John Bryson was sworn in today as the nation’s 37th Commerce Secretary. Secretary Bryson will be a key member of President Obama’s economic team and will work to implement the administration’s top economic priority: accelerating job creation. He will work to strengthen the economic recovery and U.S. competitiveness, and serve as a voice for the business community in the president’s Cabinet.
Bryson will also lead the effort to foster new economic development clusters that take advantage of regional strengths; expand the country’s broadband infrastructure and effectively manage its spectrum as America gears up to build a national, interoperable wireless network for first responders; strengthen U.S. coastal communities and our weather and oceans science, promote sustainable fisheries and our fishing industry and support critical satellite programs; and, continue the effort to reform a Cold War-era export control system.
John Bryson was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as Secretary of Commerce on June 16, 2011. He has nearly three decades of business experience, serving as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison and Edison Mission Group, from 1990 to 2008. At Edison, he led the utility through the California energy crisis. As CEO, he created a competitive power subsidiary, the Mission Group, which expanded across the U.S and was a global leader in the privatization of power plants and electric systems in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines and several European countries.
Bryson has served as a director on several public, educational and non-profit boards, including The Boeing Company, The Walt Disney Company and has served as an adviser and a director of entrepreneurial and start-up companies including Coda Automotive, Inc and BrightSource Energy. He was a senior adviser to the global investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR).
Mr. Bryson was chair of the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) and a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees for the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He served as chairman of the Board of Overseers for the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC). Mr. Bryson was co-chairman of the Pacific Council on International Policy (PCIP) and has served on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations and as chairman of the California Business Roundtable.
Prior to joining the private sector, Mr. Bryson served as president of the California Public Utilities Commission and chairman of the California State Water Resources Control Board. Before joining Edison, Mr. Bryson was a partner in the law firm of Morrison and Foerster. Shortly after earning his J.D. from Yale law school, he and some classmates received a grant from the Ford Foundation to form the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1971.
Mr. Bryson is a graduate of Stanford University. He and his wife Louise have four daughters.
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce
