Patrick McDonnell was appointed as Deputy Secretary for Administration in the Department of Environmental Protection this week.

Since January 2006, McDonnell has served as the Policy Director where he has been responsible for oversight of the development of all DEP policy and regulatory initiatives. Prior to this, he functioned as the assistant to the Special Deputy Secretary where he was involved in many cross-agency projects such as the Governor's Growing Greener II initiative and a comprehensive evaluation of all department regulations.

He was also the Director of the Bureau of Environmental Sustainability where he oversaw the Commonwealth's renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy emergency planning programs.

He held other positions within the department such as Executive Assistant to the Deputy Secretary for Pollution Prevention and Compliance Assistance and was a Program Analyst within the same office. He was first introduced to DEP in 1997 through the Pennsylvania Management Intern program.

McDonnell holds an M.A. Degree from Lehigh University in Political Science and a B.A. degree from DeSales University in Politics.

3/9/2007