Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission Designation of Richard V. Backley as Chairman.

The President today announced that he has designated Richard V. Backley, of Fairfax, Va., as Chairman of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission. He replaces Jerome R. Waldie, who has resigned. Backley has been a member of this Commission since 1978.

He was born July 21, 1927, in Chicago, Ill. He received an LL.B. from De Paul University in 1955.

Backley practiced law in Chicago from 1955 to 1957 and was a trial counsel for Montgomery Ward from 1957 to 1960. From 1960 to 1967, he was district attorney for the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

From 1967 to 1970, Backley was attorney-adviser to the Interior Department's Federal Water Pollution Control Administration (now the Environmental Protection Agency). In 1970 he became a senior trial attorney with the newly formed Division of Mine Health and Safety at Interior.

From 1974 to 1975, Backley was assistant solicitor of the Division of Mine Health and Safety. He was an administrative law judge at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1975, and at the Civil Aeronautics Board from 1975 to 1978.