Obama Names Transition Team

President-elect Barack Obama has announced his team responsible for planning the transition from the Bush administration. The announcement:

For the past several months, a board of advisors has been informally planning for a possible presidential transition. Among the many projects undertaken by the transition board have been detailed analyses of previous transition efforts, policy statements made during the campaign, and the workings of federal government agencies, and priority positions that must be filled by the incoming administration.

With Barack Obama and Joe Biden's election, this planning process will be now be formally organized as the Obama-Biden Transition Project, a 501(c)(4) organization to ensure a smooth transition from one administration to the next. The work of this entity will be overseen by three co-chairs: John Podesta, Valerie Jarrett, and Pete Rouse.

The co-chairs will be assisted by an advisory board comprised of individuals with significant private and public sector experience: Carol Browner, William Daley, Christopher Edley, Michael Froman, Julius Genachowski, Donald Gips, Governor Janet Napolitano, Federico Peña, Susan Rice, Sonal Shah, Mark Gitenstein, and Ted Kaufman. Gitenstein and Kaufman will serve as co-chairs of Vice President-elect Biden's transition team.

Supervising the day-to-day activities of the transition will be:

Transition Senior Staff:

• Chris Lu—Executive Director
• Dan Pfeiffer—Communications Director
• Stephanie Cutter—Chief Spokesperson
• Cassandra Butts—General Counsel
• Jim Messina—Personnel Director
• Patrick Gaspard—Associate Personnel Director
• Christine Varney--Personnel Counsel
• Melody Barnes—Co-Director of Agency Review
• Lisa Brown—Co-Director of Agency Review
• Phil Schiliro—Director of Congressional Relations
• Michael Strautmanis—Director of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs
• Katy Kale—Director of Operations
• Brad Kiley—Director of Operations

The phone number for the transition headquarters is 202-540-3000. The official website for the transition is www.change.gov and it will be live later today.