Brigham McCown

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Brigham A. McCown
Brigham McCown.jpg
McCown in 2005
BornJuly 3, 1966 (1966-07-03) (age 58)
AllegianceFlag of the United States.svg  United States of America
Service/branch US-MaritimeAdministration-Seal.svg U.S. Maritime Administration
Seal of the United States Department of the Navy (alternate).svg United States Navy
Years of service1984–2013
Rank US-O7 insignia.svg Honorary Rear Admiral (LH) United States Maritime Administration
US-O5 insignia.svg Commander United States Navy
Battles/wars Operation Desert Storm, Operation Uphold Democracy, Operation Unified Assistance
Alma mater College of William and Mary
Miami University
Northern Kentucky University
Other work Great Seal of the United States (obverse).svg Senior Advisor USDOT

Great Seal of the United States (obverse).svg Acting Administrator PHMSA

Great Seal of the United States (obverse).svg Chief Counsel FMCSA

Brigham A. McCown (born July 3, 1966, in Ironton, Ohio) is a former member of the U.S. Senior Executive Service.

Contents

He is currently a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute in Washington, DC and a Clinical Professor at Miami University. [1] [2] [3] McCown most recently served as chief executive of (2020–2022) the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company which designed, built, operates, and maintains the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. [4]

Early life and education

McCown grew up in rural southern Ohio, graduating from Ironton High School in 1984. [5] [6] Thereafter, he attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he graduated in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in diplomacy and foreign affairs and obtained a Juris Doctor degree from Northern Kentucky University Salmon P. Chase College of Law in 1997. [7] In 2015, he earned a graduate certificate from Stanford University in Energy Innovation and Emerging Technologies, and in 2019, an MBA from the College of William and Mary. [8]

Career

McCown serves as a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, a position he has held since 2022. He most recently served as president of Alyeska Pipeline Service Company [9] stepping down from this role in January 2022 after apparent disagreements with the company's new board. [10]

McCown served as an advisor to the 2016 presidential transition as a core member of the president-elect Donald Trump's infrastructure policy and agency action teams. [11] He then served as a senior advisor to Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao (R-KY) during her initial days in office but declined a permanent appointment. [12]

Until 2007, McCown served in several leadership roles during both terms of George W. Bush's presidency in Washington D.C. Appointed initially to the U.S. Senior Executive Service by Democratic Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, (D-CA) [13] he was later reappointed by Republican Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, (R-AZ). McCown initially worked as the first chief counsel (general counsel) of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), where he was responsible for legal oversight of the nation's trucking, motor coach, moving industry [14] and NAFTA. [15] During this time, he advocated for stronger truck and bus safety regulations, including better oversight of the commercial bus industry and the requirement for all buses to be equipped with seat belts. [16] [17]

Mineta then appointed McCown to become the first acting administrator and first deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). [18] During his tenure he was responsible for oversight of over one million daily shipments of hazardous materials by land, sea, and air including the nation's 2.6 million miles of pipelines. McCown was instrumental in restoring national critical infrastructure following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and received the department's highest award (gold medal) for his actions while operating under a secretarial designation. He also oversaw the government's initial response to the largest oil spill on Alaska's North Slope and implemented the one call damage prevention program known as "811". [19] [20] While serving as the country's chief energy transportation regulator, McCown was first to raise concerns over the country's aging pipeline infrastructure network but was also avid in his support of pipelines over other transport methods. He has continued to advance safety and has called for tougher standards following gas pipeline incidents in San Bruno, California, [21] and Dallas, Texas. [22]

He was also one of the first experts to call for the phasing out older rail cars transporting crude oil known as DOT-111 tank cars. [23]

From 1988 to 1998 McCown served on active duty as a U.S. naval officer and as a naval aviator [24] and participated in worldwide deployments including Operation Desert Storm and Operation Uphold Democracy. From 1998 until his retirement in 2013, McCown served as a member of the active ready reserve with assignments in Europe, Africa, and Asia including Operation Unified Assistance.

Since retiring from federal service, McCown served as the Chairman and CEO of Nouveau, a consulting and advisory firm based in Dallas, Texas. He previously served on the Southlake, Texas Planning & Zoning Commission [25] where he notably voted against a new natural gas pipeline within the city's limits.[ citation needed ]

He board participation include vice chair (regulatory and legal subcommittee) of the federal government's Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee, a member of the Salmon P. Chase College of Law's Board of Visitors, Co-Chair of the American Bar Association's Transportation Committee of the Administrative and Regulatory Law Section, [26] a Program Council Member for the Warsaw Security Forum, [27] a member of Europe's Pipeline Technology Conference safety advisory committee, founder and board member of the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure, [28] and a Fellow of the American Bar Association Foundation.

Related Research Articles

The Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) is a unit of the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT). It was created in 2005 to advance transportation science, technology, and analysis, as well as improve the coordination of transportation research within the department and throughout the transportation community.

The Calnev Pipeline is a 550-mile (890 km) long buried refined oil products pipeline in the United States, owned by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners. The pipeline consists of two parallel lines, the larger, has a diameter of 14 inches (360 mm) and the smaller one has a diameter of 8 inches (200 mm). The lines carry gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel from Los Angeles, California refineries as far as Nellis Air Force Base south of North Las Vegas, Nevada. It carries approximately 128,000 barrels per day (20,400 m3/d). Jet fuel from the pipeline is also delivered to the Harry Reid International Airport tank farm in Paradise. Additional terminal facilities are located in Barstow, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tennessee Gas Pipeline</span> Set of natural gas pipelines in the United States

Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGPL) is a set of natural gas pipelines that run from the Texas and Louisiana coast through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to deliver natural gas in West Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and New England. The 11,900-mile (19,200 km) long system is operated by the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan. It is one of the largest pipeline systems in the United States. Its FERC code is 9. TGP's PHMSA pipeline operator i.d. is 19160.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kinder Morgan</span> Energy Transportation Company

Kinder Morgan, Inc. is one of the largest energy infrastructure companies in North America. The company specializes in owning and controlling oil and gas pipelines and terminals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</span> United States government agency

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is a United States Department of Transportation agency created in 2004, responsible for developing and enforcing regulations for the safe, reliable, and environmentally sound transportation of energy and other hazardous materials. It is in charge of overseeing about 3.4 million miles of pipelines - accounting for 65% of the energy consumed in the U.S. - and regulating the nearly 1 million daily shipments of hazardous materials by land, sea, and air. This includes pipelines carrying carbon dioxide Carbon capture and utilization). PHMSA's safety programs are housed in the Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) and the Office of Hazardous Materials Safety (OHMS). PHMSA is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas J. Barrett</span> American Coast Guard admiral

Thomas J. Barrett is a former United States Coast Guard officer and former Deputy Secretary of Transportation from 2007 until 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel G. Bonasso</span>

Samuel George Bonasso is a career civil engineer, entrepreneur and inventor, who also worked as a public servant in the transportation sector at the state and federal levels and contributing innovations in his industry. Bonasso has founded three businesses and is the holder of five U.S. patents, Bonasso was West Virginia Secretary of Transportation from 1998 to 2000 in the Governor Cecil H. Underwood administration. He then served as deputy administrator, then acting administrator, of the Research and Special Programs Administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation under Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, during the presidency of George W. Bush.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard R. Elliott</span> American government official

Howard R. "Skip" Elliott is an American government official who served as the Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration from 2017 to 2021.

References

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  2. "Brigham A. McCown - Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure". aii.org.
  3. "Directory - Miami University". miamioh.edu. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
  4. "Alyeska - 2011". www.alyeska-pipe.com. Retrieved 2020-12-12.
  5. Staff Reports (2003-08-05). "Ironton native named chief counsel of DOT". The Tribune. Retrieved 2022-06-07.
  6. "1984". tigertown.ss16.sharpschool.com. Retrieved 2022-06-07.
  7. "Press Release: New Deputy Administrator Appointed | PHMSA". www.phmsa.dot.gov. Retrieved 2022-07-09.
  8. McCown, B. (2019) Brigham McCown Curriculum Vitae. Miami University. http://www.fsb.miamioh.edu/fsb/directory/vita/mccownba.pdf
  9. "Brigham McCown Named President of Alyeska Pipeline". Alaska Business Magazine. 2020-01-04. Retrieved 2020-12-13.
  10. DeMarban, Alex (February 1, 2022). "Head of Alyeska pipeline steps down". Anchorage Daily News. Retrieved 2022-06-07.
  11. Malloy, David E. "Ironton native named to Trump transition team". The Herald-Dispatch. Retrieved 2022-06-07.
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  25. "Economic Development and Tourism Strategy". cityofsouthlake.com. 15 February 2011.
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  27. "Archived Document". Archived from the original on 2015-12-22. Retrieved 2015-12-15.
  28. "Home". Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure. Retrieved 2020-12-13.