As director of D.C.'s Planning Office, Tergoning devoted herself to revitalizing the city, with a focus on making it more bike- and pedestrian-friendly. Many residents found her efforts arrogant and high-handed. “The thing people sometimes forget about Harriet is, she's viewed as a hero in the smart-growth movement, but a lot of D.C. residents really didn't like her,” said a Post reporter. The Washingtonian called her “a street fighter who often finds herself between warring forces.”   read more

It was during the savings and loan crisis that Golding launched his career in mortgage finance with a job at the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. His ascension at FHA found him with limited authority to manage the agency. Republican lawmakers, led by Sen. Charles Grassley, criticized the Obama Administration for circumventing the Senate in appointing Golding to the FHA post. HUD officials denied there was any such intent. Industry trade groups, however, largely supported the choice.   read more

After having been in the Coast Guard only three years, Zukunft commanded a 95-foot boat, the Cape Upright, as the Mariel boatlift was going on. Zukunft and his crew took 200 people off a leaky 60-foot boat making its way to Florida. During his career, Zukunft was Chief of Operations for the Coast Guard Pacific Area and Chief of Operations Oversight for the Coast Guard Atlantic Area. In 2010, he was made federal on-scene coordinator of the BP oil spill cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico.   read more

Kelly’s appointment drew approval from Democrats as well as Republicans. But some civil libertarians are concerned about some stances Kelly has taken. He has been reluctant to support the idea of opening all military jobs to women. And he was critical of President Obama’s efforts to close the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, saying that human rights concerns about the prisoners in Guantánamo were “foolishness.” Like his new boss, Donald Trump, Kelly has railed against the media.   read more

At Booz Allen Hamilton, Durkovich worked on pandemic flu continuity of operations plan for FEMA and security for the IRS. In 2011, she was chief of staff in DHS's National Protection and Programs Directorate. As director of OIP, Durkovich is in charge of tasks such as teaching schoolchildren how to survive a mass shooting and stopping ISIS attempts to hack the U.S. power grid. She also testified to Congress on the mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, in which 12 people were killed.   read more

In 2005, Enomoto worked on mental health issues related to Hurricane Katrina. That year she was made the principal senior adviser to the SAMHSA administrator, a job she held through 2009. She was named deputy assistant secretary and principal adviser to the assistant secretary in August 2011, duties she performed until taking over SAMHSA. Since her appointment, Enomoto has prioritized spreading information to help slow overdoses of opioid drugs and worked to cut the suicide rate.   read more

In 2007, Smith joined Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. After Obama won the presidency, Smith was named to the Dept of Justice transition team, then nominated as Assistant Attorney General in charge of tax issues. However, Senate Republicans blocked her appointment. She worked as a counselor in the Justice Department’s civil division until 2011, when her nomination was turned down. Smith returned to the Obama administration in 2015, this time to the Indian Health Service.   read more

Arias’ field of expertise is violence among intimate partners and family. She moved to CDC in 2000 and was chief of the Etiology and Surveillance Branch in National Center for Injury Prevention and Control’s Division of Violence Prevention. By 2004 she was acting director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and was named director the following year.   read more

Trump, who has put several of his businesses into bankruptcy, nominated the so-called “King of Bankruptcy,” Wilbur Ross, to be his Commerce Secretary. Ross is currently on the board of directors of 59 different companies, including ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel firm. ArcelorMittal could be a beneficiary of Ross’ decisions as Commerce secretary. “He might be the second-most complicated person in the administration to vet, behind the President-elect himself,” said ethics lawyer Eisen.   read more

Much of Pauling’s tenure with the Department of Energy includes 11 years working on the cleanup of the Weldon Springs weapons manufacturing site near St. Louis. A World War II munitions factory was on the site and later the DOE processed uranium ore there. A quarry was filled with contaminants including uranium. Pauling worked on the cleanup from the early 1990s to 2004. The site is now a tourist attraction.   read more

In 1992, Moury joined the DNFSB as a group lead and served in senior leadership positions for nearly two decades. In 2011 he was appointed as a deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Environmental Management. In 2014, Moury gave the Energy Dept’s response to the firing by a contractor of whistleblower Donna Busche, who reported on unsafe cleanup practices at the Hanford nuclear facility. Moury said the department had nothing to do with the dismissal of Busche by her employer, URS.   read more

Friedman was grilled in 2014 by a Senate committee on the GM problem. Sen. McCaskill pointed out that consumers had complained about the failing ignition switches and a Wisconsin state trooper had warned NHTSA about them. “Why can't you take responsibility?” McCaskill asked Friedman. “You have got to take some responsibility that this isn't being handled correctly for the American driving public.” Friedman was moved to EERE as principal deputy administrator, a better fit for his skillset.   read more

A native of the Netherlands, Uvin worked for Commonwealth Corp. in 2000, as a workplace learning specialist and, a year later,as a vice president. There, he conducted studies on how those in workforce development programs fared on the job. For the state of Rhode Island, Uvin worked as director of adult education, then as director of the Office of Adult, Career and Technical Education. He joined the Dept of Education in 2009 as a senior policy adviser to Asst Secretary Brenda Dann-Messier.   read more

Some of Curran Neild’s work involved the link between students’ success in ninth grade and their likelihood of graduating from high school. She joined the IES in 2011 as associate commissioner and in 2012 was named commissioner of the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. In 2015, she was named deputy director for policy and research. In January 2017, Curran Neild announced she was leaving the Education Dept for the nonprofit Research for Action.   read more

Dabby had to defend the Education Dept’s record $32.5-million grant of charter school funding to Ohio. Investigations have shown that Ohio’s program is one of the most troubled in the country. “Ohio has a pretty good mechanism in place to improve overall quality and oversight,” Dabby said without providing details. “There’s always room for them to grow,” she added. Later that year, the Education Dept put a hold on the funding, saying it hadn’t been aware of all the program's problems.   read more

The early part of Mahaffie’s career was spent working in a Washington, D.C., law firm. She joined the Education Department in 2002. Mahaffie has been forced to defend her office’s role in overseeing the accreditation of some failing institutions, such as for-profit colleges that have gone bankrupt. She also helped roll out an expansion of the Clery Act, which mandates that crimes related to sexual assault be reported by institutions of higher education that receive federal funding.   read more