Three new members have joined the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board of Directors.

William Shaw McDermott is an attorney and partner at K&L Gates, a law firm where he specializes in complex commercial, class actions, internal investigations and the defense of government enforcement actions litigation.

During his 36-year career, he has prepared and tried cases in state and federal courts on a wide variety of subjects, primarily in civil matters.

He was president of the Boston Bar Foundation and the Harvard Club of Boston. McDermott served in leadership positions at Harvard teaching hospitals, Harvard medical faculty physicians and its School of Public Health. He has authored numerous papers and publications about litigation, securities enforcement, class action and medical liabilities.

McDermott graduated from Harvard College, attended Oxford University and earned a law degree from the University of Virginia. He lives in Massachusetts and is an appointee of the President of the United States.

Nina Mitchell Wells has served as an attorney and educator for more than 30 years. She is the former Secretary of the State for New Jersey and was responsible for promoting travel and tourism, history, arts and cultural organizations and was the State’s chief elections official.

Earlier, Wells served as president of the Schering-Plough Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Schering-Plough Corporation, and vice president of public affairs for the Schering-Plough Corporation, a pharmaceutical company based in New Jersey.

Wells serves on the board of several educational institutions, cultural foundations, community outreach organizations, health and philanthropic groups.

She graduated from Newton College of the Sacred Heart, now known as Boston College, earned a law degree from Suffolk University Law School in Boston and is a graduate of the New York University’s Stern School of Business executive management program.

Wells resides in New Jersey and is an appointee of the President of the United States.

Federal appointees to the Airports Authority board of directors are required to reside outside the metropolitan Washington region.

Joslyn Williams is currently the president of the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO and has served in this role since 1982.

As president of the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, Williams has balanced the interests of the 175 affiliated unions in transportation, telecommunications, health care, construction, hospitality, entertainment and many other industries.

He served as a member of the Tax Revision Commission, the Unemployment Compensation Study Commission, the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, the DC Convention Center Advisory Board and many other boards and commissions in the Washington, D.C. region.

Williams developed the D.C. area’s AFL-CIO's charitable United Way-funded, Community Services Agency and serves as president of its board of trustees.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C. Williams lives in Washington, D.C., and is an appointee of the mayor of the District of Columbia.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority was established in 1987 by the governments of Virginia and the District of Columbia to manage and operate Washington’s Ronald Reagan National and Dulles International airports, which together serve more than 40 million passengers a year. The Airports Authority also operates and maintains the Dulles Airport Access Road and the Dulles Toll Road and manages construction of the Silver Line project, a 23-mile extension of the Washington region’s Metrorail system into Loudoun County, Va. No taxpayer money is used to operate the toll road, which is funded by toll revenue, or the airports, which are funded through aircraft landing fees, rents and revenue from concessions. The Silver Line construction is funded by a combination of toll-road revenue, airport contributions and federal, state and local government appropriations. The Airports Authority is led by a 17- member board of directors appointed by the Governors of Virginia, Maryland, the Mayor of Washington, D.C., and the President of the United States.

 

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