Amy L Bondurant

Amy L. Bondurant was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on November 6, 1997 and was officially sworn in by Vice President Gore as U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development with the rank of Ambassador, on December 5, 1997. Ambassador Bondurant comes to this assignment from a professional career that spans more than 20 years in government and private legal practice, including extensive work with economic issues. During her 12 years of service on Capitol Hill, Ambassador Bondurant served as Counsel and then as Senior Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation under the Chairmanship of Senator Ernest Hollings, and to the Committee's Consumer Subcommittee under the successive Chairmanship of Senator Wendell Ford and then-Senator Al Gore. She began her career in 1975 as a legislative aide to Senator Ford. In 1987, Ambassador Bondurant joined the Washington, D.C. law firm of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, where she was the first woman member of the firm's Board of Directors and Executive Committee. While in private practice, she represented clients on such issues as international trade and finance, competition policy, international communications and the commercialization of the space transportation industry. In 1993, Ambassador Bondurant was appointed by then-Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena as Chair of the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee, of which she remained a member until 1997. Ambassador Bondurant has also written and spoken on the issues of regulatory reform, competition policy, consumer protection, trade regulation, congressional procedure and aeronautics and space science. Ambassador Bondurant graduated with honors from the University of Kentucky in 1973, and she received her Juris Doctor from American University's Washington College of Law in 1978. From 1993 to 1997, Ambassador-Designate Bondurant served by appointment of Vice President Gore as Secretary-Treasurer and Member of the Board of the Vice President's Residence Foundation. She has been an active member of St. John's Episcopal Church at Lafayette Square in Washington, a member of the Cosmos Club, and active with various philanthropic endeavors such as the scholarship fund for the Beauvoir school at the Washington National Cathedral. Born in Union City, Tennessee, Ambassador Bondurant is the daughter of Judge and Mrs. John C. Bondurant, and was raised in Hickman, Kentucky. She is married to David E. Dunn III, an international attorney with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Patton, Boggs LLP. They have one son, David Bondurant Dunn.