Biography

[EPA press release - March 4, 1977]

The Senate today unanimously confirmed Barbara Blum as Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

In her testimony and response to Committee questions, Blum said, "I have been a businesswoman, and an adviser to businesses. I am familiar with the impact that a government regulation can have on getting business done, even when the regulation is perfectly reasonable. I have been in the position of having to meet a payroll, so I am familiar with the fact that good intentions must always be weighed against the immediate reality. I know what paperwork means...I will bring to the job an awareness of the influence of our decisions on the small businessman and private citizen."

Blum also emphasized that the people most affected by pollution are often those who least understand the environmental movement--such as the urban poor who can't escape to the suburbs. She stressed the need for environmental education programs to remedy the situation.

Barbara Blum was born July 6, 1939, in Hutchinson, Kansas, and received both a B.S., 1958, and a Master of Social Work, 1959, from Florida State University.

From 1960-62, Blum was a faculty member, Pediatric Psychiatry Clinic, University of Kansas Medical Center, and from 1963-64 was acting administrator of the Suffolk County Mental Health Clinic, Huntington, New York. In 1964 she helped found the Mid-Suffolk Center for Psychotherapy in Hauppage, New York, and served as partner and center administrator there until 1966.

From 1966-74, Blum was vice president of Restaurant Associates of Georgia, Inc., an Atlanta management and purchasing company for a wholly-owned chain of restaurants and a restaurant equipment company, both founded by Blum and her husband.

Blum is a member of the Federal Reserve Board National Consumer Advisory Council; chairman of the Georgia Heritage Trust Commission; and vice-chairman of Fulton County Planning Commission.

She was a member of Leadership Atlanta (appointed by the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce) from 1974-76, and on the Advisory Board of the Atlanta-Macon Corridor Study from 1973-75. In 1973-74 she served on the Georgia Vital Areas Council, and from 1972-74 was on the Health and Social Services Advisory Board and Governmental Services Advisory Board of the Atlanta Regional Commission.

Since 1972, she has been chief lobbyist in the Georgia General Assembly and in Washington for SAVE (Save America's Vital Environment), and from 1973-76 was president of that organization. She was on the board of the National Committee for an Effective Congress in 1976, and has been a trustee of the Georgia Conservancy since 1973.

She is married to Donald Blum. They have four children, and live in Atlanta.