THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release May 11, 1993

PRESIDENT NAMES OFFICIALS AT TRANSPORTATION, INTERIOR

(Washington, DC) President Clinton named a total of four officials at the Departments of Transportation and the Interior today. He expressed his intention to nominate Frank Kruesi to be Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Transportation Policy and Ada Deer to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs. The President also approved the appointment of Richard Mintz to be the Director of Transportation's Office of Public Affairs, and Patricia Beneke to be Associate Solicitor for Energy and Resources at Interior.

"I am gratified that these individuals will be joining me in Washington," said the President. "Frank Kruesi has been an innovative and successful policy advisor to Mayor Daley. Ada Deer has been a powerful and eloquent voice for changing national Indian policy. Both will be valuable parts of this Administration, as will Richard Mintz and Patricia Beneke."

Frank Kruesi is currently the Chief Policy Officer in the Administration of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. In that role he has been involved in a number of transportation issues, including the . He has worked for Daley since 1977 when Daley was a member of the Illinois State Senate. He has also been a Lecturer in Political Science at Loyola University, DePaul University, and Rosary College. He holds a B.A. from Middlebury College and an M.A. from the University of Chicago.

Ada Deer, the first woman Chair of the Menominee people, the first Menominee to graduate from the University of Wisconsin, the first Menominee to receive a master's degree, and the first American Indian to receive a master's degree from the Columbia University School of Social Work, is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Work and the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin. In 1992, she was the Democratic nominee for Congress from Wisconsin's 2nd District. She has been For more than two decades, she has been a leader in the effort to gain restoration of tribal treaty rights. Deer, who lives in Madison, WI, holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, and M.S.W. from Columbia University, and was a Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics.

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May 11, 1993
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Richard Mintz served earlier this year as the Director of Communications for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, after having been Deputy Director of the California Clinton/Gore campaign, and Staff Director to Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 1992 Presidential primaries. Before joining the Clinton campaign, he was Vice President of the public affairs firm of Ogilvy Adams & Reinhart from 1988-91. He had previously been Media Director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, Press Secretary to the Northeast-Midwest Congressional Coalition, and an Associate Producer for CBS News' Election & Survey Unit. Mintz holds a B.A. from Union College.

Patricia Beneke has been Senior Counsel to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources since 1987, with broad responsibilities for energy policy and other issues. She was the Committee's Minority Counsel in 1985-86. Prior to that, she was a Litigation Associate with a private law firm, and an attorney with the Departments of Justice and Agriculture. Beneke is a graduate of Iowa State University and Harvard Law School.

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