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JOHN A. KOSKINEN, CHAIR

John A. Koskinen was appointed Assistant to the President and Chair of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion in February 1998. He is responsible for coordinating the Federal government's efforts to ensure that its critical information technology systems operate smoothly through the year 2000 and the Federal relationships with State, local and tribal governments, the private sector and foreign institutions as they deal with the same challenges. Mr. Koskinen previously served as Deputy Director for Management at OMB from 1994 to 1997 where he was responsible for OMB oversight of Federal regulations, Federal policies covering information, computers, procurement, and financial management together with general management and program evaluation practices in Federal agencies.

Prior to returning to public service, Mr. Koskinen was President of The Palmieri Company, which restructured a range of large, troubled operating companies.

During Mr. Koskinen's 21 years with The Palmieri Company, he helped reorganize the Penn Central Transportation Company; Levitt and Sons, Incorporated; Baldwin-United Corporation, a large diversified financial services company; and Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company, the largest failed life insurance company in U.S. history.

Earlier in his professional career, Mr. Koskinen served as law clerk to Judge David L. Bazelon, Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Washington, D.C.; was associated with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles as an attorney; was Special Assistant to the Deputy Executive Director of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders; represented Mayor John Lindsay and New York City in Washington; and served for four years as administrative assistant to Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff of Connecticut.

Mr. Koskinen was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 30, 1939; attended high school in Ashland, Kentucky; graduated Magna Cum Laude from Duke University in 1961, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa; graduated with an LL.B., cum laude, from Yale Law School in 1964; and did post graduate work in international law at Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, 1964-65.

Mr. Koskinen is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and a member of Phi Beta Kappa Associates. He served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Duke University for three years during his 12 years as trustee and was honored in 1997 with the Association of Governing Board's national distinguished service award. He is a past President of the University's National Alumni Association. Mr. Koskinen also was a Trustee for 12 years of the Cooperative Assistance Fund and served for 12 years as an organizer and Chairman of the Board of the National Captioning Institute. In addition, he served as Chairman of the Washington, D.C. Host Committee for the 1994 World Cup and the Washington 1996 Olympic Soccer Committee.

Mr. Koskinen and his wife, the former Patricia Salz, have two adult children, Cheryl and Jeffrey, and live in Washington, D.C.

-- there is no telling (what.he.is.capable.of@US.com), August 28, 1999

Answers

Dook!? He is a Big Brain! I see that he eventually did make it to a real Ivy League school.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), August 28, 1999.

Ko-skin-'em was part of the Penn Central debacle and they call that part of a successful history? I guess it was successful for his firmn and the Penn Central board of directors, but not for very many shareholders, customers, employees or the other railroads which depended on Penn Central.

If you don't know, Penn Central had to be bailed-out at taxpayer expense with a government take-over and turned into Conrail, along with five other railraods that failed when their partner (Penn Central) sank and dragged them under. Conrail was a tax-dollars drain from 1976 until 1990 when it went public and later eventually de- merged this year when bought by and split between Norfolk Southern and CSX.

I wonder if this means Ko-skin-'em's of a successful Y2K conclusion is a government take-over for every affected company and other entity (to include families?)? If so, it sounds like Ko-skin-"em IS Clinton's kinda guy for Y2K. "Just nationalize everything as it fails, including the populace. Then let things work themselves out from there, after we get our big pay-offs."

But I guess another term for a nationalized populace could be peons or slaves.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), August 28, 1999.

Cambridge in 1964-65? When was our CIC there? Wasn't he a Rhodes Scholar at about the same time? Wonder if they knew each other then...

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.net), August 29, 1999.