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Name: Small, Douglas
Current Position: Previous Acting Agency Head
Douglas F. Small led the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) from January 2009 until June 2009. A University of Idaho graduate, he also completed work as a Senior Executive Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Department of Labor’s Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program, as well as coursework at the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Small began his professional career as a school teacher and held various positions in the Job Corps. From 1984 through 1999, he owned and operated a consulting business providing organizational development and human resources consultation and management as well as supervisory training courses to private companies and numerous federal agencies, including the Department of Labor.
In 1989, he worked with the US Agency for International Development’s Office of International Training to develop a program on Cost Analysis for Training Officers and Foreign Service Nationals, traveling to 17 foreign countries over a two-year period. Small re-entered federal service in 1999, when he was selected to manage the Division of National Program Development for the National Office of Job Corps.
Small served as ETA’s Northeast Regional Administrator in Boston before becoming administrator of ETA’s Office of National Response in July 2005. There, he headed the department’s response to major economic dislocations due to mass layoffs, plant closures and disasters. During his tenure, Small reorganized the Office of National Response and coordinated the reengineering of the National Emergency Grant and Trade divisions.
He served as deputy assistant secretary from 2006 -2009. He is currently ETA's Chief Learning Officer.