Reading the Documents

By Emily Long*

Yesterday, Christine Griffin had her nomination hearing for Office of Personnel Management Deputy Director, but this post pulls out a few of the important points from the many pages of her disclosure form.

Griffin is a self-described vocal advocate for diversity in government jobs and personnel support ("I've become known as someone that cares about federal employees," she says), and she's got 3.5 years of experience at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to back up those priorities. Also, as a Vietnam-era Army vet and Massachusetts Maritime Academy graduate, she's been actively invested in providing greater federal employment opportunities for veterans and wounded warriors.

In her disclosure, Griffin highlighted her hopes for OPM to collaborate on EEOC programs, including the Leadership for Employment of Americans with Disabilities Initiative, which trains agencies to use hiring waivers and increase opportunities for persons with disabilities. Her experience in implementing these kinds of programs and developing an EEOC conflict resolution service will inform her abilities to put these practices into wider management policies and to provide consistent messages to federal agencies on equal employment issues.

The form also revealed Griffin's party-line Democratic financial contributions to the Obama campaign, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, and numerous Massachusetts state senators and representatives, most of whom are deeply involved in the Boston political scene.