Paul Van Coverden
Senior Vice President, Government Relations

Mr. Van Coverden has extensive experience in managing public policy issues at the federal level.

As director of the Office of Government Liaison for the U. S Postal Service he directed and coordinated the government relations activities of the Postal Service for many years. During that time he worked closely with senior official from the administration, OMB, OPM, congressional leadership, committee and subcommittee chairs, GAO, CBO and CRS. During that time Mr. Van Coverden developed a level of expertise working on such postal-related issues as: trade, customs, universal postal union, civil service, FEGLI, FEHBP, CSRS retirement, FERS retirement, rates, ratemaking, mail classification, governance, transportation, mail security, pay policies, fringe benefits, training, procurement, and issues affecting postmaster, supervisor and craft employees. Mr. Van Coverden also coordinated activities between postal headquarters and state and local government officials.

Some of the specific legislation that Mr. Van Coverden was involved with was: various amendments to the Postal Reorganization Act, The Congressional Budget Act, The Paper Reduction Act, The Federal Procurement Policy Act, and The Government Performance and Results Act.

In addition, Mr. Van Coverden served as the communications manager for the Postal Service's Strategic Planning group. Here he helped guide the formulation and acceptance of the Postal Service's strategic communication policies and programs. He identified and evaluated long-term political and regulatory trends both within the public and private sectors. In this position he was responsible for communication and integrating the Postal Service's strategic vision, direction and agency strategies throughout the organization. He was also instrumental in developing and managing the integration of Malcolm Baldrige improvement processes throughout the organization. In 2002, Mr. Van Coverden guided the dissemination of the US Postal Service's original Transformation Plan, a historic document detailing the strategic direction and long-term modeling for the federal government's largest civilian agency which eventually led to the Postal Service's removal from GAO "high risk" government agencies.

In both positions Mr. Van Coverden worked with all of the agency's stakeholders, including but not limited to: the Postal Rate Commission, other regulatory bodies, trade associations, major mailers, suppliers and public policy institutions. Mr., Van Coverden is a graduate of the Detroit Institute of Technology and holds a Masters degree from the University of South Dakota.