APPOINTMENTS

Wednesday, December 31, 2008 8:30 AM

The In Crowd: Who's Who

Lost In Transition's guide to Obama's major selections.

Last updated: March 4, 2009.*

• Cabinet departments: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, HHS, Homeland Security, HUD, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Treasury, Transportation, Veterans Affairs.

• Agencies and advisory posts: CEA, CIA, EPA, NEC, OMB, chief of staff, director of national intelligence, energy czar, health czar, national security adviser, President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, U.N. ambassador, U.S. trade representative, urban affairs czar.

Director of National Intelligence
Dennis Blair
Announced: Jan. 9

Blair, a retired four-star admiral who was commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, would take over a fledgling office still working on its charge of shaping up an outdated and cumbersome spy network. The Rhodes Scholar, who has a reputation as a strong manager, served as a military liaison at the CIA under President Clinton. (More Coverage)

Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change
Carol Browner
Announced: Dec. 15

Browner, a transition board member who served as President Clinton's EPA administrator, has now been tapped as the first "energy czar." While Browner's duties remain largely undefined, the purpose of the new post is apparently to coordinate the implementation of Obama's energy policy across agencies and with the private sector. (More Coverage)

Director of White House Office of Urban Affairs
Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Announced: Feb. 19

As Bronx borough president, Carrión worked to revitalize struggling areas with new development projects and assistance for small business. The results have been decidedly mixed, something his advocates attribute to the position's limited administrative authority. Carrión will have to work to avoid the same problem in this newly created position. (More Coverage)

Secretary of Energy
Steven Chu
Announced: Dec. 15
Confirmed: Jan. 20
A Nobel-winning physicist, Chu has little experience in government but a demonstrated commitment to alternative energy research from his time in academia. In his role as Energy secretary, he will have to negotiate a bevy of ideological and economic obstacles to bringing about the "new energy economy" Obama has promised. (More Coverage)

Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Announced: Dec. 1
Confirmed: Jan. 21
The former first lady and current New York senator was arguably the biggest obstacle to Obama's bid for the White House. Now Clinton is Obama's secretary of State, despite their disagreements during the primary campaign over foreign policy and concerns during the confirmation process that husband Bill Clinton's philanthropic activities could lead to conflicts of interest. (More Coverage)

Director of White House Office for Health Reform
Nancy-Ann DeParle
Announced: March 2

Obama signaled a change of course by appointing this former Clinton official for health czar, a role he had originally envisioned being filled by his HHS secretary. Before joining the Clinton OMB, DeParle served as commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Human Services; more recently, she's worked for several large health care firms. (More Coverage)

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Shaun Donovan
Announced: Dec. 13
Confirmed: Jan. 22
Obama wants his new HUD secretary active in his economic rescue efforts. Donovan has experience with affordable housing, currently as New York's housing commissioner and previously as an executive at Prudential Mortgage Capital Co. He was a multifamily housing specialist in HUD under President Clinton. (More Coverage)

Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan
Announced: Dec. 16
Confirmed: Jan. 20
Duncan leaves his post as head of Chicago's public school system to serve as Education secretary. During his time in Chicago, he managed to avoid the ire of both teachers unions and school reformers. Now he'll have to shift his scope to the national level in order to refocus No Child Left Behind and address the rising costs of higher education. (More Coverage)

Chief of Staff
Rahm Emanuel
Announced: Nov. 6

In his six years in the House, Emanuel was known as equal parts brawler and tactician. He was the architect of the Democrats' 31-seat pickup in 2006 and earned mention as a future Speaker before joining his fellow Chicagoan's White House team. Emanuel is no executive branch newcomer, having served as a top aide to President Clinton. (More Coverage)

Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates
Announced: Dec. 1

One of three Republicans named to Obama's Cabinet, Gates will be the first Defense chief to stay on through a change of party in the White House. Like Obama, Gates has argued for closing the Guantanamo Bay prison facility; he has differed from candidate Obama, however, on the need for a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq. (More Coverage)

Secretary of the Treasury
Timothy F. Geithner
Announced: Nov. 24
Confirmed: Jan. 26
As president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Geithner has been involved in the government's frenzied bailout maneuvering from the start, which has been argued as both a positive and a negative. A veteran of three administrations in the Treasury, Geithner is a protege of Lawrence Summers, Obama's pick to head the National Economic Council. (More Coverage)

Attorney General
Eric Holder
Announced: Dec. 1
Confirmed: Feb. 2
Holder rose to the position of deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration. He joined the Obama team as an adviser in 2007, and in 2008 he helped pick Obama's running mate. Conservatives are wary because of his role in the Marc Rich pardon; his confirmation hearing has already been pushed back at Arlen Specter's request. (More Coverage)

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator
Lisa Jackson
Announced: Dec. 15
Confirmed: Jan. 22
To helm an agency that many complain has been subservient to business interests during the Bush years, Obama has chosen the former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, who was both praised and criticized for seeking common ground between business and environmental groups. Jackson currently serves as chief of staff to New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. (More Coverage)

National Security Adviser
James Jones
Announced: Dec. 1

A retired four-star Marine Corps general who has served as supreme allied commander in Europe and commandant of the Marine Corps, Jones is a fitting choice for Obama's so-called team of rivals. The Republican-leaning Jones is much closer to Obama's general election opponent, John McCain, for whom he worked in the 1980s, than to anyone in the president-elect's inner circle. (More Coverage)

U.S. Trade Representative
Ron Kirk
Announced: Dec. 19

As Dallas' first black mayor, Kirk looked far beyond the city limits, leading numerous overseas trade missions and extolling the virtues of the North American Free Trade Agreement. His support for free market practices could lead this former chairman of Obama's Texas campaign into conflicts with the Cabinet's more protectionist members. (More Coverage)

Secretary of Transportation
Ray LaHood
Announced: Dec. 19
Confirmed: Jan. 22
LaHood was the second Republican and arguably biggest surprise Obama picked for his Cabinet. The longtime Illinois congressman, who declined to seek an eighth term in 2008, has little experience with transportation issues beyond a stint on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, where he worked on the surface transportation bill in 1998. The law is up for reauthorization this year. (More Coverage)

Secretary of Commerce
Gary Locke
Announced: Feb. 25
As Washington's governor and as a China trade specialist in private practice, Locke has made a name for himself on trade. In both capacities, he has arranged deals in China with Washington companies, and he went on 10 trade missions in office. Locke's response to a 2003 budget crunch was cuts, not taxes. In 1998, he pushed for a ballot initiative that tied the minimum wage to inflation. (More Coverage)

Secretary of Homeland Security
Janet Napolitano
Announced: Dec. 16
Confirmed: Jan. 20
As Arizona governor, Napolitano brings a state government perspective back to Homeland Security; as governor of a border state, she has made border security and managing illegal immigration signature issues. Napolitano opposed the Real ID driver's license program as governor, but she will now be in charge of administering it. (More Coverage)

Office of Management and Budget Director
Peter Orszag
Announced: Nov. 25
Confirmed: Jan. 20
Once an economic adviser in the Clinton White House, Orszag was halfway through his four-year term as director of the Congressional Budget Office when he took over at OMB. Orszag has been praised by lawmakers from both parties as an objective analyst with deep knowledge of the most pressing fiscal issues of the day. (More Coverage)

Central Intelligence Agency Director
Leon Panetta
Announced: Jan. 9
Confirmed: Feb. 19
One of the biggest surprises of the transition was the nomination of Panetta, a veteran public servant but a relative novice on intel issues. After representing California's 16th District for 16 years, Panetta joined the Clinton administration as OMB director, then as chief of staff. Since leaving government, he has founded the Leon and Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy and served as a member of the Iraq Study Group. (More Coverage)

Ambassador to the United Nations
Susan Rice
Announced: Dec. 1
Confirmed: Jan. 22
Having served in the Clinton administration on the National Security Council and as assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Rice now looks to assume the role of ambassador to the U.N. as Obama restores the post to its Clinton-era Cabinet-level status. Though she has been described as outspoken, Rice's resume does not appear to present the red flags that derailed President Bush's nomination of John Bolton. (More Coverage)

Council of Economic Advisers Chair
Christina D. Romer
Announced: Nov. 24

Romer, a well-respected academic, is known as a monetary policy expert and a Great Depression scholar; her work includes a paper titled "What Ends Recessions?" Until her nomination, she served on the National Bureau of Economic Research, which officially calls recessions. She and David Romer, her husband and frequent collaborator, informally advised Obama during the campaign. (More Coverage)

Secretary of the Interior
Ken Salazar
Announced: Dec. 17
Confirmed: Jan. 20
Salazar put on hold a promising career in the Senate to run Obama's Interior Department, where he will have to balance the demands of conservationists with increasing pressure to open more land for fossil fuel exploration. He will have to win over wary environmentalists as well as right a department demoralized by scandal in recent years. (More Coverage)

Secretary of Health and Human Services
Kathleen Sebelius
Announced: March 2

A month after former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle withdrew from consideration, Obama turned to this two-term Kansas governor. Her experience working with Republicans could help the administration reach out to GOP moderates, although she had a mixed record advancing health reforms in the statehouse. (More Coverage)

Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Eric Shinseki
Announced: Dec. 7
Confirmed: Jan. 20
Along with his distinguished Army career, Shinseki's chief qualification for this job may be that he became a pariah within the Bush administration after suggesting, presciently, that postwar troop levels in Iraq would need to be much higher than Donald Rumsfeld's estimate. Obama may be hoping that the former Army chief of staff will also ruffle some feathers at the scandal-plagued VA. (More Coverage)

Secretary of Labor
Hilda Solis
Announced: Dec. 19
Confirmed: Feb. 24
Solis, who has received strong union backing, is a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, or "card check." The four-term representative supported legislation raising the federal minimum wage as a congresswoman and, before that, increasing the California minimum wage as a state senator. She worked in the Office of Hispanic Affairs in the Carter administration. (More Coverage)

National Economic Council Director
Lawrence Summers
Announced: Nov. 24

Summers served as an economic adviser to Obama during the campaign and was widely believed to be on the short list for Treasury secretary, a post he held during the Clinton administration. Summers' five years as president of Harvard University were marred by controversy after he suggested genetics might explain why there are fewer women scientists than men. He later resigned. (More Coverage)

Secretary of Agriculture
Tom Vilsack
Announced: Dec. 17
Confirmed: Jan. 20
Tom Vilsack knows from corn. During his time as governor of Iowa, he brought agribusiness to the state and strongly backed the use of farmland for ethanol production. Now that he's at Agriculture, he'll be in position to guide the administration's policy on biofuels and the farm subsidy system from an insider's perspective. (More Coverage)

President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board Chair
Paul Volcker
Announced: Nov. 26

The most veteran member of Obama's veteran economic team, Volcker is best known for his service as Federal Reserve Board chairman during the economically turbulent years of the late-Carter and early-Reagan eras. Obama hopes Volcker can summon the same magic that helped him put the brakes on stagflation in the 1980s as he helps oversee the new administration's economic recovery efforts. (More Coverage)

Some photos provided by Getty Images.

*Added nominations of Kathleen Sebelius as Health and Human Services secretary, Betty-Ann DeParle as health czar and Adolfo Carrión Jr. as urban affairs czar.