FOR RELEASE
Contact: Janie Sheng (202) 245-0221
08/18/2010 (Wednesday)
Eric Weiss
No. 10-21


FedRelay 1 (800) 877-8339
www.stb.gov
SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BOARD ANNOUNCES THE APPOINTMENT OF RAYMOND A. ATKINS AS GENERAL COUNSEL AND TIMOTHY J. STRAFFORD AS CHIEF OF STAFF


Surface Transportation Board Chairman Daniel R. Elliott III announced today that Raymond A. Atkins will become the Board's general counsel effective Sept. 1. Atkins will succeed Ellen D. Hanson, who retired last month.


Atkins has been an attorney in the Board's General Counsel's Office since 2003, where he has handled the Board's major rate cases. He is currently serving as chief of staff to Chairman Elliott, a position he has held since August 2009.


From 2000 to 2003, Atkins was an associate at Covington & Burling, where he worked in the antitrust and transportation practices. He has clerked for Judge Dolores K. Sloviter of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit and was an adjunct professor at George Mason University School of Law. Atkins earned a B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University in 1991, a law degree from George Mason University School of Law in 1998 and a Ph.D. in economics from Emory University in 1998. He makes his home in Leesburg, Virginia, with his wife and two children.


Hanson served the Surface Transportation Board and its predecessor agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, for 35 years. She became the STB's general counsel in 2000.


Elliott also announced today that Timothy J. Strafford will become his new chief of staff. Strafford has worked as an attorney in the STB's Office of Proceedings since 1999. Since 2006, he has served as assistant to the director of the Office of Proceedings. From November 2009 to June 2010 he was detailed to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Strafford earned a B.A. with General Honors from Rutgers University in 1995 and a law degree from American University in 1998, where he was an editor on the American University International Law Review. He resides in Germantown, Maryland, with his wife and two children.


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