The Senate voted by unanimous consent on June 25, 2009, to confirm Kathleen Martinez as assistant secretary for the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP).
Martinez, who has been blind since birth, was serving as director of the World Institute on Disability in Oakland, Calif., when President Barack Obama nominated her to head ODEP. During her tenure at the Institute, Martinez ran Proyecto Vision, an outreach program for Latinos with disabilities.
Martinez is no stranger to Washington, D.C., and served on several advisory groups during the administration of former President George W. Bush. In 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appointed Martinez to a U.S. State Department advisory committee on disability and foreign policy, and in 2002 President Bush named Martinez to the 15-member National Council on Disability, an independent federal agency that advises the president and Congress on disability policies. In 2007, Martinez became a member of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an agency created by Congress and dedicated to research and projects in conflict management.
President Obama’s nomination of Martinez gained wide bipartisan support and was praised by political observers who said that her extensive experience and knowledge as a government advisor and advocate for citizens with disabilities would be a perfect fit for ODEP.
Martinez will be instrumental in promoting the Labor Department’s theme of “Expectation + Opportunity = Full Participation” for National Disability Employment Awareness Month in October 2009. Congress created ODEP in 2001 to develop national employment policies for disabled workers and help create “a world in which people with disabilities have unlimited employment opportunities.”
Bill Leonard is senior writer for SHRM Online.
