Maria Echaveste is an attorney and consultant, currently based in Washington, DC. She was previously Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for President Clinton, a position she held from May 1998 through January 2001.
As Deputy Chief of Staff, she managed policy initiatives and developed legislative and communications strategies for the White House regarding various policy issues including immigration, education, civil rights, bankruptcy, trade (Caribbean Basin Initiative and Africa Growth Opportunity Act), Plan Colombia (federal effort to assist Colombia in its anti-drug campaign), Latin America, AIDS and Africa, New Markets (federal effort to attract investment in under served communities) and many other issues. Ms. Echaveste also had responsibility within the White House for coordinating federal disaster relief, for both foreign and domestic disasters, such as successfully obtaining supplemental funding from Congress to assist Central America in the wake of Hurricane Mitch.
Since leaving government service in January 2001, she has provided strategic and policy advice to a number of clients including AOL Time Warner, AFSCME, the UFW and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. She continues to be involved in politics and national policy as a member of the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee and is also a member of the Board of Directors of People for the American Way and of the National Immigration Forum. Ms. Echaveste is a frequent guest on the weekly PBS television show "To the Contrary," a women's political roundtable focused on issues of national interest.
Previous to serving as Deputy Chief of Staff, Ms. Echaveste held the post of Assistant to the President and Director of Public Liaison from February 1997 to May 1998. Before then, she served as Administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, from June 1993 to early 1997. In that role, she was responsible for the management and policy direction of programs related to a variety of Federal labor laws, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act (including minimum wage, overtime and child labor) and federal contracting laws. Ms. Echaveste also directed the Department of Labor's anti-sweatshop effort, which received a 1996 Innovations in Government award, sponsored by Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and the Ford Foundation.
Ms. Echaveste was born in Texas, but educated in California. She received a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from Stanford University in 1976. In 1980, Ms. Echaveste received a Juris Doctor from the University of California at Berkeley. She worked as an attorney specializing in corporate litigation for firms in Los Angeles and New York, becoming special counsel in bankruptcy in 1989 with the New York firm of Rosenman & Colin.