Lineup for Foulke's Executive Management Team Set at OSHA

February 13 2007

The appointment of Steven F. Witt as the Directorate of Construction at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), finalized Administrator Edwin G. Foulke Jr’s executive management team.  With a Democrat-majority Congress, the recent appointments to his team come at a vital point in Foulke?s term as head of OSHA.

Witt, employed at the agency since 1983, was most recently the acting deputy administrator and director of the Directorate of Standards and Guidance.  As the new Directorate of Construction, Witt will be called upon to complete the cranes and derrick?s negotiated rulemaking, with a published rule now a priority at the agency.  In 2005, more than one-fifth of the 5,700 fatal work injuries recorded occurred within the private construction sector.

Other appointments include two new deputy assistant administrators; C. Bryan Little, formerly of the Department of Labor’s Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, and Donald G. Shalhoub, the former ombudsman for Part E of the Labor Department?s Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program.

Chief of Staff to Foulke is Gabe Sierra. From Emerson Process Management in Austin, TX, Sierra will now work with Foulke on agency policy, oversight and management. As a senior marketing manger, Sierra spent six years overseeing new technology development programs for the industrial process automation industry.                    

The final appointment elevated Dorothy Dougherty to director of OSHA?s Directorate of Standards and Guidance, following her two year term as acting director.

Dougherty and Witt join holdovers Richard Fairfax (Enforcement), Paula White (Cooperative and State Programs) and Keith Goddard (Evaluation and Analysis) as heads of key OSHA directorates.