Seattle, WA – December 11, 2008 – Five weeks after winning the election, President-Elect Barack Obama is winding up his choices for his Cabinet. This week, President-Elect Obama nominated retired General Eric Shinseki to serve as the 7th United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs and Steven Chu, Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as his Energy Secretary.
America’s Opportunity Fund (AOF) co-chairs, former Washington State Governor Gary Locke and former Cabinet Secretary Norman Mineta congratulate President-Elect Obama in his choices. “We applaud President-Elect Obama for his choice of General Shinseki and Steven Chu to his Cabinet,” stated AOF Co-chair Norman Mineta. “These men are true leaders in their fields and are well respected in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.”
General Shinseki is the first Asian- American to become a four-star general in the U.S. Army and the first to serve as Army Chief of Staff. Shinseki, who was born and raised in Hawaii, is a graduate of West Point Academy and served two combat tours in Vietnam, where he was awarded two Purple Hearts and three Bronze Stars. General Shinseki retired in June 2003 after 38 years in the Army and is remembered for his candid assessment in 2003 securing Iraq would require several hundred thousand soldiers - a fact disputed then by senior Department of Defense officials. Shinseki, twice awarded the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in Vietnam, will, if confirmed, be in charge of fixing the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has been criticized for underestimating the resources needed to help thousands of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We are confident that General Shinseki will work tirelessly to advocating for our nation’s veterans,” added Mineta.
For U.S Energy Secretary, President-Elect Obama chooses Nobel laureate Steven Chu. Chu is a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Sinica. He is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Korean Academy of Sciences and Technology as well as a member of the Copenhagen Climate Council. According to AOF Co-Chair Gary Locke, “As an early advocate for scientific solutions to climate change, Chu is the right choice for this post.” If confirmed, Chu will be the first Chinese American to hold this office.
America’s Opportunity Fund praises these two nominations and is confident of the positive change that the Obama Administration will bring forth.