Hartogensis is a wealthy private investor who has no experience in government or pension fund management. However, he's well-connected, in a nepotistic way. He's married to Grace Chao, a sister of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. This makes Hartogensis a brother-in-law of both Chao and McConnell. Consequently, the nomination has raised serious ethical questions.   read more

Stump was Trump's second choice for the post because his first choice, Tim Kelly, was forced to withdraw after several bigoted blog posts written by Kelly became public knowledge. In 2014-2015, Stump was president of the National Association of State Directors of Career and Technical Education Consortium, now known as Advance CTE. In January 2015, Stump left public service to become chief operating officer at Vivayic, whose co-founders had long considered Stump a mentor.   read more

In 2010, Wilkie was named vice president and business development director for large Department of Defense program integration opportunities at design and construction consulting firm CH2M Hill. He returned to Capitol Hill in 2015 as an adviser to Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina). Wilkie worked on the Donald Trump transition team before being nominated in 2017 to be under secretary at Defense. Wilkie has also served as an intelligence officer in the Naval Reserve and the Air Force Reserve.   read more

A career Foreign Service officer, Berry became, in 2015, the State Department’s first special envoy for human rights of LGBTI persons. He remained in the post for a time after Trump’s inauguration, despite disapproval from some in the conservative community. Just before Trump took office, Berry was named deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. His first assignment in Nepal came in 2007, when he was named deputy chief of mission there.   read more

Sutherland did not give a reason for her departure. However, the Trump administration has twice attempted to zero out the board’s funding in annual budget requests, which is particularly alarming considering that the CSB does not engage in regulatory or enforcement activities. It only conducts safety investigations. For example, in April 2018, Sutherland released a report pointing out that a deadly 2017 explosion at a Louisiana paper mill might have been prevented by tougher regulations.   read more

In 2009, Bright became a large bank financial analyst for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The following year he moved to the staff of Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) as financial policy adviser. There, he helped write the Corker-Warner Bill, which would have eliminated federal mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in favor of a new entity and shift more risk to the private sector. The bill did not make it through the Senate.   read more

Masso’s withdrawal of his nomination remains a mystery. He never received a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and neither the White House, State Dept, nor committee leaders would provide an explanation. However, Estonian officials made clear their concern that the Trump administration was “downgrading” their nation by replacing the current U.S. ambassador, a career diplomat, with Masso, who was a political appointee and acquaintance of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon.   read more

President Trump's political appointments tend to be military generals or billionaires. In Feinberg, Trump has a billionaire who likes to play soldier. Feinberg has trained in marksmanship with ex-military snipers and set up a private “military base” outside Memphis. His company, Cerberus, owns DynCorp, a defense contractor that charges billions of dollars for overseas military training. DynCorp reportedly was urged to submit proposals to the Trump White House to field a private military force.   read more

Nagy was a refugee from Hungary as a child, but grew up to be a career U.S. Foreign Service officer who spent his entire career working in Africa or on African issues. In 1987, he began a string of assignments as deputy chief of mission, serving first in Togo, then Cameroon and Nigeria. Nagy was first appointed an ambassador, to Guinea, in 1996, then returned to Ethiopia as ambassador in Addis Ababa. Nagy worked to improve living conditions for Foreign Service officers and their families.   read more

Brashears received more than $20 million in research grants over her career. Many came from government agencies, but a significant portion came from entities such as the Texas Beef Council and the American Meat Industry Foundation. Brashears will be regulating the industry that supported her academic career. She holds at least 17 patents, some for food decontamination processes. Unless she gives up the patents, she could benefit financially from those her agency is supposed to regulate.   read more

As an attorney, Ring represented the American Trucking Associations, Marriott International and ocean shipping firms. His biography boasts of his “extensive dealings with reduction-in-force issues,” that is, layoffs. In his confirmation hearing, Sen. Patty Murray said Ring worked to hurt employees on behalf of his clients. “The last thing our nation’s labor board needs is another champion for those at the top,” she told him. “You’ve encouraged the board to undermine long-established rights.”   read more

Lowry served as general manager of Powertrain Operations at Harley-Davidson Motor Company in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, from 2001 to 2013. He left the company to become chief operating officer at REV Recreation Group, a manufacturer of recreational vehicles and motor homes in Decatur, Indiana, from 2013 to 2015. Since 2016, Lowry has been a consultant at Egon Zehnder, a corporate leadership advisory firm, in Chicago, where he heads the firm’s U.S. Supply Chain Practice.   read more

In 2013, King became global director for environmental safety and risk for GE Capital. In 2017, she was appointed deputy administrator of the NHTSA, effectively running the organization since it had no administrator. While in that role, King advocated for reducing fuel mileage targets put into place during the Obama administration. She has also had to defend the agency’s handling of the Takata air bag recall, which involves more than 3 million vehicles and at least 22 deaths.   read more

Nakasone rose in the Army, serving as a company commander in South Korea, and working at the Pentagon at the time of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Beginning in 2007, he was in charge of the Fort Meade (Maryland) Operations Center, where he deployed NSA personnel to Iraq and Afghanistan. During that time, he was also among a small group of officers to conceive the first cyber warfare command in the U.S. military, and served as executive assistant to the commander at the U.S. Cyber Command.   read more

Saul joined the board of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority in 1997. In 2003, he was chairman of the MTA audit committee when state and city comptrollers accused MTA of keeping two sets of books. In 2007, Saul entered the race for Congress from his home district in New York, and his deep pockets made the candidacy popular with the GOP. However, Saul dropped out of the race in 2007 days after The New York Times reported that two of his campaign donors were bidding to build on MTA property.   read more

Pallasch joined the Dept of Labor in 2001, as a special assistant directing the closure of department offices across the country. In 2007, he was named a deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Pallasch even served as acting head of the MSHA for three days in 2008 after the appointment of acting director Richard Stickler expired. In 2009, Pallasch took a post as a special assistant in the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.   read more