President Barack Obama named the members of his new Economic Recovery Advisory Board on Friday - a team that he says will bring with it fresh ideas that go beyond the walls of Washington. The group of outside advisers will offer independent advice to the White House to help the administration craft an effective response to the nation’s growing recession.
Obama has chosen former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who took on several threats of inflation in the 1980s as head of the nation's central bank, to lead the team. Investment banking, as well as academia, Silicon Valley, and the real estate industry are some of the communities represented on the board. In addition to Volcker, the 16-member committee includes:
- Penny Pritzker, founder of Pritzker Realty Group in Chicago
- Robert Wolf, the CEO of UBS Group Americas
- Mark T. Gallogly, founder of Centerbridge Partners in New York
- Charles E. Phillips Jr., president of software giant Oracle Corp.
- John Doerr, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
- Martin Feldstein, professor of economics at Harvard University
- Roger W. Ferguson Jr., CEO of retirement fund TIAA-CREF
- Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union
- William H. Donaldson, former chairman of the SEC
- Richard L. Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO
- Monica C. Lozano, publisher and CEO of La Opinion
- Jim Owens, CEO of Caterpillar Inc.
- David F. Swensen, CIO of Yale University
- Laura D'Andrea Tyson, dean of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley
- Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO of General Electric
The President's announcement came on the heels of more bad news surrounding unemployment. During the month of January, 598,000 jobs were lost, spread across both the manufacturing and services industries, as the national jobless rate hit 7.6 percent.