Lawyer chairs national Postal Service board

Alan C. Kessler, AS ’72, has been elected chairman of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, an organization whose functions are similar to the board of directors of a private corporation.

Kessler, who was appointed to the board by President Bill Clinton in 2000 for a term that expires in December 2008, had been serving since 2005 as its vice chairman. At its January meeting, the board elected him chairman.

“I’m honored the Governors have given me the opportunity to serve as chairman, and I look forward to helping the Postal Service navigate the future,” he says.

Kessler is a partner in the Philadelphia law firm Wolf, Block, Schorr and Solis-Cohen, working in the defense of class-action litigation, including securities, antitrust, toxic tort and civil rights cases, as well as a government relations and counseling practice. He has been a member of commissions, boards and authorities at the federal, state and local levels, including service on the Presidential Transition Team in 1992-93 and a 1994 presidential appointment as vice chair of the Presidential/Congressional Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management.

Kessler earned his bachelor’s degree at UD in political science and his law degree at the University of Maryland. He and his wife, Gail Strauss Kessler, BE ’74, have three children.