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White House appoints Indian-American Maju Varghese as WHMO director
Varghese had earlier served as executive director of US President Joe Biden’s inauguration committee and chief operating officer of the campaign
Just days after US President Joe Biden lightheartedly said during a congratulatory call with Nasa Mars mission’s Swati Mohan that Indian-Americans were taking over the country, Maju Varghese was on Tuesday appointed as the director of the White House Military Office (WHMO).
The US president has named over two dozen Indian-Americans to senior and mid-level positions in his administration.
They include Vivek Murthy, a nominee for surgeon general; Vanita Gupta, nominee for associate attorney general; and Bharat Ramamurti and Sameera Fazili, deputy directors of the president’s National Economic Council.
Varghese, whose parents had moved to the US from Kerala, will head a federal agency — the way it had worked when Barack Obama was president — that provides military support for White House events and functions, including food service, presidential transportation, medical support and emergency medical services, and hospitality services.
Varghese had earlier served as executive director of Biden’s inauguration committee and chief operating officer of the campaign.
Varghese also goes back to the Obama-Biden administration. He was assistant to the president for management and administration and special assistant to the president and deputy director of advance.
Varghese is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the Maurice A. Dean School of Law at Hofstra University, according to a PTI report.
