 | |
| |
TechnologyDaily Mobile
Bush May Choose Muris To Head FTC
Timothy Muris is expected to be nominated "any day now" to be chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, according to people familiar with the nomination process. Muris currently is a professor at George Mason University Law School and is close to Wendy Gramm, the head of the FTC transition team for President Bush and the wife of Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas.
Muris was a domestic policy adviser to Bush during his campaign and has publicly criticized the FTC's regulatory pursuits into business practices at Intel and Toys R Us. There currently are no openings on the FTC, but current Chairman Robert Pitofsky's term expires this September, and he could retire earlier to create a slot for Muris. The FTC press office declined to comment.
Elsewhere on the nomination front, supporters of former Rep. James Rogan, R-Calif., have contacted the Bush administration to urge that Rogan be appointed director of the Patent and Trademark Office, according to news reports. Rogan currently plans to become a partner in a Washington law firm but has not ruled out accepting a federal appointment.
Other potential candidates to head the patent office include Roger May, the former chief patent counsel for Ford Motor, and Terry Anderson, a senior attorney at Northrop Grumman, according to industry sources.
Bush, meanwhile, has nominated Kenneth Dam to be deputy treasury secretary. Dam presently is a professor of American and foreign law at the University of Chicago Law School. Previously, Dam served as corporate vice president for law and external affairs at IBM and was a deputy secretary of state from 1982 to 1985.
And at the White House, Peter Allgeier has been appointed special assistant to the president and senior director for international economic affairs at the National Security Council. Allgeier has been at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) since 1989. Torkel Patterson also has been named the special assistant to the president and senior director for Asian affairs at the NSC.
Bush Appointees Make Key Assignments
Bush's appointees also have been busy naming their top aides, including those at USTR and the Federal Communications Commission.
M.B. Oglesby reportedly will be named chief of staff to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, according to the trade publication Inside U.S. Trade. Oglesby, who served in the Reagan administration, already works at USTR.
At the FCC, Chairman Michael Powell has appointed Mary Beth Richards as the special counsel responsible for an FCC reform project. Richards was chief of the Common Carrier Bureau.
And Richard Russell, a former deputy chief of staff at the House Science Committee, has joined the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as acting chief of staff, according to industry and White House sources. Bush has yet to nominate someone to head OSTP.
Some press jobs at federal agencies also have been filled. Susan Dryden is the Justice Department's new deputy director of public affairs, after spending the past year-and-a-half as press secretary to former Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla. In her new post, Dryden is managing 17 staffers and is fielding 30 to 50 calls a day on pardons, just one of the many issues on her plate.
Robert Nichols, meanwhile, is leaving his job as communications director at the Electronic Industries Alliance to become Treasury's deputy assistant secretary for public affairs.
Farewell To The Hill
A handful of congressional staffers have bid farewell to Hill work, including Jeanne Lopatto, who has worked for Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, for the past 18 years and most recently as press secretary for the Senate Judiciary Committee. Lopatto has left her job to become public relations director at the Energy Department.
Chris Scheve, a former policy assistant to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., has joined Accenture's government relations firm where he will be working immigration, trade and other matters. Scheve worked on similar issues when he worked for Hastert. And J. Bradley Jansen, formerly the legislative director to Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has joined the Center for Technology Policy at the Free Congress Foundation.
Elsewhere, Paul Brubaker, who left the Hill several years ago to become the deputy chief information officer for the Defense Department, will leave post in two weeks to head global e-government services for Commerce One. Brubaker worked on Capitol Hill from 1991 to 1996 for then-Sen. William Cohen, R-Maine, who was a defense secretary under President Clinton.
Greg Mastel, meanwhile, will be making the daily trek to the Hill for his new job as chief trade counsel and chief economist to the Senate Finance Committee. Timothy Punke, who worked for Clinton's National Economic Council, also will become a trade counsel to the committee.
Meissner Returns To Familiar Ground
Doris Meissner, who was Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner from 1993 until last year, has rejoined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a senior associate with the global policy program. She was at the Carnegie Endowment between 1986 and 1993.
New Job, Same Focus
The Privacy Council has named Steven Lucas as chief privacy officer. Lucas brings 18 years of experience in the information technology and security industry. He is a specialist in privacy law, e-commerce, public policy, computer security, database marketing and database technology. Lucas is a member of the TRUSTe board of directors and vice chairman of the U.S. Internet Industry Association.
On The Legal Front
David Medine, the associate director for financial practices in the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection, is leaving to join the law firm Hogan and Hartson. While at the FTC, Medine was one of the lawyers leading the agency's battles over online privacy regulations. He will have good company at Hogan and Hartson, where Christine Varney, an adviser to the Online Privacy Alliance, is head of the firm's Internet practice group.
Another lawyer, Charles Work, has been named general counsel to the Intellectual Property Owners Association. Work remains a partner in the Washington office of McDermott, Will and Emery, and the head of its regulation and government affairs department.
High-Tech Senator, Low-Tech Office
Stuck in temporary offices for the past few months, the new chairman of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force, Virginian George Allen, has yet to create a Web site for his office. "We'll get it up soon," said Allen's spokesman, Matt Raymond. Allen is supposed to move into his permanent office this week, according to staff.
The Best In Computers and Teaching
Steve Wozniak, one of the co-founders of Apple Computer and the inventor of the first personal computer, the Apple I, was honored with a Heinz Award this week. The award was created by Teresa Heinz, widow of former Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa.
President Bush, meanwhile, announced the names of 203 educators who this week will receive annual presidential awards for excellence in math and science teaching. The award was established in 1983 and provides each winner with $7,500 for his or her school.
The High-Tech Slalom
Senate Democrats and high-tech executives gathered last weekend in Beaver Creek, Colo., to ski and discuss the new economy. The "High-Tech Council Winter Conference," sponsored by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), addressed policy issues such as education, job training, privacy, Internet security, intellectual property, wireless services and taxes.
According to the agenda, the list of tech participants included: Flatiron Partners co-founder Jerry Colonna; Digital Club Network founder Andrew Rasiej; Teligent Senior Vice President and General Counsel Larry Harris; Microsoft network security executive Howard Schmidt; ClickRadio Chairman Hank Williams; Stargazer Group founder Art Bushkin; Echostar CEO Charles Ergen; Mayfield Fund General Partner Michael Levinthal; and VerticalNet Chairman Mark Walsh.
Senators who were scheduled to attend included: Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D.; DSCC Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash.; Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.; Evan Bayh, D-Ind.; John Kerry, D-Mass.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; and Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
The DSCC's High-Tech Council was created in 2000 and helped the committee raise more than $5 million in the last election cycle.
 | - by Bara Vaida |
NEW FEATURE
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
