Department of Agriculture and Commodity Credit Corporation Nomination of Alex P. Mercure To Be an Assistant Secretary and a Member of the Board of Directors of the Corporation.

The President today announced that he will nominate Alex P. Mercure of Albuquerque, N. Mex., to be Assistant Secretary of Agriculture (Rural Development) and a member of the Board of Directors of the Commodity Credit Corporation. Mercure is vice president of the University of New Mexico.

He was born June 30, 1931, in Lumberton, N. Mex. He received a B.S. degree in education from the University of New Mexico in 1958 and an M.A. degree in guidance from New Mexico Highlands University in 1961. He is completing a doctorate in education at the University of New Mexico.

Mercure was a teacher at Chama High School in Chama, N. Mex., from 1958 to 1962 and a counselor at Los Lunas Public Schools in Los Lunas, N. Mex., from 1962 to 1964. From 1965 to 1971, he was executive director of the home education livelihood program of the New Mexico Council of Churches.

He was president of the New Mexico Technical Vocational School in El Rito, N. Mex., from 1971 until 1974, when he became vice president and associate provost of the University of New Mexico, in charge of regional and community affairs.

Mercure has served on National Advisory Committees on Adult Education and on Minority Business Enterprise. He has been a member of a National Academy of Sciences study group on applied sciences and social change in rural areas and has served on the White House Conferences on Children and Youth and on Food, Nutrition and Health.

He has served on the Joint Commission on Mental Health for Children and the New Mexico Cooperative Research and Study Council. He has been on the board of directors of the Albuquerque Community Council, the Spanish Colonial Historical Foundation in Santa Fe, Del Sol (a rural development corporation affiliated with HELP), and Juntos (a barrio organization in Santa Fe).

Mercure received the New Mexico distinguished Public Service Award in 1976.