Press Release - President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key administration posts: David H. Stevens, Assistant Secretary for Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner, Department of Housing and Urban Development; Harold Hongju Koh, Legal Adviser, State Department; and Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, Director of Indian Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services.

President Obama also announced that he has designated Judge Emily C. Hewitt to be the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

President Obama said, "The expertise that these talented individuals bring to their respective roles gives me confidence that they will be effective advocates for the American people in meeting the many challenges our nation faces."

President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals today:

David H. Stevens, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner, Department of Housing and Urban Development

David H. Stevens is President and Chief Operating Officer of the Long & Foster Companies which includes Long & Foster Real Estate and its Affiliated Businesses including Mortgage, Title, Insurance, and Home Service Connections. Stevens joined the Long & Foster Companies in July 2006 as President of Affiliated Businesses. Prior to this, he served as Executive Vice President, National Wholesale Manager responsible for all sales, operations, and finance for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage's wholesale channel. Before his work at Wells Fargo, Stevens was Senior Vice President of the Single family business at Freddie Mac where he was responsible for sales, marketing, affordable lending, and product development for the firm. He began his career at World Savings bank, where after 16 years; he was promoted to Group Senior Vice President, National Sales Manager for the mortgage division. Stevens was the founding Executive sponsor of the Woman's Mortgage Industry Network, and coordinated the first Latino initiative joint venture with Freddie Mac and Latino mortgage industry leaders. Stevens is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Harold Hongju Koh, Nominee for Legal Adviser, State Department

Harold Hongju Koh, Dean and Gerard C. & Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, is one of the country's leading experts on public and private international law, national security law, and human rights. From 1998 to 2001, Koh served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. He previously served on the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Public International Law. A Marshall Scholar, Koh graduated from Harvard, Oxford, and Harvard Law School, and has received eleven honorary degrees and more than thirty awards for his human rights work, including awards from Columbia Law School and the American Bar Association for his lifetime achievements in International law. Following clerkships with Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, he served as Attorney-Adviser at the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice and practiced law at Covington & Burling. As a Yale law professor since 1985, Koh has taught courses, authored or co-authored eight books, published more than 170 articles, testified before Congress, and litigated numerous cases involving international law issues. A Fellow of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council of the American Law Institute, he has served on the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law and as a Counselor of the American Society of International Law. He has sat on the boards of Harvard University, the Brookings Institution, Human Rights First, the American Arbitration Association, and the National Democratic Institute. He has been named one of America's "45 Leading Public Sector Lawyers Under The Age of 45" by American Lawyer magazine and one of the "100 Most Influential Asian-Americans of the 1990s" by A Magazine.

Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, Director of Indian Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services

Dr. Yvette Roubideaux is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family & Community Medicine at The University of Arizona College of Medicine. She has conducted extensive research on American Indian health issues, with a focus on diabetes in American Indians/Alaska Natives and American Indian health policy. Roubideaux previously worked in the Indian Health Service as a Medical Officer and Clinical Director on the San Carlos Indian Reservation and in the Gila River Indian Community. Roubideaux, 46, is a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe. She received her MD from Harvard Medical School and her MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed the Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston, MA. She also completed the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy in 1997. Roubideaux is the Co-Director of the Coordinating Center for the Special Diabetes Program for Indians Competitive Demonstration Projects, a program implementing diabetes prevention and cardiovascular disease prevention activities in 66 American Indian and Alaska Native communities. She also serves as Director of two programs, the UA/ITCA Indians Into Medicine (INMED) Program and the Student Development Core of the ITCA/UA American Indian Research Center for Health, that focus on recruiting American Indian and Alaska Native students into health and research professions. Roubideaux was appointed to the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary's Advisory Committee on Minority Health from 2000 – 2002. From 1999-2000, she served as President of the Association of American Indian Physicians. Roubideaux has received numerous awards including the American Diabetes Association's 2008 Addison B. Scoville Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service and the 2004 Indian Physician of the Year Award from the Association of American Indian Physicians. She is co-editor of the APHA book entitled Promises to Keep: Public Health Policy for American Indians and Alaska Natives in the 21st Century. She has authored several monographs and peer-reviewed publications on American Indian/Alaska Native health issues, research and policy.

President Obama also made the following announcement today:

Judge Emily C. Hewitt, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims

Judge Hewitt has served on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims since her confirmation by the Senate in 1998. At the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Judge Hewitt has handled cases in all areas of the Court's jurisdiction, chaired the court's Rules and Building and Space Committees and served on its Management Committee. In 2006, she was appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States to serve on the Financial Disclosure Committee of the United States Judicial Conference. Prior to her appointment to the Court of Claims, Judge Hewitt was appointed general counsel to the General Services Administration during the Clinton Administration. Judge Hewitt, born May 26, 1944, in Baltimore, is a graduate of Cornell University (A.B. 1966), Union Theological Seminary (M. Phil 1975) and Harvard Law School (J.D. 1978). Before entering government service, Judge Hewitt practiced from 1978 to 1993 with the Boston law firm Hill & Barlow, where she chaired the firm's real estate department from 1987-1993. A leader of the effort to open Episcopal ordination to women, Judge Hewitt was one of the first eleven women ordained to the Episcopal priesthood on July 29, 1974.