Ralph J. Lee has been director of the Census Bureau's Seattle Regional Office since April 2002.

He is in charge of 50 office staff and more than 500 field representatives who interview respondents and complete surveys in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Northern California. This is the largest in land area of the Census Bureau's 12 regions and contains about 100 American Indian reservations and about 200 Alaska Native villages.

Lee started with the Census Bureau in 1988 as a regional technician with the Seattle office, then was named area manager in support of the 1990 Census. Afterward, he became a supervisory survey statistician in Seattle, transferring in 1992 to Census Bureau headquarters in Suitland, Md., to work with the Decennial Planning and Oversight Staff.

Lee went back to Seattle to be assistant regional director in 1998. In 2000, he was named director of the Los Angeles Regional Office. In 2002, Lee returned to Seattle to be the director there.

Lee earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Washington in 1972 and his master's from Texas A&M University in 1974. He received the Department of Commerce's Silver Medal Award in 2001 for the planning and development of the recruitment operations for Census 2000.