User:Ppa208/sandbox

Donet "Don" Graves, Jr. (born April 11, 1970) is an American political advisor and government official who has served in several public-service positions, most notably as Deputy Assistant to the President and Counselor and Domestic and Economic Policy Director to Vice President Joseph R. Biden from 2014 to 2017. Graves also previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Small Business, Community Development and Housing Policy at the U.S. Department of Treasury from 2010 to 2014, and he was appointed by President Obama as the Executive Director of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in 2011.

Graves remained an advisor to Joe Biden following the end of the Obama Administration. In June 2020, the Democratic National Committee announced that Graves would sit on the 2020 Democratic Platform Drafting Committee. In September 2020, Graves was appointed to a senior position on the transition team of the Biden campaign.

Early life and education
Graves is a native of Cleveland, Ohio. He is a graduate of University School.

He earned a B.A. in Political Science and History from Williams College in 1992 and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Georgetown University Law Center in 1995 where he received the Dean’s Award.

Career
One of Graves’ earliest roles was Vice President and Director of the Organization for a New Equality, a civil rights group focused on economic inclusion. He went on to serve as a policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Domestic Finance during the Clinton Administration, and later served as the Executive Director of BusinessLINC, Director of Public Policy for the Business Roundtable, and Managing Partner at Graves, Horton, Askew & Johns, LLC.

Between 2010 and 2014, Graves served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Small Business, Community Development and Housing Policy at the U.S. Department of Treasury during the Obama Administration. There, Graves oversaw the Small Business Lending Fund, the State Small Business Credit Initiative, and the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.

In 2011, Graves was appointed as Executive Director of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness at the White House, where he provided advice to President Obama on continuing to strengthen the Nation’s economy and the competitiveness of the United States. He held this role simultaneously with his role as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Treasury. After Detroit declared bankruptcy, in his capacity as Executive Director of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, Graves led the interagency federal effort to support the Michigan city.

In 2014, Graves was tapped to be Deputy Assistant to the President, Counselor to the Vice President, and Director of Domestic and Economic Policy for the Vice President.

In 2016, Graves, in addition to his role as Policy Director, was tapped to lead Vice President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, a national effort announced by President Obama in his final State of the Union address. Graves revealed that he was a cancer survivor and started radiation treatment around the time that Beau Biden lost his fight against cancer. As Biden’s point person on the Cancer Moonshot, Graves met with over 200 researchers, philanthropists, and doctors.

Graves continued in his role for Biden until the end of the Obama Administration in January 2017.

After leaving the White House, Graves returned to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, in 2017 to work for KeyBank as Senior Vice President and Senior Director of Corporate Community Relations and Initiatives. He was later appointed as KeyBank’s as Executive Vice President and Head of Corporate Responsibility and Community Relations.

In 2017, Graves was tapped as the policy and research director for the nonpartisan Biden Institute at the University of Delaware. Graves was appointed to the Biden Institute Advisory Board in 2018.

Personal life
He and his wife, Melissa Tessmer Graves, live in Cleveland, Ohio, with their two daughters.