JORGE E. PONCE

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Jorge Ponce is currently the Director of the Policy and Evaluation Division at the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Commerce. He was named one of the most influential Hispanics in the Nation in the October 2002 issue of Hispanic Business magazine. (See http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=7443). In 2002, Mr. Ponce wrote the National Association of Hispanic Federal Executives’ (NAHFE) Alpha-4 Report, which documents the progress that Hispanics have made in the federal sector in grades 13-SES. Mr. Ponce has worked on important civil rights initiatives with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Blacks in Government (BIG), and the major plaintiffs’ law firms.

Prior to coming to Commerce, Mr. Ponce was an Equal Employment Opportunity Manager at the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 1993 to April 2000. He administered three affirmative employment programs related to Hispanics, people with disabilities, and disabled veterans. In 1995, he went on a detail to the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

Mr. Ponce has served as Vice-Chair of the Council of Federal EEO and Civil Rights Executives from 1997-2000, and as Co-Chair from 2001-2008. He was responsible for visualizing, designing, and updating the Council’s webpage. He has received numerous accolades for his achievements, including the 1999 Federal Hispanic Heritage Month Excellence award from Energy Secretary Bill Richardson for being one of the top 11 Hispanic Employment Program Managers in the nation. (See the Ponce Energy file). Ponce also received the Secretary of the Treasury Award in July 2000 for his work in helping organize the Federal Hispanic Executive Summit III, co-sponsored by the Treasury Department and NAHFE.

Mr. Ponce has worked in the EEO field since 1988. He holds a master's degree in Library Science from Catholic University. He completed his undergraduate work at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he majored in Psychology, and also attended George Mason University Law School for one year.