FBI Assistant Director Larry R. Parkinson Named
First Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior
for Law Enforcement & Security

WASHINGTON - Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton announced today that Larry R. Parkinson, currently FBI General Counsel and Assistant Director, has been appointed as the first Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Law Enforcement and Security. The position does not require confirmation by the U.S. Senate and becomes effective July 22.

"After a thorough search and recruitment effort for this new position, we have found the perfect Deputy Assistant Secretary in Larry Parkinson," Secretary Norton said. "As General Counsel and Assistant Director of the FBI, he has handled a wide variety of law enforcement and national security matters with the decisive leadership and judgment that will be critical to meeting the great security challenges at Interior."

Parkinson will report to Lynn Scarlett, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Policy, Management and Budget. He will direct the Interior Department's law enforcement and security programs nationwide. Secretary Norton created the new position in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack last year, as part of a restructuring of Interior law enforcement to provide more effective policy coordination and information flows between the department and the enforcement and security staffs of the bureaus.

The law enforcement function in the Department of the Interior consists of more than 4,000 officers assigned to seven separate and distinct organizational units within the department's bureaus and at headquarters. These law enforcement officers work in national parks and refuges, at America's historical sites, on Indian reservations, at ports of entry, at large federal dams, and at many other sites around the country. Parkinson will be in charge of ensuring that bureaus are fully integrated into various homeland security programs.

Parkinson joined the FBI as Deputy General Counsel in December 1995. Since August 1997, he has served as FBI General Counsel/Assistant Director, first to Louis J. Freeh and now to Robert S. Mueller. He is the principal legal advisor to the Director and on all aspects of the FBI's operations and administration. In 1999, he was awarded the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Service.

"Larry Parkinson has been at the leading edge of a wide range of enforcement, intelligence, and counterterrorism matters," Assistant Secretary Scarlett notes. "We look forward to his application of his skills and talents at the Interior Department."

Before coming to the FBI, Parkinson served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1986-1988 and again from 1989-1995 and as General Counsel of the U.S. Small Business Administration from 1988-1989. While serving in the Public Corruption section of the U.S. Attorney's Office, Mr. Parkinson was a lead prosecutor in two of the biggest cases handled by the Justice Department: the worldwide fraud case involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) and the U.S. House of Representatives Post Office investigation.

A South Dakota native, Mr. Parkinson attended the University of South Dakota and then Northern State College, where he obtained a B.S. degree in 1976. He then worked for South Dakota congressmen Larry Pressler and James Abdnor and as a congressional subcommittee minority staff director. Parkinson left Capitol Hill to attend Harvard Law School, obtaining his Juris Doctor degree in 1983. While at Harvard, he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

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