Kaplan to Head FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that Ruth Milkman will be stepping down as Chief of the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau to take on new responsibilities in the Office of the Chairman; and that Rick Kaplan, currently Chief Counsel and Senior Legal Advisor to the Chairman, will succeed Milkman as Bureau Chief. The change will be effective June 20, 2011.

Milkman is departing the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau to serve as Special Counsel to the Chairman for Innovation in Government. Among her responsibilities, Ms. Milkman will lead a team to develop proposals for procedural, regulatory and statutory changes to further innovation, extending the work previously undertaken by Mary Beth Richards, the former Special Counsel to the Chairman for FCC Reform. Milkman has served as Chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau since August 2009, and occupied various roles at the Commission between 1986 and 1998, including Deputy Chief of the International and Common Carrier Bureaus, and Senior Legal Advisor to Chairman Reed Hundt. She also was a founding partner of Lawler, Metzger, Milkman & Keeney, LLC, and served as law clerk to the Honorable J. Harvie Wilkinson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Prior to his current role in the Office of the Chairman, Kaplan previously served as Chief of Staff for Commission Mignon Clyburn, and as deputy coordinator of the FCC DTV Task Force under then-Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps. He practiced regulatory law and appellate litigation at Sidley Austin LLP, and served in the Office of the General Counsel at the US House of Representatives. Kaplan began his legal career as a law clerk for Judge Harry T. Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Prior to his legal career, Kaplan founded and operated a sports management and public relations agency that represented and served professional athletes and sports-related organizations.