President Obama nominated two women for major Transportation Department posts on Friday, one of whom is a former White House top staffer.
Sarah Feinberg has been acting Federal Railroad Administration director since January. Obama moved to make her position permanent. Feinberg previously worked in the White House under then chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, for whom she worked in the 2006 cycle when he was head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and later when he chaired the House Democratic Caucus. She departed in 2008 to work on the Obama campaign. In addition to being a senior adviser to Emanuel, she was a special assistant to the president.
From the White House, Feinberg went into the private sector. She first worked for Bloomberg and then for Facebook. She returned to government in 2013, when she became the Transportation Department’s chief of staff.
Obama also named Marie Therese Dominquez to lead the Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
Dominguez has served as the Pentagon’s principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works division since 2013. Prior to that, she was vice president for government relations and public policy for the Postal Service.
She has done stints at Transportation, the White House and Pentagon previously. She was a deputy chief of staff and counsel for the Federal Aviation Administration under President Clinton. She also worked in the Clinton White House.
