Kincannon Confirmed as Census Bureau Director

3/13/2002

From: LaVerne V. Collins of the U.S. Census Bureau, 301-457-3691 or 301-457-1037 (TDD); e-mail: pio@census.gov

WASHINGTON, March 13 -- The U.S. Senate today confirmed Charles Louis Kincannon as director of the U.S. Census Bureau. Kincannon served as the Census Bureau's deputy director from 1982 to 1992.

"He is one of the country's most respected statisticians, bringing a background of almost 40 years of experience in a wide range of demographic and economic research to the nation's flagship statistical agency," said Commerce Secretary Donald Evans. "Having spent years working at the Census Bureau in an executive capacity, he already is intimately familiar with the organization's work and mission."

The Census Bureau is perhaps best known for conducting a census of the nation's population every 10 years. It also is the federal government's preeminent economic statistical agency, providing regular measurements of international trade and retail sales, among others. The Census Bureau conducts 120 surveys of people and businesses a year in addition to an economic census every five years. Data collected by the Census Bureau paint a detailed picture of the nation's people and economy and are used extensively by policy-makers and businesses.

"I'm very honored to have been selected to lead the Census Bureau," Kincannon said. "This is a critical time for the agency we are in the midst of releasing Census 2000 results; we will start to collect data for the 2002 Economic Census later this year; and we are already planning for a re-engineered decennial census in 2010."

A native of Waco, Texas, Kincannon began his career as a statistician in the Census Bureau in 1963. He held positions of increasing responsibility at the bureau before becoming chief of the program review staff in the Commerce Department's Social and Economic Statistics Administration in 1974. Kincannon joined the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) the following year.

At OMB, Kincannon served initially as statistical liaison to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller's office. Later, he was a member of the original staff in OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He also helped oversee the successful implementation of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980.

Kincannon returned to the Census Bureau in 1981 and was appointed deputy director and chief operating officer in 1982, continuing in that post for a decade. He served as acting director from July 1983 to March 1984 and again from January to December 1989. During the latter period, he directed final preparations for the 1990 Census of Population and Housing. During his career at the Census Bureau, Kincannon won a variety of awards, including the Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Executive, the Special Award for Excellence of the Interagency Committee on Information Resources Management and the Commerce Department's highest civil service honor, the Gold Medal.

In 1992, Kincannon was appointed to the new position of chief statistician for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, France, an economic research organization for the world's major industrial democracies. In this role, he worked to strengthen and reform the organization's statistical work to better respond to post-Cold War needs in Europe and rapid economic integration. He retired from this post in June 2000.

Kincannon is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and did postgraduate study in statistics and economics at George Washington University, Georgetown University and the University of Maryland. He and his wife of 33 years, the former Lois Claire Green of Dayton, Ohio, live in Virginia. Their married daughters live in Washington, D.C., and Knoxville, Tenn.