Rod McCowan will take the assignment to support the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. He commented, "I welcome the opportunity to help the relief effort and work on setting up the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps. There is an immediate need to coordinate the great work of the disparate state, local, federal, non-government and private sector organizations that are so valiantly responding to the needs of the hundreds and thousands of displaced residents. We will strive to make a significant positive impact early on."
Dave Roberson, President and Chief Operating Officer of Hitachi Data Systems, said: "We are very proud that Rod accepted this temporary position and wish him all the best for this challenging assignment. This is a huge undertaking and we know that with his expertise and leadership abilities he will make a real difference to the people who have been affected by the terrible events in Louisiana."
Rod McCowan's immediate focus will be on the following:
- Put together a leadership team to design and develop the best organizational strategy and model to meet the needs of evacuees. This team will include Rasha Hashaneen, also from Hitachi Data Systems, who will guide the creation of the business plan and strategy framework for the group
- Around 900 Humanitarian Services Corps members, many of whom are from the state of Louisiana, will be trained to support families compassionately and help transition them to more permanent housing.
- Creation of a centralized information center for the management of information and logistics.
- Establish a Senior Advisory Board to assist with various aspects of the start-up and ongoing management of the project and help generate new donated resources to fill gaps in direct services.
McCowan's previous private sector leadership experience includes Executive Vice President for human resources and corporate communications worldwide at Herman Miller, Inc., and then President of Herman Miller East Asia. In the public sector, in 1991, McCowan was a White House Fellow and served in the first Bush administration as special assistant to the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Following this, he was an assistant secretary of education in the Clinton administration. His non-profit leadership roles include service on the boards of Episcopal Divinity School and the Terry Sanford Institute for Public Policy at Duke University.
