Meet the BRAC commissioners

| Tuesday, June 21, 2005

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Three of the nine members of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission

will be in Rapid City today. They are former U.S. Rep. James Bilbray of Nevada, former

Assistant Secretary of Defense Philip Coyle and former Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner.

Here are their biographies, according to the BRAC Web site (www.brac.gov).

James Bilbray

Bilbray graduated from American University in Washington, D.C., in 1962 with a degree in government and public administration and from Washington College of Law in 1964. A Nevada native, Bilbray served as a Nevada state senator and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1987. During his four terms in Congress, he served as chairman of the Small Business Sub-Committee on Taxation, Tourism and Procurement. He was also a member of the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees. He joined the firm of Kummer Kaempfer Bonner & Renshaw in 1996, where he specialized in dealing with local, state and federal issues. In 2001, he received an honorary doctorate of law from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas for his extensive contributions to the state and federal government.

Philip Coyle

Coyle is a senior adviser to the president of the Center for Defense Information and a defense consultant. As former assistant secretary of defense for test and evaluation (1994-2001), he is a recognized expert on U.S. and worldwide military research, development and testing. During the 1995 round of base closings, he served as the co-chairman of the DOD Joint Cross-Service Group for Test and Evaluation. Before serving at the Pentagon, Coyle served as laboratory associate director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., and as deputy to the laboratory director. During the Carter administration, Coyle served as principal deputy assistant secretary for defense programs in the Department of Energy. He was selected by Aviation Week magazine as one of its "Laurels" honorees for 2000, a select group of people recognized for outstanding contributions in the aerospace field.

Samuel Skinner

Skinner is the retired chairman, president and chief executive of USF Corporation, a transportation and logistics company. He also served from 1993-1998 as president of Commonwealth Edison Company and its holding company, Unicom Corporation. Before joining Commonwealth Edison, Skinner served as chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush. Before his White House service, he served in the president's Cabinet for nearly three years as secretary of transportation. Skinner was credited with the development of the president's national transportation policy and the development and passage of landmark aviation and surface transportation legislation. He is currently an adjunct professor of management and strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He served as a member of the Illinois National Guard and the United States Army reserve from 1957-68.