Don Gips

U.S. Ambassador to South Africa (since July 2009)

(Presidential Personnel Office)

Why He Matters

The former gatekeeper to jobs in the Obama administration left the White House for a new administration role: Obama's ambassador to South Africa. The former FCC international chief represents America's best interests as the promising developing nation tries to become an African standout.

Once the most popular man in Washington, as the all-powerful director of presidential personnel (PPO), Gips had the resumes of hundreds of thousands of eager people who wanted a job in Barack Obama's administration. He and his staff of 40 had to say no to 1,000 people for every one person they hired.

Read more

Corrections?

Background

At a Glance

Career History: White House Director of Presidential Personnel (January 2009 to July 2009); Member of Barack Obama's transition team (August 2008 to January 2009); Vice president of global corporate development at Level 3 Communications (1998 to 2008); Director of domestic policy for Vice President Al Gore (1997 to 1998); Head of the International Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission (1994 to 1997)
Hometown: Highland Park, Ill.
Alma Mater: Harvard University, B.A., 1982; Yale University, MPPM, 1989

Spouse: Liz Berry
Web site

Path to Power

A native of Highland Park, Ill., Gips graduated from Harvard University in 1982.

After graduation, Gips earned a Rockefeller fellowship to work in Sri Lanka with Sarvodaya USA, a group that does community, grass-roots development. He worked on projects such as installing fresh-water wells.

Read more

Shortly after returning to the U.S., Gips got a job with Sen. Bill Bradley's 1984 re-election campaign. He was hired as Bradley's driver but said that when they told him how much he would be driving, he didn't think he could stay awake that much. He got a job doing a little bit of everything instead.

After the campaign, Gips went back to school and earned a master's degree in public and private management from Yale University in 1989. He earned a Coro Fellowship, which focuses on leadership training.

He worked in New York Mayor Ed Koch's office as a policy analyst for a year and then worked at the 92nd Street Y in New York. Gips then worked as an executive manager at McKinsey & Company, a top consulting firm, for a couple of years.

Americorps

In 1992, Gips took a leave of absence to write a report titled "What you can do for your country," which ultimately led to the development of Americorps. Congress had set up the Commission on National Community Service, which issued the report. Gips worked as a consultant to the commission for a good portion of 1993 and then took a job as the director of transition for Americorps when it was starting up.

Federal Communications Commission

In 1994, Gips was named to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He worked as the FCC's chief international regulator until Vice President Al Gore, looking for a technology wonk to be his head of domestic policy, tapped Gips for the White House in 1997.

White House

As Gore's domestic policy adviser, Gips had a lot on his plate, but he focused on communications and technology issues. It was an era when communications was rapidly changing with the expansion of the Internet, and Gips worked on privacy and security issues surrounding the Web while trying to expand access to internet, particularly into schools.

Private Sector

When he took the job, Gips told Gore that he was only going to work for one year in the stressful position. In 1998, he left to spend more time with his family and moved to Boulder, Colo., with his wife and kids. Gips joined Level 3 Communications, an internet provider and communications company, where he worked for the next 10 years. He spent much of that time as vice president of global corporate development, which put him in charge of corporate strategy and acquisitions.

Obama Supporter

In 2004, like so many others, Gips watched Barack Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and decided that he needed to get to know the Senate candidate. Unlike so many others, Gips had the connections to meet Obama. They were introduced at a fundraiser for Colorado Senate candidate Ken Salazar later that election season.

Gips was awed by Obama. "I was incredibly moved by Obama," Gips said. "It was everything I'd hoped to find in Washington. And, as I've gotten to know him, he's lived up to that." Gips was also an invaluable Colorado political connection for Obama; he held a variety of events for the candidate and raised more than $500,000.

Gips and Obama immediately became close, and after Obama won his Senate election in 2004, Gips helped him staff his Senate office. In Obama's second memoir, "The Audacity of Hope," he thanks Gips as one of "several good friends [who] took the time to read the manuscript and provided me with invaluable suggestions." When Obama was thinking about running for president, Gips was a part of the conversation.

August 2008, Gips began working on agency review for the Obama transition, even though the election was months away. "We had to get it operating before then to hit the ground running," Gips said.

Obama Team

When the work intensified as the election neared, Gips took an unpaid leave from Level 3 Communications starting in October 2008 to devote more time to Obama. His company was hit hard in the financial crisis and saw its stock drop from more than $3 per share to less than $1 per share.

As part of the transition team, Gips helped lead the Agency Review Team and map out the major issues facing each agency.

After Obama's inauguration, Gips officially became personnel director, leading a team sorting through 350,000 resumes to find people for 3,000 administration jobs, in the White House and in every agency.

In June 2009, Gips filled one of those positions himself. Obama nominated Gips to be his ambassador to South Africa. fewer than half of the top administration positions half been filled at the time.

The Issues

Gips has often found himself in positions where he has to make tough decisions."Basically, I like solving problems," he said.

Gips takes those problem-solving skills with him as America's representative to South Africa, a country still plagued by racial tension, while trying to emerge as one of the economic leaders on the vast and underdeveloped African continent.

Read more

Gips' strength as an ambassador lies more in his technology-industry expertise and his close relationship to the president than in his diplomatic credentials. But Gips brings an unusual dual perspective to his job, having worked both in international business development for the massive corporation Level Three Communications and on grassroots organizing in developing nations for the tiny non-profit Sarvodaya USA. It's a combination that should give him unique insight into the tug-of-war of developing South Africa.

Personnel Director

His first job for the fledgling Obama administration made Gips the most popular man in Washington. He sifted through resumes trying to find people to work in all the Senate confirmable positions and a thousands of others. He spent a lot of time working with cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, governors and others to find the right people. "It's a little bit like trying to do a Rubik's cube, working with people to find the right mix of skills and qualifications," he said.

The Obama transition team opened its doors to the public, soliciting resumes through the transition team Web site. "It's an honor to be able to help bring in the type of people who believe in [Obama's] vision for change in government," Gips said.

Gips, who oversaw a staff of 40, sat in on vetting meetings run by the White House Counsel's office and "represents presidential personnel in the approval process."

Tha process became more intense after a few nominees famously flamed out before confirmation: In January 2009, Bill Richardson withdrew from consideration for Commerce Secretary after questions were raised about a scandal in his home state. The next month, HHS secretary-designate Tom Daschle looked like a lock until it was revealed he had failed to pay taxes on perks from a private-sector employer. Chief Perfomance Officer-designate Nancy Killefer and Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner were also revealed to have unpaid taxes. Geithner was confirmed amid criticism, but Daschle and Killefer withdrew. Gips' group had to vet nominees intensely, significantly slowing down the confirmation process.

By the time Gips left the position six months later, fewer than half of the top 500 positions had been filled.

Volunteerism

His wife, Liz Berry, is the executive director of the Global Education Fund, and Gips said her work is something that is important to him too. As someone who worked in Sri Lanka following college and helped to start Americorps, volunteerism is something that is very important to Gips. As part of Berry's work with the Global Education Fund, he and his wife have had their children go on trips to volunteer in orphanages and villages in Sri Lanka and Kenya.

Phone Regulation

Gips joined the government in 1994 during a time of rapid technology expansion, including improvements in the Internet and long-distance phone calling capability.

At the FCC, Gips, the FCC's international bureau chief, focused on reducing the cost of international phone calls for U.S. consumers. He negotiated a World Trade Organization agreement to increase competition, ran an auction to sell airwaves and developed a plan reduce the settlement rates that phone companies pay to other phone companies in order to complete a call.

"Transmission costs differ little for these two calls. The prices should differ little as well," Gips contended. Some argued that intervention by the FCC could harm developing countries, whose phone companies most benefit from the settlement rates, but most agreed that his actions helped lower international call rates.

Internet Regulation

In Al Gore's office, Gips advised the vice president on all domestic policy issues, but his expertise was in areas of communication. During his year in the White House, Gips took a leading role in increasing Internet safety and privacy.

The Clinton administration had to balance the value of blocking material, which the Supreme Court determined was a First Amendment violation, with protecting children from predators and inappropriate material. Gore developed a hotline to report crimes on the Internet and a program to crack down on child porn. "If the Internet is ever to realize its full potential, we must address the real concerns of America's families by providing tools that are as easy to use as the TV remote control," Gips said at the time.

The Network

Gips worked directly for Vice President Al Gore in 1997 as Gore's domestic policy adviser.

He spent the next decade in the private sector, but was drawn to Barack Obama when Obama was running for Senate in 2004.

Read more

Campaign Contributions

Gips has donated more than $64,000 to politicians since 1999, almost all of it to Democrats (He gave $500 to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in 2003). Gips donated the maximum allowable to Barack Obama in 2008, and also donated $2,000 to him in 2004. He was one of Obama's top bundlers during the presidential campaign, raising more than $500,000 for the 2008 campaign.

Additional Resources