Kay Coles James

Kay Coles James was the director for the Office of Personnel Management. She was nominated by George W. Bush in 2001 and left in 2005. Previous to the OPM appointment, she served as Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources under then-Governor George Allen and was the dean of Regent University's government school. She is currently a member of the NASA Advisory Council.

Background

As 1994 graduation speaker at Hampton University, her alma mater, James said, using the incurable disease as a metaphor for widespread social ills,cite web
date=February 6, 2002
author= Smith, Tammie
url= http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031771154382&path=!news!blackhistory&s=1058750353270
title= Kay Coles James
publisher= Richmond Times Dispatch
accessdate=2007-04-13] cquote| [The United States is] experiencing cultural AIDS. We as a country have been the victims of an immune system that has broken down. It's gone.In a 1994 interview, James said she expected to use her visibility as a "bully pulpit to change the culture." [cite web
date=September 25, 1994
author= Jordon, Ida Kay
url= http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1994/vp940925/09230261.htm
title= Reform-Minded Republican Kay Coles James Plans to Use Her Visibility as a "Bully Pulpit to Change the Culture"
publisher= The Virginian-Pilot
accessdate=2007-04-13]

In 2003, James was named the 2003 Distinguished Christian Statesman, describing her as a Christian statesman who "makes it clear that the only way to transform any culture is from the inside out and that 'the children of God will be called upon to lead the way.'" [cite web
url= http://www.statesman.org/PAGES/Awards/2003.asp
title= 2003 The Honorable Kay Coles
accessdate=2007-04-13] The award came from D. James Kennedy's Center for Christian Statemanship. Kennedy is a pastor criticized by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League for attempting to link creation theory to Hitler and for being "a leader among the distinct group of 'Christian Supremacists' who seek to 'reclaim America for Christ' and turn the U.S. into a Christian nation guided by their strange notions of biblical law." [cite web
url= http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/4877_52.htm
title= ADL Press Release
accessdate=2007-04-13]

Paul Krugman, a "New York Times" opinion columnist, noting that Regent University boasts of 150 graduates working in the Bush administration, criticized James' tenure as the federal government’s chief personnel officer when many of these hires occurred.cite web
date=April 13, 2007
author= Krugman, Paul
url= http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/opinion/13krugman.html?em&ex=1176609600&en=153ca0c120ffbf05&ei=5087%0A
title= For God’s Sake
publisher= New York Times
accessdate=2007-04-13] "Boston Globe", journalist Charles Savage wrote that previous to James' work as director of OPM, "veteran civil servants screened applicants and recommended whom to hire, usually picking top students from elite schools." Noting that Regent University is ranked a "tier four" school by US News & World Report, the lowest score and essentially a tie for 136th place, Savage said James' changes resulted in lawyers with more conservative credentials, less prior experience in civil rights law and the decline of the average ranking of the law school attended by the applicants. [cite news | url=http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/04/08/scandal_puts_spotlight_on_christian_law_school/?page=full | title=Scandal puts spotlight on Christian law school| publisher=Boston Globe | date= April 8, 2007| first=Charlie | last=Savage | accessdate = 2007-04-08] The politicization of the Justice Department is one of the criticisms involving the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy and questions of competency were also raised with respect to one Regent graduate, Monica Goodling. [cite web
date=April 9, 2007
author= Cohen, Andrew
url= http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/09/opinion/courtwatch/main2665402.shtml?source=mostpop_story
title= The Gutting Of The Justice Department
publisher= CBS News
accessdate=2007-04-13]

Subsequent to her OPM position, James took a job with Mitchell Wade, the disgraced defense contractor who bribed Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham in the MZM scandal. Wade hired James with a compensation package that included a $150,000 signing bonus and a $350,000 base salary. She quit within two months, right after the controversy became public. Athena Innovative Solutions Inc., the successor to MZM, sued James for roughly $84,000 that it contended was due them from her signing bonus. The two settled out of court. [cite web
date=June 12, 2006
author= Hardin, Peter
url= http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149188407117
title= James sensed trouble at MZM
publisher= Richmond Times Dispatch
accessdate=2007-04-13]

She is currently a member of the board of trustees for the Heritage Foundation, an influential Washington, D.C.-based public policy research institute. [ [http://www.heritage.org/About/Departments/trustees.cfm Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees, heritage.org] ]

Personal information

James is the wife of Charles E. James, Sr. and the mother of three grown children. [ [http://www.usoge.gov/pages/conference/cf_files/13th_2004_conf/13th_2004_handouts/13th_2004_james.html Kay Coles James - Speaker Biography - 13th Annual Ethics Conference - March 1 - 4, 2004 - New York, NY ] ]

Books

She wrote three books "Never Forget", "Transforming America: From the Inside Out" (1995); and "What I Wish I'd Known Before I Got Married" (2001).
*"Kay James" (coauthor Jacquelline Cobb Fuller), Zondervan (April 1995) ISBN 0310496314
*"Transforming America: From the Inside Out." (coauthor David Kuo) Zondervan (June 1995) ISBN 0310484405
*"What I Wish I'd Known Before I Got Married", Multnomah (October 13, 2001) ISBN 1576737810

References

External links

* [http://www.opm.gov/news/bios/director.asp Kay Coles James] Official Biography