President Clinton Gives Top Honor to FTC's Executive Director, Robert S. Walton, III

Robert S. Walton, III, Executive Director at the Federal Trade Commission since 1988, has been honored by President Clinton as a recipient of the Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive for 1995. Walton is one of 62 officials to receive the award this year, and all were honored in a White House ceremony last evening.

Every year, the President bestows on a select group of the 6,500 career members of the Senior Executive Service the rank of Distinguished or Meritorious Executive for sustained exceptional performance as public servants. These executives oversee some of government’s most vital programs. The President also gave the Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Executive to 146 officials.

In praising the award winners, President Clinton said, “They are modern pioneers, redesigning the way we do our work and improving service to our citizens. Public servants in the finest sense, they protect our air and water supplies, clean up nuclear waste, defend our nation, and strengthen our economy through international trade. I am pleased to recognize their outstanding efforts with the Presidential Rank Award.”

FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky said, “Bob Walton’s management skills have allowed us to do more with less, sustaining a higher level of output with fewer people.”

As the FTC’s Executive Director, Walton manages the full range of agency internal support organizations, including personnel, budget and finance, procurement, and automated data processing. He also serves as one of the FTC’s primary liaisons with Congressional members who oversee the FTC’s annual appropriations and their staffs, and with other executive agencies having government-wide functions in the budget, personnel, procurement and administration areas.

In nominating Walton for the award, FTC Commissioner (then Chairman) Janet D. Steiger noted that his working relationships with those both inside and outside the agency have played a large role in ensuring the agency’s steady budget situation since the early 1990s. In addition, Walton’s leadership in streamlining the agency’s organization, reducing the number of supervisors, and integrating internal information systems has permitted the agency to shift more of its staff toward its core consumer protection and competition work.

On an interagency level, Walton was honored for his role as Chairman of the Small Agency Council, a group representing more than 80 small federal agencies, and for his oversight of the administration of a technical assistance program jointly offered by the FTC and the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division for emerging economies in eastern Europe.

Walton is a native of Hampton, Virginia, and graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1963. He and his wife, Mary Landon, live in Fairfax, Virginia. They have three children.