President Biden Announces Key Nominees

WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to serve as key leaders in his administration: 

• Richard L. Revesz, Nominee for Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, U.S Office of Management and Budget
• Nickolas H. Guertin, Nominee for Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development, and Acquisition), U.S. Department of Defense
• Gene Rodrigues, Nominee for Assistant Secretary of Energy (Office of Electricity), U.S. Department of Energy
• Danté Quintin Allen, Nominee for Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration, U.S. Department of Education
• George P. Kent, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Estonia
• Donna Ann Welton, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste
• Roger Israel Zakheim, Nominee for Member of the United States Institute of Peace

Richard L. Revesz, Nominee for Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, U.S. Office of Management and Budget

Richard L. Revesz, the AnBryce Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus at the New York University (NYU) School of Law, is one of the nation’s leading voices in the fields of environmental and regulatory law and policy. He has published ten books and more than 80 articles in major law reviews and journals advocating for protective and rational climate change and environmental policies, and examining the institutional contexts in which regulatory policy is made. Revesz founded the Institute for Policy Integrity, a think tank and advocacy organization that promotes desirable public policies for the environment, public health, and consumers. Revesz is also the Director of the American Law Institute, a leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and otherwise improve the law.

As Dean of NYU Law School from 2002 to 2013, Revesz increased the size of the full-time faculty by more than 30 percent, recruiting 46 new full-time professors and building the leading faculty groups in many significant areas of law. He raised a record-breaking $550 million to support the law school’s core initiatives and used a significant portion of these resources to enhance the law school’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Revesz designed and launched the AnBryce Scholarship Program, which gives full-tuition scholarships and institutional support to first generation college students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Revesz was born in Argentina, learned English as a second language, and immigrated to the United States when he was 17. He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, earned a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and received a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. Following clerkships with Chief Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court, Revesz joined the NYU Law School faculty in 1985.

Nickolas H. Guertin, Nominee for Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development, and Acquisition), U.S. Department of Defense

Nickolas H. Guertin is the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He serves as the senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense on operational and live fire testing, and evaluation of Department of Defense weapon systems. He has an extensive four-decade combined military and civilian career in submarine operations, ship construction and maintenance, development and testing of weapons, sensors, combat management products including the improvement of systems engineering, and defense acquisition. Most recently, he has performed applied research for government and academia in software-reliant and cyber-physical systems at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute.

Over his career, he has been in leadership roles of organizational transformation, improving competition, application of modular open system approaches, as well as prototyping and experimentation. He has also researched and published extensively on software-reliant system design, testing, and acquisition. He received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington and an M.B.A. from Bryant University. He is a retired Navy Reserve Engineering Duty Officer. Guertin is also Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) certified in Program Management and Engineering, and is also a registered professional engineer (mechanical). Guertin is involved with his community as a Committee Chair and Merit Badge Counselor for a Scouts B.S.A. troop as well as being an avid amateur musician. He hails from Redding, Connecticut, and is a resident of McLean, Virginia, with his wife Maria and their 15-year-old twin children.

Gene Rodrigues, Nominee for Assistant Secretary of Energy (Office of Electricity), U.S. Department of Energy

Gene Rodrigues is a nationally-recognized expert in clean energy policy and programs with over 30 years of professional experience in the field. Rodrigues is a Vice President in the Energy, Environment and Infrastructure practice at ICF, a global advisory and digital services provider. Prior to joining ICF, Rodrigues garnered 23 years of industry experience at Southern California Edison (SCE), one of the nation’s largest electric utilities. During his tenure at SCE, he represented the company in regulatory proceedings and held leadership positions over the company’s portfolio of demand-side management programs and policies, which helped to ensure the provision of affordable, reliable, and resilient electric service for over 15 million people in Southern California. 

Over his professional career, Rodrigues has also held leadership positions in industry nonprofit organizations, including most recently as a member of the board of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, as the Chair of the board for the California Efficiency & Demand Management Council, and as Chair of the Outreach Committee for the bipartisan Alliance to Save Energy’s Active Efficiency initiative. Previously, Gene also served as the Chair of the Consortium for Energy Efficiency and on the boards of the China-US Energy Efficiency Alliance and California’s Low-Income Oversight Board. In recognition of his industry leadership, in 2012 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency presented Gene with its Climate Leadership Award for individual leadership. Gene is a graduate of University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and of Northern Arizona University. He and his wife make their home in Manhattan Beach, California.

Danté Quintin Allen, Nominee for Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration, U.S. Department of Education

Danté Allen currently serves as the Executive Director for CalABLE, California’s qualified federal ABLE Act savings and investment program for people with disabilities. Allen has led CalABLE since its launch in 2018 and has grown the program’s reach with more than 8,000 active accounts with nearly $80 million in assets under management. During its three years in operation, CalABLE has become the fastest growing ABLE program in the United States. Prior to joining CalABLE, Allen has also served as a communications leader in the public and private sector. Allen served in the California Department of Public Health’s newly formed Office of Health Equity as a Senior Communications Officer, and also at Kaiser Permanente, where he served as the Communications Director for the organization’s senior operations executive.

Born with Spina bifida, Allen is a fulltime wheelchair user. Allen is a staunch proponent of disability rights and equity. He has been a champion in advocating for the awareness of the reduction of healthcare and financial disparities especially among people of color and people with disabilities. He serves as a board member for Resources for Independent Living, Sacramento, a nonprofit that supports the needs of people with disabilities to live as independently as possible. He has also contributed in leadership roles in employee resource groups for people with disabilities throughout his career. Allen received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Davis and a Master’s degree at The University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication.

George P. Kent, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Estonia

George P. Kent, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, most recently served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the European and Eurasian Bureau at the U.S. Department of State. Previously, he was Deputy Chief of Mission in Kyiv, Ukraine. Prior to that, Kent was the Senior Anti-Corruption Coordinator in the State Department’s European Bureau. He has also served as Director for Europe and Asia in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. Since joining the Foreign Service in 1992, Kent has served in U.S. Diplomatic Missions in Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Warsaw, Poland; Bangkok, Thailand (twice), and Kyiv, Ukraine (twice). Other State Department assignments include Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Operations Center Watch Officer, and Thai desk officer. Kent holds an A.B. from Harvard in Russian History and Literature, an M.A. from Johns Hopkins’ SAIS, and an M.S. from the National Defense University’s Eisenhower School. He speaks Ukrainian, Russian, and Thai. Kent is a Kirby Simon Fund Trustee.

Donna Ann Welton, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste

Donna Ann Welton, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, currently serves as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Programs and Operations for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Prior to that, she was Assistant Chief of Mission in Kabul, Afghanistan, after three years serving as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki, Finland, where she served over eighteen months as Chargé d’affaires, ad interim. Earlier, she was on detail to the Department of Defense as the Acting Director for Southeast Asia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy). Welton began her career with the United States Information Agency, serving in the Republic of Korea as the Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer in Seoul and as American Center Director in Daegu, then as American Center Director in Fukuoka, Japan, before returning to graduate school. She then worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the American Federation of Arts in New York. Welton returned to the Foreign Service at the Department of State in 2000, serving in public diplomacy positions in Tokyo and Nagoya, Japan, Washington, and Jakarta, Indonesia. Welton also served as Consul General in Sapporo, Japan. She then took over as Counselor for Public Affairs in Kabul, followed by service at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations as Deputy Director of Communications and Public Affairs. Welton also served as Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. Welton earned her A.B. from Yale University and holds a Master’s degree in Strategic Studies from the Army War College. She speaks Japanese fluently, and also speaks Korean, Indonesian, German, some Dari, and Finnish.

Roger Israel Zakheim, Nominee for Member of the United States Institute of Peace

Roger Zakheim is Director of the Reagan Institute in Washington, D.C., which promotes the legacy of President Reagan by advancing the timeless principles of individual liberty, national security, economic opportunity, global democracy, and national pride. Zakheim serves on the Board of Directors of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) and on the Board of Directors of Marvell Government Solutions, the federal business unit of Marvell Technology, Inc. Zakheim previously served as a Commissioner on the Commission on the National Defense Strategy of the United States established by Congress in 2017, and is a former Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Prior to joining the Reagan Institute in 2018, Zakheim was a Partner at Covington & Burling LLP, where he led the firm’s Public Policy and Government Affairs practice group.

Zakheim’s government experience includes serving as General Counsel and Deputy Staff Director on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. In this role, Zakheim managed the passage of the annual National Defense Authorization Act. Zakheim also served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense during the George W. Bush Administration. Zakheim frequently speaks and writes on national security and defense issues. His views have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Politico, National Public Radio, Fox News, CNN, The Atlantic, National Review, and other media outlets. Zakheim received his B.A. from Columbia University and holds an M. Phil in International Relations from Cambridge University, and a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife Tamar and five children.

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