President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts, 7/9/10

WASHINGTON – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent
to nominate the following individuals to key administration posts:

Pamela E. Bridgewater, Ambassador to Jamaica, Department of State
Jack Buckley, Commissioner of Education Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, Department of Education
Robert P. Mikulak, for the rank of Ambassador
during his tenure as United States Representative to the Organization
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Department of State
Phyllis M. Powers, Ambassador to the Republic of Panama, Department of State

President Obama said, “The American people will be
well served by these outstanding men and women. I am grateful they have
chosen to lend their talents to this administration, and I look forward
to working with them in the months and years ahead.”

President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key administration posts:

Pamela E. Bridgewater, Nominee for Ambassador to Jamaica, Department of State
Pamela E. Bridgewater is a career member of the Foreign Service with the
rank of Minister. She has served since 2008 as a Senior Inspector in
the Office of Inspector General. She has also served as Ambassador to
Benin and Ghana. Ambassador Bridgewater was Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Africa in 2002; she was appointed the State Department’s Special
Coordinator for Peace in Liberia, and later headed the U.S. delegation
to the Liberian Peace Talks. Overseas postings were in Belgium, Jamaica,
South Africa and the Bahamas, where she was Deputy Chief of Mission. In
Washington, she served in the Bureaus of European Affairs, Human
Resources, Oceans and Environmental Affairs, Intelligence and Research.
Ms. Bridgewater received a B.A. with honors from Virginia State
University and a Master of Arts from the University of Cincinnati.

Jack Buckley, Nominee for Commissioner of Education
Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, Department of
Education
Jack Buckley is an Associate Professor of Applied Statistics at the
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New
York University. Previously, he served as the Deputy Commissioner of
the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the federal entity
responsible for collecting and analyzing education data. He has also
taught statistics and education policy as an adjunct assistant professor
at Georgetown University, as an assistant professor at Boston College,
and as an instructor in Political Science at the State University of New
York (SUNY) at Stony Brook. Additionally, he is an affiliated
researcher with the National Center for the Study of Privatization of
Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Mr. Buckley served
in the Navy as a surface warfare officer and a nuclear reactor
engineer. He holds doctorate and master’s degrees in political science
with an emphasis on public policy and statistical methodology from SUNY
at Stony Brook. Mr. Buckley earned his bachelor’s degree in government
from Harvard.

Robert P. Mikulak, Nominee for the rank of Ambassador during
his tenure as United States Representative to the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Department of State
Robert P. Mikulak is a career member of the Senior Executive Service.
He has served as Director of the Office of Chemical and Biological
Weapons Threat Reduction in the Bureau of International Security and
Nonproliferation at the Department of State since 1996. Dr. Mikulak is
also the United States Representative to the Executive Council of the
OPCW. He served between 1993 and 1996 as the Deputy Head of the U. S.
Delegation to the Chemical Weapons Convention Preparatory Commission in
The Hague. During the negotiation of the 1989 and 1990 U.S.-Soviet
agreements on chemical weapons and the multilateral 1992 Chemical
Weapons Convention, he served as a Senior U.S. Representative. Dr.
Mikulak received his B.S. from Hamline University in St. Paul,
Minnesota, and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.

Phyllis M. Powers, Nominee for Ambassador to the Republic of Panama, Department of State
Phyllis M. Powers is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with
the rank of Minister-Counselor. She served most recently at the U.S.
Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, as Director of the Office of Provincial
Affairs. Prior to that assignment, Ms. Powers was Deputy Chief of
Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Peru. Ms. Powers also served
consecutively as the Director of the Narcotics Affairs Section
responsible for the Counter-Narcotics program and as the Management
Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Colombia. Other postings have been in
Washington as Senior Post Management Officer for the Bureau of Near East
Asia and South Asia and Deputy Director of the Office of Travel Support
in the Bureau of Administration. Ms. Powers’ career also includes
tours in Jordan, Russia, Poland and Colombia. Ms. Powers graduated from
Pennsylvania State University with a B.S. in Biology.