White House Announces Intent to Nominate William J. Boarman as Public Printer

Contact: Candice Johnson, CWA Communications, 202-434-1168, cjohnson@cwa-union.org, and Greg Kenefick, greg@kenefickcommunications.com

White House Announces Intent to Nominate William J. Boarman as Public Printer

Washington, D.C. – President Obama has announced his intention to nominate William J. Boarman to be the 26th Public Printer of the United States. Boarman’s nomination will be referred to the Senate Rules Committee and must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The Public Printer serves as Chief Executive Officer of the Government Printing Office (GPO), the agency charged with keeping the American people informed about the work of the federal government. GPO is one of the world’s largest printing plants and digital factories and is one of the biggest print buyers in the world.

Mr. Boarman is a vice president of the Communications Workers of America and president of the union’s Printing, Publishing & Media Workers Sector. His career in the printing industry spans 40 years. A Practical Printer trained under the apprenticeship program of the International Typographical Union (ITU), Mr. Boarman served his apprenticeship at McArdle Printing Company in Washington, D.C. In 1974, he accepted an appointment as a Journeyman Printer at the Government Printing Office.

Active in the union from the start of his career, Mr. Boarman moved up in the union’s ranks as a local officer—he was elected President of his home Local 101-12, Columbia Typographical at age 30— and ultimately as a national officer with the ITU where he was a key architect of the merger between the ITU and the CWA in 1987. He was elected ITU president shortly before the merger and has been re-elected to seven successive terms since.

Mr. Boarman has served as an unpaid consultant to several Public Printers and has testified before various congressional committees regarding GPO programs and policies as well as in confirmation hearings before the Senate Rules Committee.

CWA President Larry Cohen praised Mr. Boarman’s experience and his service to printing sector members and workers in the industry. "Bill brings an outstanding reservoir of knowledge to this work. He will be an outstanding Public Printer."

Mr. Boarman’s nomination was endorsed by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md) who said: "As a practiced and knowledgeable advocate for the GPO and its employees, Bill Boarman is an excellent choice to lead the GPO. I am pleased that the administration recognizes Bill’s talents and am confident he will attract bipartisan support in the Senate."

GPO disseminates the Congressional Record and the Federal Register, and numerous other products and services in both print and digital form. The agency has been tasked to build its digital capability into a state of the art operation to improve transparency and citizen access to government documents and reports.

In addition to his duties as chief executive officer of the Printing Sector, Mr. Boarman serves as chairman of the $1 billion CWA/ITU Negotiated Pension Plan and the $125 million Canadian Negotiated Pension Plan. He was among the union leaders who spearheaded the creation of the AFL-CIO Capital Stewardship Program and the Center for Working Capital in the Federation. Because of his experience in the field of pension administration, Mr. Boarman was chosen to represent CWA on the Council of Institutional Investers, serving 12 years as a member of the CII Executive Board and three terms as its co-chair. He also served on the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities by appointment of the state’s governor.