Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Page 3
Former Local Attorney Nominated to Commerce Post
By a MetNews Staff Writer
President Barack Obama has said he intends to nominate former O’Melveny & Myers partner Michael C. Camuñez to be the Department of Commerce’s assistant secretary for market access and compliance.
Obama on Monday said: “I am tremendously grateful to Michael for his outstanding work at the White House [and] I wish him the best as he moves to the Commerce Department to help lead our efforts to grow American jobs by expanding American exports and broadening access to new markets.”
Camuñez is currently special counsel to the president in the Office of the White House Counsel, and is a former president of the Mexican American Bar Foundation in Los Angeles. He served on the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission from 2007 until he joined the Obama administration.
A member of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Project as part of the Agency Review Team, Camuñez has also served as special assistant to the president for presidential personnel, advising Obama on his senior appointments in the domestic cabinet and independent agencies.
Camuñez was admitted to the State Bar in 1998 after graduating from Harvard College and Stanford Law School, and represented Fortune 500 companies, officers and directors in matters involving domestic and international commercial disputes while working at O’Melveny. He also advised U.S. companies doing business abroad in Latin America and Europe.
From 1991 to 1993, Camuñez served as the program officer and director of the National Service Demonstration Program at the bipartisan U.S. Commission on National Service in Washington, D.C. He also served the following two years as senior policy advisor for national service in the Clinton administration, where he helped lead the effort to establish the Corporation for National Service and its signature program, AmeriCorps.
Camuñez has served as a member of the Stanford Law School Board of Visitors, and was appointed by Democratic and Republican governors to the board of California’s public service commission, which he chaired from 2005 to 2007 with first lady Maria Shriver.
He is also a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, the West Coast Affiliate of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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