention (also participated
in the press operation of the Los Angeles, Chicago
and New York conventions). Communications director
for Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Cutter worked for President
Clinton
as the deputy communications director at the White House and as the
Associate
Administrator for Communications at the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. Originally from
Raynham, Massachusetts, Cutter is a graduate
of Georgetown University Law Center and Smith College in Northampton,
MA.
PERSONNEL
Personnel Director
|
Jim
Messina |
Chief of staff on Obama for
America. Came to the campaign from his
position as chief of staff to Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT). Chief of
staff to U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), 2003-05. Campaign manager
on Baucus' 2002 campaign. Chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Carolyn
McCarthy (D-NY), 1999-2001. Campaign manager on Baucus' 1996
campaign. Chief of staff to state Sen. Mike Halligan, 1995.
Worked on Daniel Kemmis' campaign for mayor of Missoula in 1993.
B.A. from the University of Montana, 1993. Grew up in Boise, ID.
Associate
Personnel Director
|
Patrick Gaspard
|
(announced
June 18, 2008) Prior to joining the campaign, Gaspard was
executive vice president of politics and legislation for Local 1199
SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. In 2006 he served as
acting political director for SEIU international. National field
director for America Coming Together, 2004. 1199 SEIU deputy
director. Chief of staff to New York City Council member
Margarita Lopez.
Personnel Counsel
|
Christine Varney
|
Partner at Hogan & Hartson;
rejoined the firm in 1997. Served as a Federal Trade Commissioner
from 1994-97. An Assistant to the President and Secretary to the
Cabinet. Practiced law with Hogan & Hartson. Chief
Counsel to the Clinton/Gore Campaign, General Counsel to the 1992
Presidential Inaugural Committee, and General Counsel to the Democratic
National Committee from 1989-92. J.D. from Georgetown University
Law Center, 1986. M.P.A. from Syracuse
University, 1978. B.A. from The State University of New
York, University at Albany, 1977.
AGENCY REVIEW WORKING GROUP
>>>
"...manage
and review the Agency Review Teams' work and coordinate
with other transition teams, including those handling personnel, policy
and the budget."
(announced Nov. 5, 2008)
Executive Vice President for Policy
at the Center for American Progress. Chief counsel to Sen. Edward
M. Kennedy (D-MA) on the Senate Judiciary
Committee, Dec. 1995-March 2003. Barnes’ experience also includes
an appointment as Director of Legislative Affairs for the U. S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission and serving as assistant counsel to
the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and
Constitutional Rights. Barnes began her career as an attorney
with Shearman & Sterling in New York City. Law degree from
the University of Michigan and bachelor's degree in history from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
(announced Nov. 5, 2008) On leave from the American Constitution
Society for Law and Policy where she is the Executive Director.
Brown served as Counsel to Vice President Gore, with a broad legal and
policy portfolio that included serving on the Executive Board of the
President’s Committee for Employment of People with Disabilities.
Before that, she worked in the Office of Legal Counsel at the
Department of Justice, was a Partner at the D.C. law firm of Shea &
Gardner (now Goodwin Procter), and clerked on the Eleventh Circuit
Court of Appeals for the Honorable John C. Godbold.
Co-Chair (and
member of the Advisory Board)
|
Don
Gips |
On leave from his role as Group Vice
President of Global Corporate Development at Level 3 Communications,
where he leads merger and acquisition efforts and is the Chief Strategy
Officer. Prior to joining Level 3, Mr. Gips served in the White
House as Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Vice President Gore.
Previously, Mr. Gips was Chief of the International Bureau at the
Federal Communications Commission where he was responsible for the WTO
negotiations and all spectrum policy. Mr. Gips also helped launch
the Americorps Program at the Corporation for National Service.
Before entering government, he was an Executive Manager at McKinsey
& Company.
Agency Review
Working Group Members
- Seth Harris, David J. Hayes, Reed Hundt, Sally Katzen, Tom Perez,
Sarah Sewall, Ray Rivera, Louisa Terrell, Michael Warren, Tom Wheeler,
Jon Wilkins, Jonathan Molot.
Deputy Directors - Lisa Ellman and Joani Walsh.
Special Assistant - Liz Fujii
Agency Review
Teams - (began
efforts as early as Nov. 14, 2008) 10 broad areas:
Economics and International Trade - National Security
- Justice and
Civil Rights - Energy and Natural Resources -
Education and Labor
- Department of Health & Human Services -
Science, Tech, Space
and Arts - Executive Office of the President -
Government
Operations - Transportation
POLICY
WORKING GROUPS
>>>
"...develop
the priority policy proposals and plans from the Obama Campaign for
action during the Obama-Biden Administration"
Policy Working Group
leaders announced Nov. 19, 2008:
Economic - Daniel K. Tarullo
Daniel K. Tarullo is Professor of Law at Georgetown
University. He teaches and writes in the areas of banking law,
international economic regulation, and economic policymaking.
From 1993 to 1998 he was, successively, Assistant Secretary of State
for Economic and Business Affairs, Deputy Assistant to the President
for Economic Policy, and Assistant to the President for International
Economic Policy. From 1995 to 1998 he was also President Clinton’s
personal representative to the G7/G8 group of industrialized nations.
Prior to joining the Administration, he practiced law, served on
the staff of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and taught at Harvard Law
School.
Education -
Linda Darling-Hammond
Linda Darling-Hammond is Charles E.
Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University where she
has launched the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education
and the School Redesign Network. Her research, teaching, and policy
work focus on issues of school reform, teaching quality and educational
equity. She is a former president of the American Educational
Research Association and member of the executive board of the National
Academy of Education. She has been a leader in the standards
movement, chairing both the New York State Curriculum and Assessment
Council as it adopted new standards and assessments for students and
the Interstate New Teachers Support and Assessment Council (INTASC) as
it developed new standards for teachers. From 1994-2001, she served as
executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s
Future, a blue-ribbon panel whose 1996 report, What Matters Most:
Teaching for America’s Future, was named in 2006 as one of the most
influential affecting U.S. education, and Darling-Hammond was named one
of the nation’s ten most influential people affecting educational
policy. She received her BA from Yale University, magna cum
laude, in 1973 and her Doctorate in Urban Education from Temple
University in 1978. She began her career as a public school
teacher.
Energy
and Environment - Carol M. Browner [PHOTO]
Carol M. Browner is the longest
serving Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency serving
from 1993 to 2001. Prior to that, she served as Florida Secretary
of the Environment. Browner is a founder and principal of The
Albright Group LLC, a global strategy firm and of Albright Capital
Management, an investment advisory firm that focuses on emerging
markets. Browner serves as the chair of the National Audubon
Society Board of Directors, and sits on the Board of Directors of APX,
the Alliance for Climate Protection, the Center for American Progress
and the League of Conservation Voters.
Health Care -
Senator Tom Daschle
Currently, Senator Tom Daschle is an advisor to
the law firm of Alston and Bird, where he provides strategic advice on
public policy issues such as climate change, energy, health care,
trade, financial services, and telecommunications. He is also a
Distinguished Fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Visiting
Professor at Georgetown University and a public speaker. In 2007,
he joined with former Majority Leaders George Mitchell, Bob Dole, and
Howard Baker to create the Bipartisan Policy Center, an organization
dedicated to finding common ground on some of the pressing public
policy challenges of our time. He is also Co-Chair of the ONE Vote ’08
Campaign, along with former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, to address health and poverty in
the developing world in a more aggressive and successful way.
Daschle was
elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978, serving eight
years. In 1986, Daschle was elected to the U.S. Senate. Two years
later he became the first Co-Chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy
Committee and the first South Dakotan to be elected to a leadership
position in the U.S. Congress. In 1994, Daschle was elected by
his colleagues as their Democratic Leader. Daschle is one of the
longest-serving Senate Democratic Leaders in history and the only one
to serve twice as both Majority and Minority Leader.
Immigration
- T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Mariano-Florentino
(Tino) Cuéllar
T. Alexander Aleinikoff has been Dean of the Georgetown
University Law Center and Executive Vice President of Georgetown
University since July 2004. He has been a member of the
Georgetown faculty since 1997. Dean Aleinikoff served as General
Counsel and Executive Associate Commissioner for Programs at the
Immigration and Naturalization Service for several years during the
Clinton Administration. From 1997 to 2004 he was a Senior Associate at
the Migration Policy Institute, where he now serves on the Board of
Trustees. He has written widely on immigration, refugee and
citizenship law and constitutional law. Dean Aleinikoff is a
graduate of Swarthmore College
and Yale Law School.
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar is
Professor and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law
School. His work focuses on how organizations manage complex
regulatory, migration, international security, and criminal justice
problems. During the Clinton Administration he served at Treasury
as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Enforcement, where he
worked on countering domestic and international financial crime,
improving border coordination, and enhancing anti-corruption
measures. He has served on the boards of numerous organizations,
including Asylum Access and the Stanford Center for International
Security and Cooperation. He has testified before Congress on
immigration policy and separation of powers, and was appointed to the
Silicon Valley Blue Ribbon Task Force on Aviation Security. He
holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. in Political Science from
Stanford. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute.
National
Security - James B. Steinberg and Dr. Susan E. Rice
James B. Steinberg is dean of the
LBJ School of Public Affairs (2006-present) and is a former Deputy
National Security Advisor to President Clinton (1996-2000). His
previous positions include vice president and director of Foreign
Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution (2001-2005), director of
the Policy Planning Staff (1994-1996) and Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Regional Analysis in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research
(1993-1994) at the U.S. Department of State. He is the author of and
contributor to many books on foreign policy and national security
topics, including, most recently, with Kurt Campbell, Difficult
Transitions: Foreign Policy Troubles at the Outset of Power.
Dr. Susan E. Rice served most
recently as a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Obama for America
campaign while on leave from the Brookings Institution where she is a
Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development
Programs. Rice currently serves on the Obama-Biden Transition
Project Advisory Board. From 1997-2001, she was U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State for African Affairs. Prior to that, Rice
served in the White House at the National Security Council as Special
Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs and
as Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping.
Rice was previously a management consultant at McKinsey and
Company. She received her B.A. in History with Honors from
Stanford University and her M.Phil. and D.Phil. (Ph.D.) degrees in
International Relations from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes
Scholar.
Technology, Innovation & Government Reform - Blair Levin, Sonal
Shah and Julius Genachowski
Blair Levin is a Managing Director of Stifel Nicolaus and
serves as the firm’s principal telecom, media and tech regulatory and
strategy analyst. Prior to his work as an analyst, Mr. Levin
served as Chief of Staff to Chairman Reed Hundt at the Federal
Communications Commission from 1993 through 1997. Before joining
the FCC, Levin was a partner in the North Carolina law firm of Parker
Poe, Poe, Adams and Bernstein.
Sonal Shah heads Google.org’s
global development efforts. Prior to joining Google, she was Vice
President at Goldman, Sachs and Co. developing and implementing the
firm’s environmental policy. She is also the co-founder of
Indicorps, a U.S.-based non-profit organization offering one-year
fellowships Indian-Americans to work on development projects in
India. Sonal also worked at the Center for American
Progress on trade, outsourcing and post conflict issues and the Center
for Global Development on development policy issues. Sonal worked
at the Department of Treasury from 1995-2002 on various economic issues
and regions of the world, including Bosnia, Kosovo, the Asian crisis
and sub-Saharan Africa. During that time she also worked at the
National Security Council from 1998-1999. Sonal received her BA
in economics from the University of Chicago and her MA in economics
from Duke University. She is on the Obama-Biden Transition
Project Advisory Board.
Julius Genachowski is co-founder of
Rock Creek Ventures and LaunchBox Digital, a special advisor at General
Atlantic, and a member of various boards of directors and
advisors. From 1997 to 2005, he was a senior executive at
IAC/InterActiveCorp, where his roles included Chief of Business
Operations, General Counsel, and a member of the Office of the
Chairman. Genachowski served at the Federal Communications
Commission from 1994 to 1997, including as Chief Counsel to the
Chairman. >From 1991 to 1994 he served as a law clerk to U.S.
Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, to U.S. Supreme Court Justice
William J. Brennan, Jr. (ret.), and to Chief Judge Abner J. Mikva of
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He worked
in Congress from 1985 to 1988, for Sen. Charles E. Schumer (then a U.S.
Representative), and for the joint select committee on the Iran-Contra
Affair. He is on the Obama-Biden Transition Project
Advisory Board.
CONGRESSIONAL
RELATIONS
Director of
Congressional Relations
|
Phil
Schiliro |
Member
of the campaign's congressional liaison team, announced July
2008. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)'s long-time chief of staff and
also the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee's top
Democratic staff person since 1997. In 2004, he moved over to
the
Senate to work as policy director for Senate Minority Leader Tom
Daschle. Ran for Congress on Long Island in 1992 and 1994.
Started working for Rep.Waxman in 1982. Graduate of Lewis and
Clark Law School, 1981. Graduate of Hofstra University.
Native of Baldwin on Long Island, New York.
PUBLIC
LIAISON AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
Director of
Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs |
Michael
Strautmanis |
Member of the campaign's congressional liaison team.
Chief counsel and deputy chief of staff to Obama in his
Senate office. Lobbyist with the Association of Trial Lawyers of
America. Legislative director and counsel to then Rep. Rod
Blagojevich.
Chief of
staff to the General Counsel at the U.S. Agency for
International Development during the Clinton administration.
Practiced law. J.D. from the University of Illinois College of
Law, 1994.
RESEARCH
Deputy director of content on the
campaign. Previously worked as a research and
communications strategist at CNBC and as Vice President at IMS, Inc., a
research consulting firm. Jarvis-Shean studied at the University
of
Cape Town and was the fifth generation of her family to attend the
University of California, Berkeley, from which she graduated with a
degree in political science. Native of Sacramento, California.
OPERATIONS
Director of Operations |
Katy Kale
|
Comes to the transition from the office
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), where she served as administrative
director. Worked for Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) from 2001-07, first
as scheduler, then as office manager.
Director of Operations |
Brad Kiley
|
Vice president of finance and operations
at the Center for American Progress. Deputy assistant to the
President for management and administration at the White House under
President Clinton. Director of finance and administration for the
1996 Democratic National Convention. Graduate of Texas Christian
University.
NEW
MEDIA
New Media Director
|
Macon
Phillips
|
Deputy Director of New Media for the
campaign. As director of Blue State Digital's
Strategy Practice, Phillips developed online programs for clients such
as Sen. Ted Kennedy, the DNC and Wal-Mart Watch, including email
narrative development, outreach and promotion, online advertising
strategy, and website structure and content development. Prior to
joining Blue State, he developed information management networks for
various Vermont-based businesses. A.B. in sociology from Duke
University. Originally from Huntsville, Alabama.
Deputy New Media
Director
|
Cammie Croft
|
New media rapid response manager on
the campaign (oversaw efforts to integrate new
media and communications, including managing websites such as
FighttheSmears.com and UndertheRadar.com) Before joining the
campaign,
Croft built the tracking and media monitoring program at Progressive
Accountability, a rapid-response communications advocacy campaign that
provided video of Republican Presidential candidates for the mass
public. Croft also worked as the rapid response mobilization director
for Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, where she led their new media
efforts. B.A. in political science and communication from the
University of Washington in Seattle.
Transition
Economic Advisory Board
and on the other side of the equation
An executive
order signed by President George W. Bush on Oct. 9, 2008
established a Presidential Transition Coordinating Council. On
Nov. 8 White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and John Podesta, chair
of President-elect Obama's transition, signed a memorandum of
understanding outlining procedures between
the two teams.
White House
Chief of Staff
|
Josh Bolten
|
(sworn in on April 14, 2006) Director of the Office of
Management and Budget, sworn in on June 30, 2003, and earlier as Assistant to the President and
Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy at the White House, 2001-03. Policy director of the
Bush-Cheney presidential campaign, March 1999-Nov. 2000. Executive Director, Legal &
Government Affairs, for Goldman Sachs International in London,
1994-99. During the George H.W. Bush Administration, Bolten
served three years
as General Counsel to the US Trade Representative and one year in the
White House as Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative
Affairs. International
Trade Counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, 1985-89. Private practice with O'Melveny
& Myers, and worked in the legal office of the US State
Department. AB
from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs, 1976; J.D. from Stanford Law School, 1980.
Deputy Chief of Staff
for Operations
|
Blake L.
Gottesman |
(returned to the White House in
summer 2008) Gottesman began his career with a high school
internship in the Texas Governor's Office. He spent a year at
Claremont McKenna College, then joined the Bush for President campaign
in 1999 and continued on that for almost 18 months. Worked
five-and-a-half years at the White House through June 2006, serving as
Bush's personal aide. Left to go to Harvard Business School and
earned an M.B.A..
Special
Assistant to the President for Cabinet Liaison Ross Kyle
Departments
example: Department of Justice
with assistance from
General Services
Administration
Presidential
Transition Director
|
Gail
Lovelace |
"Gail T. Lovelace was named the federal
government's first Chief People Officer on September 11, 1998. In
2003, she was appointed to be GSA's Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO)
in accordance with the CHCO Act of 2002." Previously, Lovelace
served as GSA's director and deputy director of human resources.
Degrees from the University of Maryland and the University of
Louisville.
Copyright
© 2008 Eric M. Appleman/Democracy in Action |
|