Two Indiana State University graduates have been named to key positions in the Federal government.
Terre Haute native Patrick Walsh is the new director of legal training for the Department of Homeland Security while President George W. Bush has nominated John Ray Correll, a Linton native, to head the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.
Walsh received his pre-law degree from Indiana State in 1968 and completed his law degree in 1971 at the University of Illinois College Of Law.
As director of legal training for the Homeland Security Department, Walsh will lead a team of attorneys that will develop a curriculum and provide legal training for all current and incoming U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and attorneys who will be enforcing the nation?s immigration and customs laws. These laws will be in areas such as human smuggling; narcotics smuggling; arms and strategic trade; border security; and undercover investigations.
Walsh served as chief of the Customs Enforcement Law Division since 2004. As a special prosecutor with the Department of Justice from 1981 to 2004, he was lead prosecutor with the Crime and Racketeering Section; a special attorney with Operation Greenback, a joint enforcement project with the Treasury Department that specialized in financial crimes associated with international narcotics trafficking and money laundering. He has also served as assistant U.S. attorney in New Hampshire and as deputy director of the Asset Forfeiture Office, Criminal Division, in Washington.
Before joining the Department of Justice, Walsh served as the elected state's attorney in Macon County, Ill. from 1976 through 1980. In 2005, he received an Outstanding Achievement Award for his leadership roles.
John Ray Correll received a bachelor's of science degree in safety and environmental management from Indiana State in 1976 and holds a master's of business administration degree from the University of Indianapolis.
With more than 30 years of experience in the public and private sectors, Correll has served since 2002 as deputy assistant secretary for operations in the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration, which provides oversight of mining operations throughout the country.
Correll was previously director of safety and workers compensation for Cleveland Cliffs Inc., an international mining and milling company, and has held executive health and safety positions with Amax Coal Industries and Peabody Coal Co.
The primary objectives of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement are to ensure that coal mining activities are conducted in a manner that protects citizens and the environment during mining, to ensure that the land is restored to beneficial use following mining, and to mitigate the effects of past mining by aggressively pursuing reclamation of abandoned coal mines. Correll?s nomination as director of the office is subject to Senate confirmation.
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Contact: Indiana State University Office of Communications & Marketing, (812) 237-3773 or dave.taylor@indstate.edu