Appointee Watch: The Trump Administration Takes Shape

It’s a daunting task to staff a new administration. There are about 4,000 political appointee positions across government, 1,100 of which require Senate confirmation. Staffing these jobs will be essential to carrying out the president’s agenda. While President Trump named his cabinet picks relatively quickly, he’s lagged in filling lower level management positions. Things are starting to pick up though.

Late last week, Trump tapped two conservative policy veterans to fill key positions at the Office of Management and Budget, and named Mark Green to be secretary of the Army. He also recently announced his choices for a number of other key jobs at federal agencies and in the White House:

Council of Economic Advisors: Kevin Hassett, chairman. Hassett is the director of research for domestic policy at the American Enterprise Institute and a former senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Energy: Dan Brouillette, deputy secretary. Brouillette is senior vice president and head of public policy for USAA, and he also worked at Ford Motor Company and served as chief of staff for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Health and Human Services: Stephen Parente, assistant secretary for planning and evaluation. Parente is a finance professor studying insurance and health care issues, and he is governing chairman of the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute.

Homeland Security: Lee Francis Cissna, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Cissna currently serves as director of immigration policy in the Homeland Security Department’s office of policy, and he previously worked in the office of the chief counsel at citizenship and immigration services.

Treasury: Heath Tarbert, assistant secretary for international markets and development. Tarbert has been an attorney focused on financial services issues for more than 15 years, including stints as special counsel to the Senate Banking Committee and associate counsel to President George W. Bush.

Transportation: Derek Kan, undersecretary for policy. Kan is the general manager of the ridesharing service Lyft in Southern California, and he has served on the board for Amtrak since 2015.

White House: Vishal Amin, intellectual property enforcement coordinator. Amin is senior counsel for the House Judiciary Committee, and has had previous stints serving as associate director for domestic policy under George W. Bush and in the Commerce Department.