Everything about Elaine Chao totally explained
Elaine Lan Chao (; born
March 26,
1953) currently serves as the 24th
United States Secretary of Labor in the
Cabinet of
President George W. Bush. She is the first
Chinese American, and the first Asian-American woman to be appointed to a President's cabinet in American history. Chao is the President's only original cabinet member, making her the longest serving cabinet member during President Bush's administration.
Childhood and education
Chao was born in
Taipei,
Taiwan, to James S. C. Chao (趙錫成 Zhào Xīchéng), a
Shanghainese entrepreneur, and Ruth Mu-lan Chu (朱木蘭 Zhū Mùlán), a
historian. Her parents had fled to Taiwan from mainland China after the Chinese Communists took over as a result of the
Chinese Civil War in 1949. At the age of eight, Elaine Chao and her family immigrated to the United States, where her father had already settled a few years earlier. She attended
Syosset High School on
Long Island, New York.
Chao received her B.A. in Economics from
Mount Holyoke College in 1975 and her
MBA from the
Harvard Business School. Chao is the second Mount Holyoke alumna to become Labor Secretary. Frances Perkins, a 1902 graduate of the College, was the first woman to hold a Cabinet post and served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945. Chao also studied at
MIT,
Dartmouth College, and
Columbia University. She is the recipient of 29 honorary doctoral degrees from colleges and universities around the world.
Career
George H.W. Bush Administration
In
1986, Chao returned to
Washington D.C. as Deputy Administrator of the
Maritime Administration in the
US Department of Transportation. From
1988 to
1989, she served as Chairwoman of the Federal Maritime Commission.
In
1989, President
George H. W. Bush nominated Chao to be Deputy Secretary of Transportation, the number two position in the department. From
1991 to
1992, Chao was Director of the
Peace Corps. She was the first
Asian American to serve in all these positions. She expanded the Peace Corps's presence in
Eastern Europe and
Central Asia by establishing the first Peace Corps programs in
Latvia,
Lithuania,
Estonia,
Poland, and other newly independent states of the former
Soviet Union.
United Way and Heritage Foundation
Following her service in the government, Chao worked for four years as President and Chief Executive Officer of
United Way of America. She is credited with returning credibility and public trust back to the organization after an embarrassing financial mismanagement scandal involving former United Way of America president
Bill Aramony. From
1996 until her appointment as Secretary of Labor, Chao was a Distinguished Fellow with the
Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.
Achievements as Labor Secretary
During Secretary Chao's tenure, the Department has updated the white collar
overtime regulations under the
Fair Labor Standards Act, which has been on the agenda of every Administration since 1977. For the first time in history, overtime protection is now explicitly guaranteed for blue collar workers, police, firefighters, EMT's, factory workers, construction workers and hourly workers. The most significant regulatory
tort reform of President Bush's first term, the new regulations provided millions of workers with strengthened overtime protection. In 2003, the Department achieved the first major update of union financial disclosure regulations in more than 40 years, giving rank and file members enhanced information on how their dues are spent. The Department has set new worker protection enforcement records, including recovering record back wages for vulnerable low wage immigrant workers. The Department has also launched comprehensive reform of the nation's publicly funded worker training programs. In 2006 and 2007, the Department successfully implemented the
Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 (MINER Act). On August 17, 2006, President Bush signed the
Pension Protection Act, which protects the 44 million workers whose retirement security rests upon private sector defined benefit pension plans.
After
Donald Rumsfeld had stepped down from his position as
Secretary of Defense in November 2006, she became the only original Cabinet member still serving in the Bush Administration in the same position to which she was appointed.
Failures as Labor Secretary
During her tenure, the
Sago Mine disaster of 2006 and the
Crandall Canyon Mine disaster of 2007 took the lives of many miners, drawing criticism over the lack of mine regulation enforcement.
Timeline
Family
Elaine Chao is married to Senator
Mitch McConnell of
Kentucky, the
Republican Leader of the
United States Senate. She is the eldest of six daughters in her family.
Notes and references
Further Information
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