A Preston Primer

Pop quiz: Who is Steve Preston?

Steve Preston is the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. It's fine if you failed the quiz — Preston was appointed last Friday. Here's a Preston Primer:

From 2006-2008, Preston was the head of the Small Business Administration. An American company must have less than 500 employees [1] to count as a small business. Before his appointment at the SBA, Preston was the Executive Vice President of ServiceMaster, a Fortune 500 company that owns a grab-bag of home service brands. In 2006, ServiceMaster employed 32,000 employees. [2] And ServiceMaster wasn't exactly a friend to small business. A BusinessWeek article [3]reports that:

Some small business owners say ServiceMaster is a bully. They complain that ChemLawn and TruGreen franchisees take federal contracts that might otherwise go to independent outfits. That's enough for the National Black Chamber of Commerce to oppose Preston's confirmation. "That company," says Harry Alford, the group's president and CEO, "has been predatory against small business."

Before ServiceMaster, Preston was a VP at the payment-processing firm First Data: 27,000 employees. Preston started off his career as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers: 28,500 employees.

So, how did a man who never worked for or owned a small business become the head of the Small Business Association? And how did the same man, who had no experience in public housing, just become the head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development?

Let me answer my question with another question: How did the (disgraced) Judges and Stewards Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association [4] become the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency? [5]

Just like Mike Brown, Steve Preston is a loyal Bushite. And just like Mike Brown, Preston has good connections. According to that Business Week article:

While Preston is little known by business organizations in Washington, he has had a link to the Bush Administration in Claire Buchan, now chief of staff to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. She was vice-president of communications at ServiceMaster until 2001, when she left to become White House deputy press secretary.

Preston might be another unqualified Bushite appointee, but he's probably an improvement. His predecessor, Alphonso Jackson, resigned at the end of March, amid two serious allegations of conflict of interest:

• HUD awarded a $127 contract for New Orleans redevelopment to a company to which he had close financial ties [6].
• Jackson hired [1] a golfing buddy as a contractor, also in New Orleans, and then canned a HUD official who demanded that the buddy be fired. Nice stuff.