alumni
President Obama selects JSU grads for top positions by Tommiea P. King
C
arlton Reeves is used to speaking before large audiences. As an attorney for nearly 20 years, he’s tried hundreds of cases and delivered many passionate speeches. But Reeves choked up a bit on a Thursday afternoon in July inside the Senate Dirksen Office Building in Washington, D.C. President Barack Obama had nominated Reeves for the U.S. District Court, Southern District Mississippi, and Reeves was about to deliver a speech before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. “I want to thank the president for nominating me for this job,” Reeves said as his family and friends looked on. He went on to thank U.S. senators Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker of Mississippi for the bipartisan nature in which they worked with U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, with whom Reeves interned 25 years ago while a student at Jackson State. “He obviously saw something in me and has stuck with me from that day to this one,” Reeves says. Upon confirmation by the full Senate, Reeves, 46, will become the first African American named to a federal judgeship in Mississippi since President Ronald Reagan nominated Judge Henry T. Wingate in 1985. A 1986 graduate of Jackson State, Reeves
earned his law degree at the University of Virginia School of Law and is a founding partner of Pigott, Reeves and Johnson Law Firm in Jackson, Miss. He also has served as assistant U. S. attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice and law clerk and staff attorney for the Mississippi Supreme Court. Reeves is not the only Jackson State alum whom Obama selected this year for a high-level government post. Jackson State 1980 graduate Malcolm Jackson took on the position of assistant director of the Office of Environmental Information after the president nominated him in April 2010. Jackson reports directly to Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson and leads the EPA’s effort to implement innovative information technology and information management solutions. In addition to an industrial technology degree from Jackson State, Jackson holds an M.B.A. from the Northwestern University-Kellogg School of Management. Jackson’s previous work includes positions as chief information officer for corporate systems at Cigna, director of information technology at Monsanto and leadership posts at Searle, Quaker Oats, General Dynamics and Shell Oil Corp.
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President Obama appointed JSU grad Malcolm Jackson (below, left) this year to a top position at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The president also named Jackson State alum Carlton Reeves (below, right), to a federal judgeship. Watch Reeves at his July 2010 hearing with the Senate Committee on the Judiciary at: www. jsums.edu/pressroom2/ article.cfm?id=1877