Spotlight on Commerce: Llauryn D. Iglehart, Director, Decennial Investigations and Adjudication Office of Civil Rights I grew up in Columbia, Maryland. The family motto passed down from my parents is, “To whom much is given, much is expected and required.” During segregation, my mother and father were trailblazers. My mother was a pediatrician, and hospital medical director, and my father was a...

Guest blog post by Shareen Bundy, Program and Management Analyst, Office of General Counsel , Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP) I am honored to be nominated to represent my culture for the U.S. Department of Commerce during the 2021 African American History Month celebration. My name is Shareen Bundy, and I am a Program and Management Analyst with the Commercial Law Development Program...

Guest blog post by Shayla E. Moon, Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs Specialist, Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) Politics. Business. Education. Advocacy. These words best describe my duty as the Legislative & Intergovernmental Affairs Specialist for the Department of Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA). They are also a description of my personal family...

Guest blog post by Sherri Curtis-Lattisaw, Administrative Specialist, SelectUSA , International Trade Administration I am an Administrative Specialist at the Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration (ITA). Within ITA, I work for SelectUSA . SelectUSA's mission is to facilitate a job-creating business investment into the United States and raise awareness of the critical role that...

Guest blog post by Samantha Maragh, Ph.D., Leader of the Genome Editing Program, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) I grew up in the “melting pot U.S.A,” otherwise known as Howard County, Maryland. Even in this melting pot, I was different. I am of mixed ethnicity. My mom is Afro-Caribbean and my dad is East Indian. Both parents were born and raised in Jamaica and came to the U...

Today, the Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration announced over $70 million in CARES Act Recovery Assistance, Disaster Recovery, and Public Works Program grants to support businesses and communities adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic and natural disasters, and bolster public works projects to spur economic growth. These grants provide critical gap financing for...

The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) implemented a series of restrictions on exports of sensitive items to Burma’s Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Home Affairs, armed forces, and security services in response to the Burmese military’s actions to overthrow the democratically elected civilian government of Burma. Effective immediately, BIS will apply a presumption...

On a brisk November morning in 2018, a fire sparked in a remote stretch of canyon in Butte County, California, a region nestled against the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Fueled by a sea of tinder created by drought, and propelled by powerful gusts, the flames grew and traveled rapidly. In less than 24 hours, the fire had swept through the town of Paradise and other communities...