STEPHEN P. WOOD
3607 38th St., N.W. Apt. 101
Washington, D.C. 20016

202-244-4251

swood@nhtsa.dot.gov

U.S. Dept of Transportation

I went north to college (Williams in Massachusetts) and law school (Columbia in New York City) and then to Washington, DC to work. DC's been an exciting, and sometimes sobering, place to be, from anti-war demonstrations in '69 to 9/11.

While going north took me away from the class of '62, it gave me a chance to get to know some of the class of '64: Donna Larson Day, Barbara Lewis, and Susan Harrington Berger.

Particularly since I've not been near Coral Gables since '85 (my parents moved upstate to Melbourne in the early 80's), I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone and everything have changed down there. It's been great reading the postings about what others have done since graduation.

I've three children: Chris, 29, just finished business school at Indiana; Sarah, 26, will soon begin her last year at UVa law school; and Matt, 24, works at the Dept of Veteran Affairs. Their mother and I divorced in '85.

Most of my career has been spent in administrative law and in more recent years in international trade regulation law as well. While most of what I do as an assistant chief counsel for an agency in the U.S. Dept of Transportation involves establishing U.S. vehicle safety standards, what I most enjoy are the international projects. In the last 10 years, they've included

• working with Mexican and Canadian officials regarding the safety rules that will apply to all commercial vehicles when the U.S. opens the border to Mexican commercial vehicles,
• working with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in defending U.S. fuel economy laws before a trade dispute panel against a European Union complaint that they were impermissible technical barriers to trade, and
• defending U.S. fuel economy laws before a trade dispute panel against a European Union complaint that they were impermissible technical barriers to trade, and
• seeking to reduce U.S.-EU trade disputes by negotiating with the European Commission to increase intergovernmental cooperation and public participation in establishing standards for all types of manufactured products, and
• working with the Environmental Protection Agency in negotiating with European and Japanese officials an agreement that created a mechanism for establishing global vehicle safety, emission and fuel economy standards.

When not working or spending time with my children, I used to enjoy organized sports (especially sailboat racing out of Annapolis on Chesapeake Bay). Things are a little slower and mellower now. Now it's primarily hiking, biking and, once in a blue moon, golfing or skiing. My favorite hiking trip in recent years was to the same place Wade Cole mentioned in his posting, Stehekin in the North Cascades.