And Commerce secretary designate Don Evans is CEO of Denver-based energy services firm Tom Brown. Yet O'Neill is considered atypical among CEOs. The type of real-world experience Bush's nominees have garnered should make them effective heads of government agencies, given their private sector backgrounds dealing with huge budgets and large numbers of workers, Ward says. And as members of Fortune 500 level boards of directors, they're used to shifting hats from being in charge to advising those who are in charge. A Cabinet so heavily weighted with business types does pose some worries, says Lawrence Noble, director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan government group that examines the relationship between politics and money.
Business is wise.
But it's not all-knowing. Battle-tested Other Cabinet nominees have extensive private sector jobs and corporate directorships. And talk about crisis-management expertise. As provost of Stanford University, Condoleezza Rice, Bush's nominee for National Security Adviser, essentially was the school's chief operating officer. Rice also held board seats at Charles Schwab and Chevron.