Brendan Garcia, a member of Elon Law's Class of 2011, has been accepted into the Presidential Management Fellowship (PMF) program. The number of applicants to the program each year has been as high as 8,500 in recent years. In 2011, 275 PMF finalists have been hired by federal agencies. Garcia will be working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in the Veterans Benefits Administration.
In the summer of 2010, Garcia served as a summer law clerk at the Board of Veteran’s Appeals in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, in Washington, D.C. During that clerkship, he was responsible for writing tentative decisions for review by a Veterans Law Judge. The cases before the Board were on appeal from regional offices. Claims generally involved disability compensation. The majority of the claimants were suffering either from a combat injury or from an illness or injury caused as a result of a combat event.
Garcia is the second Elon Law alumni to be accepted for the PMF in the past two years. Last year, Nicole Patterson, L’10, was accepted into the program, where she worked for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services.
According to the PMF website, the program was established by Executive Order in 1977 to attract to federal service outstanding men and women from a variety of academic disciplines and career paths, who have a clear interest in, and commitment to, excellence in the leadership and management of public policies and programs.
Over the years, the PMF Program has seen an increase in the number of applicants. The number of applicants has ranged from approximately 3,000 to more than 8,500, and the number of finalists has varied from 535 to 869. For the past three years, applicants have averaged a 1 in 10 chance of becoming a PMF; approximately 60% of finalists obtain appointments as Fellows.
By Danielle Appelman, L’12