Dr. James R. Mahoney

Dr. James R. Mahoney retired as of April 2006 from his position as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, and Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).   Dr. Mahoney served in this position starting April 2002.  During this time he was also Director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), a $2 billion annual budget research and measurement program sponsored by thirteen agencies of the federal government.  He is currently serving as an environmental management advisor for government, nongovernment and private sector organizations.

Dr. Mahoney received a B.S. degree in physics, Magna cum Laude, from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY in 1959.  He received a Ph.D. degree in meteorology from MIT in 1966.

He joined the faculty of the Harvard University School of Public Health in January 1966, holding the positions of Assistant Professor and Associate Professor of Meteorology until July 1973.  His affiliation with Harvard began a career-long involvement with the public health and environmental health management aspects of earth systems science.   From August 1973 through September 1983 Dr. Mahoney was full time Senior Vice President of Environmental Research & Technology, Inc. (ERT) and President of ERT International, Inc.  He was one of three co-founders of ERT in 1968 and a member of the ERT board of directors through 1983.  After its founding in 1968 ERT grew to become, by the later 1970’s, the largest environmental specialty firm in the United States.

Between 1984 and 1987 Dr. Mahoney was Director of the Environmental Industries Center at the Bechtel Group, Inc. at Bechtel corporate offices in San Francisco.  In 1985 he was elected as one the four original Bechtel Fellows from throughout the organization’s more than 100,000 worldwide associates.

Dr. Mahoney moved to Washington, DC at the beginning of 1988 to assume the position of Director of the National Acidic Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP), working in the Executive Office of the President.  NAPAP was responsible for the science input to the acid rain provisions of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, including (among others) the first cap-and-trade program to be applied successfully to the control of a national-scope pollutant.

After completing the NAPAP activities, Dr. Mahoney became Senior Vice President of the International Technology Corporation, an international environmental practice firm headquartered in the Los Angeles area.

Dr. Mahoney was nominated by President George W. Bush to the position of Assistant Secretary in December 2001, confirmed by the Senate in March 2002, and sworn in to his position in April 2002.

He is a fellow of the Danforth Foundation, and a former President of the American Meteorological Society.  He has served as member and co-chair of several committees and boards of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.