Office of Technology Policy, Technology Administration

U.S. Department of Commerce

Mr. Sargent has served in a wide range of capacities at the Commerce Department’s Technology Administration since 1990:

Mr. Sargent currently serves as a senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy. His current work includes U.S. science and engineering workforce issues, and issues affecting the development and commercialization of emerging technologies that offer significant economic and social benefits to the Nation. In particular, Mr. Sargent has played a key role in the Commerce Department’s recent efforts to foster the application of advanced technologies to education and training, and in the publication of 2020 Visions: Transforming Education Through Advanced Technologies.

Most recently, Mr. Sargent co-authored a report to Congress from the Secretary of Commerce on U.S. high technology education and training programs, building on the agency’s analytical work on science and engineering workforce issues broadly, and the information technology workforce challenge specifically. Mr. Sargent is the co-author of several publications in this field, including The Digital Workforce: Building Infotech Skills at the Speed of Innovation, which is available through websites in more than 40 countries and has been downloaded more than 250,000 times. The underlying work in this area provided the foundation for the agency’s Get Tech initiative with the National Association of Manufacturers, an outreach effort to provide science and engineering career information to junior high students across the Nation.

Mr. Sargent successfully led the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) through a critical phase as Director of the PNGV Secretariat from 1999-2000. PNGV was a landmark public-private partnership between the Federal government and the U.S. auto industry to develop breakthrough technologies capable of enabling today’s vehicles to achieve a three-fold improvement in fuel efficiency.

Mr. Sargent previously served as senior advisor to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology on issues affecting technology’s contribution to U.S. competitiveness, economic growth and job creation. In this capacity, he co-authored Technology in the National Interest for the President’s National Science and Technology Council which articulated the framework for President Clinton’s technology policy. In addition, he developed the Technology Administration’s budget submission and wrote Congressional testimony, speeches, editorials, and other communications products.

Mr. Sargent joined the Technology Administration in 1990 as the agency’s first public affairs director. In this capacity he directed the marketing effort for President George H. W. Bush’s National Technology Initiative—a multi-agency initiative to foster government-industry cooperation, manufacturing excellence and technology financing—that attracted more than 5,000 senior technology executives to 16 conferences nationwide.

Mr. Sargent is the author or co-author of many other innovation-related publications, including International Science and Technology: Emerging Trends in Government Policies and Expenditures, and the President’s Biennial Report to Congress Science and Technology: Shaping the 21st Century.

During a three month leave of absence from the Commerce Department in Fall 2000, Mr. Sargent worked with former Commerce Under Secretary Mary Good, and senior technology and government affairs representatives of industry, universities, professional societies and trade associations to foster an alliance to promote increased Federal investments in mathematics, engineering and the physical sciences. This effort resulted in the establishment of ASTRA, the Alliance for Science and Technology Research in America.

From 1984 to 1989, Mr. Sargent was vice president of Braddock Communications, a small custom publishing firm, where he authored President Bush’s Point of View and the Small Business Resource Guide, and co-authored From George to George: 200 Years of Presidential Quotations.

During a 15 year stint in the U.S. Army Reserve, Mr. Sargent serving as a platoon leader in the 343^rd Engineer Company, command information officer and public information officer for the 310^th Theater Army Area Command, public affairs officer of the 510^th Area Support Group and commander of the 201^st Public Affairs Detachment.

Mr. Sargent holds a degree in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia. He and his wife, Carol Ann, have five children and one grandchild. They reside on Capitol Hill.