KATHLEEN B. COOPER
Under Secretary of Commerce
As the Commerce Department Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, Kathleen B. Cooper serves as the principal economic adviser to Secretary Donald L. Evans and the CEO of a 7000-employee organization that gathers, calculates, and disseminates much of the U.S. demographic, social, and economic data. Business leaders, policy makers, indeed all Americans, base decisions on the information in Dr. Cooper's purview, including reports on the nation's gross domestic product, retail sales, personal income, housing starts, inventory levels, and international trade.She is the Administrator of the Economics and Statistics Administration and oversees two statistical agencies -- the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau -- and the Internet information resource, STAT-USA.
Her priorities include:
· Advising Secretary Evans on economic trends and policy and communicating the President's economic agenda;
· Retaining and improving the high quality of the nation's economic and demographic indicators by using technology to expedite release, improving the measurement of the services sector, and reducing reporting burdens on data suppliers; and
· Re-engineering the decennial census by planning for an accurate, short-form-only census in 2010 through, among other initiatives, an annual and rolling collection of data about the characteristics of Americans, known as the American Community Survey.
Prior to joining the Bush Administration, Dr. Cooper was the Chief Economist and Manager of the Economics and Energy Division at the Exxon Mobil Corporation, where she advised corporate leadership on the global business environment and energy markets and developed appropriate assumptions for planning purposes. As part of executive management, she shaped company positions on international trade, tax, and environmental policy issues.
Before joining Exxon Mobil in 1990, Dr. Cooper was Executive Vice President and Chief Economist of Security Pacific National Bank in Los Angeles. She led the bank's Economics Department, which conducted international, financial market, industry risk, and regional research. Dr. Cooper began her career as the Corporate Economist and then Chief Economist of the United Banks of Colorado, lecturing part time for one year on economics and statistics at the University of Colorado at Denver.
Dr. Cooper was Vice Chairman of the National Bureau of Economic Research, which is known for its scholarly research and for dating business cycles and recessions. She served as president of the National Association of Business Economists, chairman of the American Bankers Association's Economic Advisory Committee, a trustee of the Committee for Economic Development and the American Council for Capital Formation, and president and of the U.S. Association for Energy Economics where she remains involved as a senior fellow. Dr. Cooper is a member of the Conference of Business Economists.
She served as a trustee of Scripps College in Claremont, California and on the Board of Directors of Goodwill Industries of Metropolitan Dallas and the Single Room Occupancy Housing Corporation in Los Angeles. Dr. Cooper also was treasurer of the International Women's Forum.
Dr. Cooper holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a master's degree in economics from the University of Texas at Arlington and a doctorate in economics from the University of Colorado.
She is married to Ronald J. Cooper. They have two grown sons, Mike and Chris.
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