ACTION Nomination of Richard F. Celeste To Be Director of the Peace Corps.

The President today announced that he will nominate Richard F. Celeste, of Delaware, Ohio, to be Director of the Peace Corps. He would replace Carolyn Payton, resigned.

Celeste served as Lieutenant Governor of Ohio from 1975 until January 1979. He was the Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio in November 1978.

Celeste was born November 11, 1937, in Lakewood, Ohio. He received a B.A. in African history from Yale University in 1959. The next year he taught at Yale as a Carnegie Teaching Fellow, and he then studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, doing research on U.S.-African relations.

In 1963 Celeste accepted a 6-month assignment in Washington as staff liaison officers with the Peace Corps' Division of Volunteer Support for Latin America. From 1963 to 1967, he worked on a special agricultural development assignment in India, at the special request of U.S. Ambassador to India Chester Bowles. Based in New Delhi, he traveled throughout the country, taking a special interest in food production and community development efforts.

In 1967 Celeste returned to Cleveland and joined the National Housing Corp., a small firm specializing in the development of housing for senior citizens of moderate income. In 1972 he became president of the company.

From 1971 to 1975, Celeste was an Ohio State representative.

Celeste is a trustee of AFS International, formerly known as the American Field Service, and a board member of the Overseas Development Council. In 1977 he visited West Africa with a group sponsored by the Overseas Development Council to study food production problems. He also visited several European countries to study regional development strategies under a grant from the European Economic Community. He is a former president of the National Methodist Student Movement.