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Speakers: Best Practices in Regulatory Development Conference

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Mary Belliveau
Executive Director, Better Regulation Inivitative, Nova Scotia

As Executive Director, Better Regulation, Mary is currently leading Nova Scotia’s regulatory reform initiative.  Her work in this area began in the summer of 2006.

Throughout her career, Mary has had the opportunity to sample a range of career choices and to further her education over her extensive career inside and outside of the public service, working in several different provinces in various capacities. 

Mary began her post secondary education at Ryerson in Toronto where she acquired a diploma in environmental health.  She supplemented this background with various business courses and then completed her Masters in Public Administration at Dalhousie University in 2002.
 
Mary’s background consists of a variety of work experiences.   These experiences include technical work in a regulatory environment; management in a not-for-profit agency; policy work in environment, consumer protection and residential tenancies; and project management in alternative service delivery.

In early 2003, Mary was appointed the Director of Labour Standards with Environment and Labour.  At Labour Standards, she led the division and program through a significant renewal initiative, resulting in improved complaints resolution, better communication with employers, and responsive service to clients.

As Executive Director of the new and challenging Better regulation Initiative, Mary is able to apply her broad understanding of government and her project management skills to ensure the Better Regulation Initiative has a solid foundation and is on the radar for front line staff, program owners,  policy and decision makers in government, and small business in Nova Scotia. 

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Edith Blackwell
Deputy Associate Solicitor, Division of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI)

Edith Blackwell is the Deputy Associate Solicitor for the Division of Indian Affairs in the Solicitor’s Office at DOI.  She has held this position since 1999.  The Division of Indian Affairs has a staff of approximately 40 attorneys who provide legal advice regarding all aspects of Federal Indian law to Department of Interior officials.  Her primary duty is to manage the staff and issues in the Division of Indian Affairs.  Prior to being appointed to the position of Deputy Associate Solicitor, Ms. Blackwell was a staff attorney in the Division handling the Cobell v. Babbitt litigation, as well as providing legal advice on the Indian Self-Determination Act.   Ms. Blackwell’s expertise in Indian law includes the Indian Self-Determination Act, the contours of the Department’s trust responsibility, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, Indian education, and promulgating regulations pursuant to the Negotiated Rulemaking Act.

Ms. Blackwell has been involved in four negotiated rulemakings.  In 1996, while working for the Indian Health Service, she was involved in the joint HHS/DOI negotiated rulemaking for the Self-Determination Act contracting (Title I) regulations.   This was one of the first Congressionally mandated rulemakings.  She also participated in DOI’s Title IV Self-Governance negotiated rulemaking.  She also provided assistance to the committee members negotiating the BIA Roads Rule.  Finally, she was a committee member for the recently completed No Child Left Behind negotiated rulemaking. 

Prior to coming to DOI in 1997, Ms. Blackwell spent approximately six years in the Office of General Counsel as an attorney representing the Indian Health Service, a component of the Department of Health and Human Services.  In this position, she specialized in the Indian Self-Determination Act.  Prior to her work at the Department of Health and Human Services, Ms. Blackwell worked as a litigating attorney in a small law firm in Maryland and served as a law clerk in D.C. Superior Court. 

She earned her JD, cum laude, in 1988 from the Washington College of Law at American University, and her BA cum laude, in 1984 from the University of Houston.

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Sonia A. Brubaker
Environmental Scientist, Tetra Tech, Inc.

Ms. Brubaker has three years of professional experience supporting various programs at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including the Water Permits Division and the Municipal Support Division in the Office of Wastewater Management and the Water Security Division and the Source Water Division in the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water.  Ms. Brubaker has broad knowledge and experience with federal regulations such as the Clean Water Act and the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit Program.  She has been a member of several project teams working on technical writing, research, comment/response efforts, and outreach material development.  Ms. Brubaker led the revised CAFO Rule’s comment/response effort in developing an Oracle-driven database tool that allows EPA users to work directly in the tool through a web-based interface. Ms. Brubaker worked closely with Information Technology staff as a content expert in developing the business practices and overall functionality of the tool.

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Tricia Choe
Attorney Advisor, U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC)

Tricia Choe is an attorney advisor at DOC, Office of Assistant General Counsel for Legislation and Regulation. Ms. Choe's practice focuses on Administrative Law issues, such as agency compliance with federal statutes and Executive Orders, including the Administrative Procedure Act, Regulatory Flexibility Act, Paperwork Reduction Act, and Executive Order 12866, in the promulgation of all rules and regulations issued by DOC. During 2000-2001, Ms. Choe served as the Senior Articles Editor for the Administrative Law Review. Ms. Choe obtained her J.D. from the American University, Washington College of Law, in 2001.

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Noah Connell
Deputy Director, Directorate of Construction, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

Noah Connell is the Deputy Director of OSHA's Directorate of Construction, which is part of the U.S. Department of Labor. Since 2005, when he was appointed Deputy Director, he has also been serving as the Acting Director of OSHA's Office of Construction Standards and Guidance (OCSG). He was appointed Director of OCSG in 1998, when he first joined OSHA. Prior to that he worked for eight years as an OSHA enforcement attorney in the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of the Solicitor. He also served as a negligence defense attorney in the Office of the Solicitor. Mr. Connell is a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton and American University's Washington College of Law.

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Alexander Cristofaro
Director, Office of Regulatory Policy and Management, Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Alexander Cristofaro is an environmental policy expert with over 30 years of EPA experience.  He has particular expertise in climate change and regulatory policy analysis.  Currently, Mr. Cristofaro is the Director of the Office of Regulatory Policy and Management (ORPM) within the Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation (OPEI). ORPM manages EPA’s internal regulatory and policy development process and contributes policy analysis and advice to senior managers across the broad range of agency programs.  Mr. Cristofaro also serves as the Agency’s Small Business Advocacy Chair and leads intergovernmental panels comprised of representatives from EPA, the Small Business Administration, and the Office of Management and Budget in cases where EPA regulations might create a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. 

Previously, Mr. Cristofaro led programs such as the National Environmental Performance Track, Sector Strategies, and the Smart Growth Network as the Director, Office of Business and Community Innovation, and served as Director, Air and Energy Policy Division.   Mr. Cristofaro is a graduate of Dartmouth College and holds a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University.

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Andrew Emery
The Regulatory Group, Inc.

Andrew Emery joined The Regulatory Group, Inc., as a research analyst in 1996. Since that time he has worked on regulations and policy documents for many Federal agencies, including: the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, National Park Service, Forest Service, and Drug Enforcement Administration. Mr. Emery has been teaching Federal agency staff the rulemaking process for more than 10 years.  Mr. Emery is a graduate of the American University, Washington College of Law, and a member of the Maryland Bar, the Federal Bar, and the United States Supreme Court Bar. Mr. Emery is a member of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice and he is a vice-chair of the Section’s Rulemaking and E-Rulemaking committees.

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Fred Emery
President, The Regulatory Group, Inc.

Fred Emery is president of The Regulatory Group, Inc. Between 1970 and 1979, Mr. Emery was Director of the Office of the Federal Register. Previously Mr. Emery served as Deputy Assistant General Counsel for Regulation of the Department of Transportation and in other regulatory positions at both the Federal and State level. Mr. Emery has taught Administrative Law at the law school level and has over 40 years experience in government regulation and the regulatory process. From 1977 to 1980 he chaired the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Standing Committee on Legal Drafting. Mr. Emery has been active for over 30 years in the ABA’s section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice and was recently named a fellow of the section. Recently at the invitation of the China Law Center of Yale Law School, Mr. Emery participated in Beijing in a Workshop on Public Participation in Administrative Rulemaking.

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Cynthia Farina
Professor of Law, Cornell University

Cynthia Farina is a Professor of Law at Cornell University and a principal researcher in the Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative (CeRI). Her scholarship and teaching focuses on administrative law, the presidency and the legislature, due process and separation of powers. Co-author with Peter Strauss (Columbia University) and Todd Rakoff (Harvard University) of the leading casebook in administrative law, she is also a Fellow of the Administrative Law Section of the American Bar Association (ABA). A nationally known scholar of the administrative process, Professor Farina has served as reporter on a number of ABA projects. Most recently she spent a year, as one of the Reporters of the ABA European Union Project, intensively studying how the EU is using the Internet to increase transparency of, access to, and participation in the Union's very complex government processes. As part of the multi-disciplinary CeRI team, she works with agencies in the Departments of Transportation and Commerce on theoretical and applied research, funded by the National Science Foundation, to improve agency management of and public access to e-rulemaking. Following her graduation summa cum laude from Boston University School of Law, Professor Farina clerked for the Hon. Raymond J. Pettine, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island, and for the Hon. Spottswood Robinson, III, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit. She spent three years as a litigator in private practice before she joined the Cornell Law School Faculty.

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Cornelius M. Kerwin
President, American University (AU)

Cornelius Kerwin was appointed acting president on August 24, 2005 and became interim president on November 11, 2005. He served as provost for seven years and held the position in an acting capacity for one year.

Dr. Kerwin is a long-standing member of the AU community. He received a BA from American University in 1971 (followed by an MA in political science from the University of Rhode Island in 1973, and a PhD in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1978) and has been a member of the AU faculty since 1975. He has held a number of prominent leadership positions within the School of Public Affairs, including his service as dean from 1989 to 1997.

As provost, Dr. Kerwin served as the university’s chief academic officer, leading approximately 475 full-time teaching faculty in AU’s six schools and colleges. He also supervised admissions, financial aid, the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, the University Library, the Office of the Registrar, and other offices, including the Washington Semester Program and those reporting to the Dean of Academic Affairs (General Education Program, University Honors Program, Center for Teaching Excellence, Career Center, and Office of Sponsored Programs).

He has worked with the deans and faculty committees to complete a review of AU’s master’s and doctoral programs, resulting in fewer programs but creating distinctive market niches, improved physical facilities, and enhanced national reputations. He also oversaw the creation of AU’s University College Program (launched fall 2005), an integrated learning-living program for first-year undergraduate students. During his time as provost, the university conducted reviews of the school’s General Education Program, University Honors Program, and academic advising system.

As part of the university’s 15-Point Plan, Dr. Kerwin led the process for restructuring faculty governance, helping to create a new Faculty Senate, which was overwhelmingly ratified by a historic faculty vote. In 2003, he oversaw AU’s decennial self-study that resulted in the Middle States Association Commission’s unconditional reaccreditation and the Commission’s Self-Study Institute’s adoption of AU’s self-study report and design as a model for other schools.

While provost, Dr. Kerwin advanced major efforts to support faculty scholarship, teaching, and service; diversify the faculty; bring faculty salaries to the AAUP–Level 1 standard; enhance technology resources and utilization; and develop comprehensive plans for assessing student learning, promoting academic integrity, and improving administrative processes.

Dr. Kerwin, a professor of public administration in the School of Public Affairs, is a nationally recognized specialist in public policy, with emphasis on the regulatory process. He is actively engaged in teaching and research and teaches courses in administrative process, policy implementation, and American government. He is the author of Rulemaking: How Government Agencies Write Law and Make Policy (3rd ed., 2003, Congressional Quarterly Press) and the coauthor of How Washington Works: The Executives Guide to Government (3rd ed., 1996). Dr. Kerwin’s scholarly articles have appeared in Public Administration Review, Journal of Politics, Policy Studies Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Judicature, Justice System Journal, and Harvard Journal on Legislation. He is also the author of numerous monographs, chapters in edited books, anthologies, and articles in professional and popular publications.

Under Dr. Kerwin’s leadership, the university established the Center for the Study of Rulemaking in July 2004. As part of its mission to better understand and improve the processes and techniques used by government agencies to develop regulations, the Center organizes conferences, symposia, and workshops, which bring together scholars, public and private-sector personnel, and the larger academic community.

Dr. Kerwin’s experience in the public sector includes work with the Office of Personnel Management, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Administrative Conference of the United States, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Department of Agriculture, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Public Health Service. In the private sector, he has served as a consultant to IBM Corporation and General Electric.

Dr. Kerwin is active in a number of professional associations and societies. He was elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) in 1996. He was president of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) in 1998 and was the founding chair of the Section on Public Law and Administration of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). He is a member of Pi Sigma Alpha and Pi Alpha Alpha national honor societies for the fields of political science and public administration, respectively.

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Wendy Liberante
Policy Analyst and Government to Business E-Gov Portfolio Manager, Office of Information and Technology Policy, Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Wendy Liberante is a Policy Analyst and the Government to Business Portfolio Manager for the Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs and The E-Gov Office at the Office Management and Budget (OMB), Executive Office of the President. 

Ms. Liberante specializes in information technology policy areas. She assists with the formulation and implementation of the President’s information technology budget where she is responsible for areas such as: E-Gov scorecard, policy oversight, IT capital investments, analysis of agency budget submissions, and preparation of budgetary review materials.

As the Government to Business (G2B) Portfolio Manager, She is responsible for the oversight of six Presidential E-Gov initiatives including: E-Rulemaking (regulations.gov), Business Gateway (business.gov), Federal Asset Sales (govsales.gov) and International Trade Process Streamlining (Export.gov).  She oversees the initiative project plans, quarterly milestone deliverables, and funding plans and provides on-going analysis and recommendations for each of the program management offices.

Prior to her career in the federal government, Ms. Liberante was a marketing and advertising consultant in the sports, entertainment and home furnishings categories; developing communication plans, branding campaigns, and Internet solutions.

Ms. Liberante is currently serving as a Presidential Management Fellow; she received a B.S. in Management from Post University (previously Teikyo Post University) where she was recognized as a NAIA Scholar Athlete in soccer, and a MPA from the University of Southern California.

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Gregory J. Mallon
Vice President, Tetra Tech, Inc

Gregory Mallon is an environmental scientist and policy expert with 25 years of professional experience in the development, implementation, and management of environmental protection programs with an emphasis on water resources.  More than 16 years of this experience has been gained in delivery of technical support both as an employee and contractor of EPA.   Over 12 years of this experience has been gained in providing water quality and wastewater management support for the EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) and Office of Wastewater Management (OWM).   His experience includes nine consecutive years (1998-2007) as a Deputy PM and PM on four technical support contracts with OWM.  He is currently the Program Manager of a technical support contract for OWM that runs through 2010.  The scope of technical support provided under these contracts has included regulatory and program development, guidance development, permit development, outreach, information technology, and communications.  His additional experience includes the support to and implementation of environmental protection and water resource protection programs at a number of Federal and State agencies including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Department of Energy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and National Park Service. 

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John F. Morrall, III
Acting Deputy Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

John F. Morrall, III is currently Acting Deputy Administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Executive Office of the President.  He and his staff are responsible for reviewing the regulations and regulatory impact analyses issued by the Departments and agencies of the Federal government under E.O. 12866. OIRA has four branches: two the review regulations, one that coordinates statistical policy, and one that coordinates information policy and technology.  Before becoming Acting Deputy Administrator in June 2006, he was the Branch Chief for Health, Transportation and General Government in OIRA.   He is a lead author for OMB's annual Report to Congress on the Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulations and is an expert in the area of regulatory reform and oversight, benefit-cost analysis, health economics, and risk assessment  He has worked on regulatory policy in the Executive Office of the President since 1975 and been at OMB since 1981.  He is the recipient of various awards, including a SES Presidential Rank Award from President George W. Bush. 

Dr. Morrall has been both a Visiting Economist at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and a Brookings Institution Economic Policy Fellow.  Prior to his government service he was an Assistant Professor of International Economics at the University of Florida.  He has also taught economics at the American University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He received an A.B. from Tufts University in 1965, Magna Cum Laude in the economics honors program, and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1971, also in economics.  He is the author of three books and over twenty articles in the areas of international economics, cost‑benefit analysis, labor economics, risk regulation, and regulatory policy and reform.  Three of his articles have been reproduced in Classics in Risk Management, a two volume set of the top articles published in this field. His work has been cited by the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and the Economist. He has also consulted with officials of various foreign governments in over a dozen capitals around the world on the United States' experience with regulatory reform and benefit-cost analysis.

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John Moses
Acting Director, eRulemaking Program

John Moses is the Acting Director for the eRulemaking Program, a federal-wide E-Government program that encourages public interaction with the federal regulatory process. Mr. Moses is responsible for the management and operation of the award-winning Federal Docket Management System and the Regulations.gov Web site. Mr. Moses has 15 years experience at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he also managed EPA’s EDOCKET, the Agency’s first electronic docket system, and led the effort in which EDOCKET was chosen to become the model for the eRulemaking federal-wide system in 2002. Before joining EPA, Mr. Moses served as a manager of state affairs at the Chemical Manufacturers Association. Prior to that, John conducted research on innovative environmental programs at the Aspen Institute and worked as a management consultant in the private sector. Mr. Moses received both his Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from Cornell University.

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Rick Otis
Deputy Associate Administrator, Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

As Deputy Associate Administrator for the Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation, Rick is part of the senior management team responsible for the agency’s policy, rulemaking, and innovations activities. He began his career in Washington, D.C. in 1980 as a Presidential Management Intern at EPA. He has worked for the Office of Management and Budget, Congressman Fred Upton, a government affairs consulting firm, an industry trade association, and his own consulting firm.  Over this twenty-five year period, Rick has developed an extensive understanding of the mechanisms used by federal agencies, Congress, the Executive Office of the President, and interest groups to establish and implement national environmental policy.  His experience with these mechanisms, existing environmental laws, the federal regulatory process, and the transformational value of information technology has fostered his interest in the logical evolution of federal environmental programs.  This includes a sound grasp of the political, institutional, procedural, public opinion, and communications challenges associated with successfully achieving innovative change.  He received an MBA from Cornell University in 1980 and a BA from Ithaca College in 1976.

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Susan L. Podziba
Principal, Susan Podziba & Associates

Susan L. Podziba is Principal and Public Policy Mediator at Susan Podziba & Associates.  She is known for designing processes to fit the unique characteristics of complex public policy conflicts and challenges. For more than twenty years, Ms. Podziba has mediated scores of complex cases involving international relations, governance, environmental disputes, land use and development decisions, transportation planning, security, labor standards, public health, and education policy. 

Ms. Podziba was a Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Department of Urban Studies and Planning from 1996-2002, where she taught a graduate course in public policy negotiation and conflict resolution.  She also taught at the Program On Negotiation at Harvard Law School from 1999-2002. She currently lectures internationally.

Examples of Ms. Podziba’s past projects include:

Ms. Podziba has published numerous articles on negotiation, mediation, and consensus-building, most recently, The Chelsea Story: How a Corrupt City Re-Generated its Democracy (Bruno Mondadori, 2006). Her work has been showcased by media outlets such as The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, FastCompany, National Public Radio, and affiliates of all major U.S. television networks.

Ms. Podziba received her Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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William F. Russo
Director of Regulations Management, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

In 2006 William F. Russo was appointed Director of Regulations Management for VA.  In this position, he works with the Assistant to the Secretary for Regulation Policy and Management advising the Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Assistant Secretaries, and other officials on policy development, and the preparation and publication of regulations, including legal requirements and procedures for public participation.  He also works with Federal elected and appointed officials (including the Office of Management and Budget) and public interest groups to improve VA's regulations.  He serves as the primary supervisor and manager of the VA Regulations Rewrite Project, a rewrite of VA’s 276 compensation and pension regulations.

From 1999 to 2006, Mr. Russo was the primary author and reviewer of regulations on VA compensation and pension programs, and an advisor to the VA Compensation and Pension (C&P) Service’s leaders on legal issues such as compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements and avoiding litigation.  In addition, he helped formulate the Department's views on legislation and court litigation affecting VA programs.  From 2005 to 2006, he served as Chief of the Regulations Staff for the C&P Service and previously served on a detail as Chief of the VA Regulations Rewrite Project.

From 1994 to 1999, Mr. Russo served as Director of the Veterans Benefits Program of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), where he trained and managed over 300 veterans representatives nationwide, and supervised VVA's representation at the Board of Veterans' Appeals (BVA) and the federal courts.  His prior experience includes representing plaintiffs in civil tort litigation for a private law firm, and service on the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims’ (CAVC) Central Legal Staff.

During his career, Mr. Russo has argued before the CAVC, testified to the Senate and House of Representatives Veterans Affairs Committees and the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission, and published numerous articles on veterans benefits.  He has been interviewed on National Public Radio and BBC Radio, and been quoted in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today on veterans issues.   Over the years, he has conducted trainings for VA staff and veterans service officers across the country.  In his spare time, Mr. Russo serves on the Board of the Veterans Assistance Foundation, which runs transitional housing for homeless veterans. 

Mr. Russo has received numerous awards for his work on behalf of disabled veterans, including seven performance awards from the VA.  He was named "Employee of the Quarter" in the C&P Service and selected to participate in VA’s management training program, Leadership VA, in 2002.  He received the VVA Government Affairs Distinguished Service Award for his legislative advocacy in 1997 and was selected for the annual "Profiles of the Profession" issue of Barrister magazine in 1994, for his pro bono representation of veterans.  He was presented a Special Service Award from the CAVC for his work on the American Bar Association (ABA) study on pro se appellants in 1991.

A practicing attorney, Mr. Russo received his undergraduate degree, with honors, from the University of Maryland in 1985 and his law degree from The George Washington University Law School in 1989.  He lives with his wife and two children in Great Falls, Virginia.

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Stuart W. Shulman
Director, Qualitative Data Analysis Program, University Center for Social and Urban Research, University of Pittsburgh

Dr. Stuart W. Shulman received a Bachelors degree from Boston University (Political Science and English) in 1989 and a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon (Political Science) in 1999.  He is holds a joint appointment in the School of Information Sciences and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.  He is also a Senior Research Associate at Pitt’s University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR) and in the Université de Genève-, European University Institute-, and Oxford Internet Institute-based E-Democracy Centre.  

Dr. Shulman is the founder (2005) and Director of UCSUR’s Qualitative Data Analysis Program (QDAP), which is a fee-for-service coding lab currently working on projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other U.S. funding agencies.  He has been the Principal Investigator and Project Director on related National Science Foundation-funded research projects focusing on electronic rulemaking, human language technologies, manual annotation, digital citizenship, and service-learning efforts in the United States.  In 2007, Dr. Shulman was named Director of the Sara Fine Institute and he became a Core Investigator in the Advanced Center for Interventions and Services Research Network Development Core.

Dr. Shulman was the organizer and chair for federal agency-level electronic rulemaking workshops funded by NSF and held at the Council for Excellence in Government (2001), the National Defense University (2002), NSF (2003 & 2006), and The George Washington University (2004). In November of 2006, he chaired a NSF-funded workshop at Pitt titled “Coding across the Disciplines,” which brought social and computer scientists together to discuss annotation science.

For five years, Dr. Shulman has served on the Program Committee for the NSF’s National Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o).  He was the dg.o 2006 Workshop and Tutorial Chair and also the Chair of the inaugural Digital Government Society Election Committee.  In 2008 he will serve as the dg.o conference Co-Chair. Dr. Shulman reviews individual NSF proposals from multiple cross-cutting NSF divisions and has served on a NSF proposal review panel.

In May 2006, Dr. Shulman became the next Editor of the international Journal of E-Government, which has since been re-named the Journal of Information Technology & Politics. He was the 2004-2005 President of the American Political Science Association's organized section on Information Technology & Politics and he is the current editor of the section newsletter, The ITP News. “Stu” is a former Oregon Tilth certified organic farmer who teaches courses on American national government, environmental policy, sprawl, information technology, qualitative research methods, digital citizenship, governance, and service-learning.

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Shirley M. Stroman
Senior Transportation Industry Analyst, Office of Rulemaking, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

Shirley M. Stroman is currently a Senior Transportation Industry Analyst in FAA’s Office of Rulemaking.  In this capacity, she works closely with other FAA subject-matter experts to draft rulemaking documents and supporting materials.  In particular, she manages rulemaking projects and facilitates rulemaking team meetings to ensure the successful development and timely completion of rulemaking projects.  Before joining the FAA in 2001, she worked as a Project Manager in the U.S. Coast Guard’s rulemaking division.  In addition, she has worked for a number of years in both private industry and the Federal government as a Senior Technical Writer.

Ms. Stroman received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Trinity College (now Trinity University) in 1994, Suma Cum Laude in human relations.  She is a current member of two national honor societies—Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Sigma Lambda.

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Thomas M. Sullivan
Chief Counsel for Advocacy, U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)

Thomas M. Sullivan, SBA’s fifth Chief Counsel for Advocacy, represents a new generation of small business leadership. Nominated by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he is charged with independently advancing the views, concerns, and interests of small business before Congress, the White House, federal regulatory bodies, and state policy makers.

Congress created the Office of Advocacy in 1976 to serve as the watchdog for small business within the federal government. Last year the office helped save America’s small businesses over $6.6 billion in money they would have spent attempting to comply with federal regulations.

President Bush announced his Small Business Plan in 2002, which named as key priorities strengthening the Office of Advocacy and "giving small businesses a voice in the complex and confusing federal regulatory process." On August 13, 2002, the President signed Executive Order 13272, designed to direct federal agency attention to regulatory impacts on small firms.

As Chief Counsel, Tom Sullivan heads a team of attorneys and economists who work to remove regulatory barriers to entrepreneurial growth, conduct economic research, and publish data on small businesses’ contributions to the economy. Through the Office of Advocacy, Tom Sullivan is working to elevate small business’ visibility within all levels of government.

Tom Sullivan’s education to small business can be traced to his previous work experience, most recently as the Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Legal Foundation, which provides guidance on legal issues to small businesses and promotes a pro small business agenda in the nation’s courts.

Named by Fortune Small Business magazine as one of the "Power 30 most influential folks in Washington" in September 2000, he was described as "an affable lawyer…respected by regulators for his well researched positions on issues affecting small business." Inc. magazine named Sullivan, “an entrepreneur’s best friend in Washington, DC” in 2006.

Tom Sullivan received his law degree from Suffolk University in Boston, MA and his undergraduate degree in English from Boston College. He is admitted to both the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Stephan D. Sylvan
EPA Partnership Programs Coordinator, National Center for Environmental Innovation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Since the position was created in 2004, Stephan Sylvan has served as EPA’s Partnership Programs Coordinator within the National Center for Environmental Innovation. He is responsible for ensuring the 50-plus EPA Partnership Programs are properly designed, measured, evaluated, marketed, and coordinated.

Prior to this role, Stephan developed, launched, and managed several successful business-government partnership programs for EPA. These include the Energy Star Home Electronics family of programs and the Best Workplaces for Commuters Initiative. Stephan negotiated agreements to “franchise” the Energy Star programs to the European Union. He also led a nationwide campaign that helped turn the Energy Star label into a household word and an influential "brand" that delivers significant environmental results. Stephan also played a role in U.S. climate policy development and helped design the first Palestinian-Israeli water commission.

Prior to EPA, Stephan spent seven years designing systems and leading teams of design engineers and scientists at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Eastman Kodak. Stephan earned a Master of Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a B.S. in Computer & Electrical Engineering from Purdue University.

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Bruce H. Tobey
Councilman, Gloucester, MA

A 1975 graduate of Wesleyan University, majoring in Russian, Bruce Tobey is a cum laude graduate of Suffolk University Law School (1978), where he was a member of Law Review.  After serving as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard Judge Advocate General Corps (1978-82), he returned to his hometown of Gloucester, Massachusetts, as the City’s General Counsel.  This was followed by service as an attorney with the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, where he headed the General Law Department.

Bruce was elected Mayor of Gloucester in the 1993 general election and re-elected in November 1995, November 1997, and November 1999.  He had previously served on the Gloucester City Council (1987-90) and the Gloucester School Committee (1992-93), and in 1991 was chosen by his City Council colleagues to fill an unexpired term as Mayor, serving eleven months.

During his years as Mayor, Bruce was a member of the Board of Directors of the National League of Cities (NLC) and chaired NLC’s Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Steering Committee.  He represented NLC on EPA’s Microbial and Disinfection By-Products federal advisory committee and co-chaired a task force on state and local concerns regarding non-point source discharges.  He was also a member of EPA’s Local Government Advisory Commission, where he continues to serve.  He testified before committees of both Houses of the United States Congress on infrastructure regulatory and financing issues and was a panelist at a United Nations Conference on sustainable communities. 

After deciding not to seek re-election, Bruce completed his mayoral tenure on January 1, 2002.  He then joined Aquarion Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, as its Director of Business Development, a newly created position tasked to assist Aquarion in more actively embracing market opportunities in the non-regulated water sector.

In May 2005, Bruce received an MBA degree from the Sawyer School of Management of Suffolk University.  He returned to local government in January 2006, winning election as a Councilor-at-Large in Gloucester; he chairs the Ordinances and Administration Standing Committee of the City Council.  He serves as Vice President of the Massachusetts Municipal Association and Vice Chair of the Advisory Council of the National League of Cities and has recently been named to EPA’s newly constituted TCR-DS advisory committee.

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Tom Tyler
National Sector Liaison: Iron and Steel, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Tom Tyler is the national sector liaison for Iron & Steel at EPA. Through EPA’s Sector Strategies Program, the Agency has partnered with 12 key industrial and service sectors to improve their environmental performance by promoting environmental management systems, enhancing performance measurement, and addressing barriers to improvement. Most recently, Tom helped lead the Agency effort to create a national collaborative mercury switch recovery program that was launched in August 2006 and is being implemented nationwide. Before joining EPA, Tom was for ten years an attorney with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a trade association of recycling companies, where he worked on international, federal, state, and local environmental matters. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University. Prior to law school, he worked on global environmental issues with the Environmental and Energy Study Conference of the U.S. Congress. Tom also served on, and chaired, the Environmental Policy Commission of the City of Alexandria, VA, where he lives with his family.

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