Former Miss. governor nominated for Navy post [View All]

[The Straight Story]

Former Miss. governor nominated for Navy post
March 28, 2009


JACKSON, Miss. - President Obama yesterday nominated former Mississippi governor Ray Mabus to be secretary of the Navy.

Mabus, 60, campaigned extensively for Obama last year. He had been previously talked about as a candidate for a place in Obama's Cabinet as secretary of education.

A Democrat, Mabus was governor of Mississippi from January 1988 to January 1992 and also served as US ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1994 to 1996 under President Bill Clinton. Mabus served in the Navy from 1970 to 1972 as a surface warfare officer on the Newport, R.I.-based USS Little Rock. Before then, he was in the Naval ROTC while he was an undergraduate student at the University of Mississippi.

Obama also nominated former pilots' union chief Randy Babbitt to head the Federal Aviation Administration. Babbitt, a consultant who led the Air Line Pilots Association in the 1990s, would become the top safety regulator of passenger and cargo airlines.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/03/28/former_miss_governor_nominated_for_navy_post/