Francisco represented R.J. Reynolds Tobacco in its successful First Amendment challenge to a federal regulation requiring cigarette manufacturers to display graphic warning images on cigarette packages. Francisco also won the appeal of former Republican Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia, who’d been convicted of taking bribes. He recently found himself in the midst of a prominent case as acting solicitor general when he had to argue that Trump’s travel ban should be implemented.   read more

Yang began her government service as a trial attorney in Dept of Justice Civil Rights Division. At the law firm of Cohen Milstein, she represented plaintiffs, mainly workers, in civil rights class actions and wage collective actions. Her prominent cases included Dukes v. Wal-Mart, the largest sex-discrimination class-action suit in history, in which she represented a class of 1.6 million women against Wal-Mart. The case went to the Supreme Court before being dismissed on technical grounds.   read more

Miscik oversaw the team of CIA analysts that produced the August 2001, report, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.,” which was infamously ignored by the Bush administration five weeks prior to the 9/11 attacks. She was one of the CIA officials who rejected the linking of Saddam Hussein with al-Qaeda as one of the reasons for invading Iraq. Mascik threatened to resign from the agency two months before the invasion, in response to pressure from VP Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby.   read more

In 1989, Eberhard began a stint working for Sen. John McCain as general counsel and staffer on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. He was first named to the Udall board of trustees in 2000 and was subsequently reappointed by Democratic and Republican presidents. He later led its Committee on the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona, which provides tribal decision makers with professional training.   read more

Hill worked for 3½ years in Japan as an English teacher in the Gifu prefecture schools. He later wrote that, “My interest in Japan grew after my freshman year at university in 1981 after I read a book called Japan as Number One. Around the same time, I started practicing a Japanese martial art called Shorinji Kempo, which increased my interest in Japan.” Hill returned to New York briefly to work for Yamaichi Securities on Wall Street, but by 1990 was back in Japan as an entrepreneur.   read more

In 2009, President Obama nominated Wolin as deputy secretary of the Treasury, which prompted objections from both the left and the right. The left objected to Wolin’s role in drafting the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act and played an important role in causing the economic collapse of 2008. The right was suspicious of Wolin because he was a major player for Hartford Insurance, which was now requesting bailout funds from the Dept of Treasury.   read more

Kaplan joined the World Bank to work on educational and environmental projects. He led a $250 million grant program, Pilot Project to Conserve the Brazilian Rain Forest. In 1994, Kaplan joined the Inter-American Development Bank. He became chief of its Environment and Natural Resource Management Division for Mexico, Central America, the Dominican Republic and Haiti in 1998 and in 2007 was named chief adviser to the executive vice president. He remained there until joining the IAF.   read more

In 2013, Doherty was promoted to regional coordinator team leader, and a year later he was made director of national initiatives, a post he held until tapped to lead the ICH. In his tenure there, Doherty helped implement Opening Doors, an Obama administration program to end homelessness and focus on certain communities within that group. In cities including Houston, New Orleans, Salt Lake City and Phoenix, the program saw success in cutting homelessness among veterans to zero.   read more

Jackson's work at Bell Labs was credited with the development of fiber optics, caller ID and call waiting for phones. In 1995, President Clinton appointed her to head the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and she became the 18th president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She was the first female and first African-American to serve in those positions. In 2016, President Obama awarded her the National Medal of Science, the nation's highest honor for contributions in science and engineering.   read more

Goldfuss joined the Obama administration in 2013, first as deputy director for Congressional and external affairs for the National Park Service. While there, she championed a policy to give fourth-graders yearly passes to national parks. At CEQ, Goldfuss worked on the implementation of Obama’s climate action plan and served as co-chair of the National Ocean Council. Four days before he left office, Obama appointed her to the National Infrastructure Advisory Council at Homeland Security.   read more

Rogers got her foot in the door at the White House in 2009 when President Obama appointed her to be chair of the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She recommended changes in the Affordable Care Act to allow more religious exemptions from its contraception mandate. The language was changed to require that contraception be covered by insurance, but paid for by the insurer. Obama appointed Rogers to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council four days before he left office.   read more

Jeppson’s 28 years of Marine Corp service included stints as counter-terrorism planner and chief of current operations for Marine Forces Europe from 2001 to 2003; chief of joint national training capability and European engagements lead at the U.S. Special Operations Command from 2004 to 2008; deputy director of operations for U.S. Forces Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010; and lead crisis response planner at U.S. European Command from 2010 to 2012.   read more

With the rollout of the Obama administration in January 2009, Phillips was appointed director of the newly established Office of Digital Strategy. Among his accomplishments was his development of “We the People,” the White House’s online petitioning system, which served as a platform for 400,000 citizen-petitions signed by more than 16 million users. But Phillips was soon embroiled in controversy over a blog posting on the site related to the debate over Obama’s new health care law.   read more

As the VA's director of compensation services, in charge of the VA’s disability and death compensation programs, Murphy often was called to testify before Congress about the agency’s huge backlog of claims by veterans. Murphy did tout a newly installed computer system designed to handle claims more efficiently, but continued to take heat from Congress. He was also sometimes criticized for denying benefits to veterans claiming damage to their health because of exposure to Agent Orange.   read more

Moy was deputy executive secretary for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and has held posts in the U.S. embassies in Beijing, China, and in Seoul and Busan, South Korea. He was a key proponent of President Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” policy and was involved in Taiwan’s bid to join the TPP trade agreement championed by Obama. His wife, former Wall Street Journal reporter Kathy Chen, was one of the journalists who won a Pulitzer Prize for articles on the U.S. military.   read more

Walters stepped in as NCA's acting chief when Steve Muro retired under a cloud. Since becoming boss at NCA, Walters helped oversee the expansion of the national cemetery system, getting the threshold for new sites cut from 175,000 veterans within a 75-mile radius to 80,000 within that area. He also approved the first monument at a national cemetery for LGBT veterans and in 2016 implemented a policy prohibiting the flying of the Confederate flag at permanent flagpoles in national cemeteries.   read more