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MARIA ECHAVESTE
FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF
Maria Echaveste is an attorney currently based in Washington, DC, and a frequent guest on PBS’ To the Contrary. She was previously Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for President Clinton, a position she held from May 1998 through January 2001. As Deputy Chief of Staff, she managed policy initiatives and developed legislative and communications strategies for the White House. She also had responsibility for coordinating the selection of senior Administration appointments, and the administration and management of the White House including preparations for Y2K and the 2000 Presidential Transition.
Among the issues she worked on were immigration, education, civil rights, bankruptcy, trade (Caribbean Basin Initiative and Africa Growth Opportunity Act), Plan Columbia (federal effort to assist Columbia in its anti-drug campaign), Latin America, AIDS and Africa, New Markets (federal effort to attract investment in under-served communities) and many other issues. Echaveste also had responsibility within the White House for coordinating federal disaster relief, for both foreign and domestic disasters; such efforts included successfully obtaining supplemental funding from Congress to assist Central America in the wake of Hurricane Mitch and to assist homeowners injured by the Los Alamos fire.
Previous to serving as Deputy Chief of Staff, Echaveste held the post of Assistant to the President and Director of Public Liaison from February 1997 to May 1998. Before then, she served as Administrator of the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, from June 1993 to early 1997. In that role, she was responsible for the management and policy direction of programs related to a variety of Federal laws, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act (including minimum wage, overtime and child labor) and federal contracting laws. Echaveste also directed the Department of Labor’s anti-sweatshop effort, which received a 1996 Innovations in Government award, sponsored by Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and the Ford Foundation.
Echaveste was born in Texas, but grew up in the central and coastal valleys of California. She received a B.A. in anthropology from Stanford University in 1976. While at Stanford, she interned at the National Council for La Raza and after graduation, worked at the US Commission on Civil Rights. In 1980 Echaveste received a Juris Doctor from the University of California at Berkeley. She worked as an attorney specializing in corporate litigation for the firms in Los Angeles and New York, becoming special counsel in bankruptcy in 1989 with the New York firm Rosenman and Colin.
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MARIA’S INFO
PROGRAMS/TOPICS
- The Growing Political, Social & Economic Influence of Hispanic Americans: Myth or Reality?
- Globalization: Can Consumers Make a Difference?
- The West Wing: How It Really Works
- Immigration and Labor Needs in the 21st Century