The President today announced his intention to nominate Ross O. Swimmer to be an Assistant Secretary of the Interior (Indian Affairs). He would succeed Kenneth L. Smith.
Since 1975 Mr. Swimmer has been principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma in Tulsa. He also served as president of the First National Bank of Tahlequah, OK, in 1975-1984. He was general counsel of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma in 1972-1975 and an attorney with the law firm of Hanson, Peterson and Thompkins in Oklahoma City, OK, in 1967-1979,. He was a member of the Presidential Commission on Indian Reservation Economies in 1983-1984. He serves in Oklahoma on the Economic Development Commission and on the board of trustees of the Oklahoma Health Sciences Foundation. He is also president of the Cherokee National Historical Society.
He graduated from the University of Oklahoma (B.A., 1965) and University of Oklahoma School of Law (J.D., 1967). He is married, has two children, and resides in Tulsa, OK. He was born October 26, 1943, in Oklahoma City, OK.
Ronald Reagan, Nomination of Ross O. Swimmer To Be an Assistant Secretary of the Interior Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/260389