Obama names techies to transition squad
Not all bankers and lawyers
Posted in Government, 14th November 2008 15:50 GMT
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President-elect Barack Obama has named his agency review team, which checks on the work of individual government departments and offers strategic advice before Obama is sworn in at the end of January.
Among the usual academics, policy wonks and lawyers there are some representatives from the IT industry.
Don Gips is one of three people overseeing the whole process. He is on leave from communications firm Level 3, where he was responsible for mergers and acquisitions. He has also worked at the Federal Communications Commission covering spectrum policy.
Reed Hundt is looking at US international trade and economics for Obama. He was Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission between 1993 and 1997, when it ran its first spectrum auctions. Hundt is on the board of Intel and also advises McKinsey on tech matters.
Louisa Terrell is a Working Group member and is on leave from Yahoo!, where she is a senior director of public policy in Washington.
Tom Wheeler, also on the Working Group, is on leave of absence from Core Capital Partners, where he is managing director. CCP specialises in buying into early stage technology companies. Recent investments include BridgeWave, GoMobo and V.i.Labs.
Still no word on who is likely to get the "America's CTO" job...so there's hope for Ted Dziuba.
Obama has also outlined new rules for federal lobbyists - they cannot make financial contributions to the transition team or lobby while working on the transition.
None of the team can work in areas which they have lobbied for in the last year, and all transition members are banned from lobbying in related areas for a year after their work finishes. Team members are also forbidden from receiving gifts. ®
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