FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1998 Public Information Office CB98-225 301-457-3030/301-457-3670 (fax) 301-457-4067 (TDD) e-mail: pio@census.gov Bruce Walter 301-457-2210 *CENSUS BUREAU MEDIA ADVISORY* Census Bureau Statistician Steps Down After Almost Two-Thirds of a Century on the Job Census Bureau Senior Foreign Trade Statistician Milton Kaufman, who shared with one other person the distinction of having the longest tenure of any active federal government employee, retired on October 22 after more th an 64 years of continuous service. The 87-year-old Kaufman began his uninterrupted federal government career in 1934 at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the time, the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression, Babe Ruth was playing major league baseball and the televi sion was still years away from becoming a fixture in the nation's homes. Furthermore, more than 80 percent of the nation's current population had not yet been born. Kaufman moved to the Census Bureau in 1942. His work at the agency over the next 56 years mirrored the historic events taking place around him. For instance, during World War II, one of his assignments was to help prepare a classified report listing exp ort cargo carried on vessels sunk by the enemy. Then, in 1956, as the mainframe computer was in its infancy, the current monthly United States export statistics file was among the first jobs processed on the Census Bureau's first computer, UNIVAC I; Kaufman was then c hief of the Census Bureau's Foreign Trade Division's Export Statistics Branch. Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. economy was becoming more global oriented and foreign trade was becoming more critical. Interest in trade statistics boomed. In response, Kaufman established an advisory group that evolved into a full-fledged Cens us Bureau foreign trade data user group. The mission of this group was to better suit the agency's trade data to the needs of users. Before starting his uninterrupted career as a federal civil servant, Kaufman worked in 1933 as a mathematician for the legendary Works Progress Administration, one of the agencies created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help end the Great Depression.-X-The U.S. Census Bureau, pre-eminent collector and disseminator of timely, relevant and quality data about the people and the economy of the United States, conducts a population and housing census every 10 years, an economi c census every five years and more than 100 demographic and economic surveys every year, all of them evolving from the first census in 1790.
