Elaine Lan Chao (born March 26, 1953) is an American businesswoman and former government official who served as United States secretary of labor in the administration of George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009 and as United States secretary of transportation in the first administration of Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party and wife of U.S. senator Mitch McConnell, Chao was the first Asian-American woman to serve in a presidential cabinet. She resigned as secretary of transportation after the January 6 United States Capitol attack.
Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Chao immigrated to the United States when she was eight years old. Her father founded the Foremost Group, an American shipping company based in New York. Chao was raised in Queens, New York, and on Long Island, and received degrees from Mount Holyoke College and Harvard Business School. She worked for financial institutions before being appointed to senior positions in the Department of Transportation under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, including chair of the Federal Maritime Commission (1988–1989) and Deputy Secretary of Transportation (1989–1991). She served as director of the Peace Corps from 1991 to 1992 and as president of the United Way of America from 1993 to 1996.
Chao has served on several Fortune 500 and nonprofit boards of directors, including the electric charger network provider ChargePoint since 2021.
Elaine Chao was born in Taipei, Taiwan, on March 26, 1953, and immigrated to the United States when she was eight years old. She is the eldest of six daughters of Ruth Mulan Chu Chao, a historian from Anhui, and James S. C. Chao, a Shanghainese businessman who began his career as a merchant mariner and in 1964 founded the shipping company Foremost Maritime Corporation in New York City, which developed into the Foremost Group. In 1961, at the age of 8, Chao came to the United States on a 37-day freight ship journey along with her mother and two younger sisters. Her father had arrived in New York three years earlier and sent money home until the rest of the family could join him in the United States.
Chao described her early life in America as a typical immigrant story, noting that "everything was foreign to us: the culture, people, language, traditions, and even the food." She spoke no English upon her arrival. Her father "worked three jobs" to support the family and the then-five family members lived in a one-bedroom apartment.
Chao attended Tsai Hsing Elementary School in Taiwan for kindergarten and first grade. She attended Syosset High School in Syosset, New York, in Nassau County on Long Island and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen at the age of 19.
Chao received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. In the second semester of her junior year, she studied at Dartmouth College. She received an MBA degree from Harvard Business School.
Before being appointed to government work, Chao was a vice president for syndications at Bank of America Capital Markets Group in San Francisco, and she was an international banker at Citicorp in New York. She was granted a White House Fellowship during the Reagan Administration.
In 1986, Chao became Deputy Administrator of the Maritime Administration in the U.S. Department of Transportation. From 1988 to 1989, she served as chairwoman of the Federal Maritime Commission. In 1989, then-president George H.W. Bush nominated Chao to be Deputy Secretary of Transportation; she served from 1989 to 1991. From 1991 to 1992, she was the director of the Peace Corps. She was the first Asian American to serve in any of these positions. She expanded the Peace Corps' presence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia by establishing the first Peace Corps programs in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, including the first Peace Corps programs in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Russia.
Following her service in President George H.W. Bush's administration, Chao worked from 1992 to 1996 as president and CEO of United Way of America. She was the first Asian American to hold that role. She is credited with returning credibility and public trust to the organization after a financial mismanagement scandal involving former president William Aramony. From 1996 until her appointment as Secretary of Labor, Chao worked at a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. She was also a board member of the Independent Women's Forum. She later returned to think tanks after leaving the government in January 2009.
Chao delivered a speech at the 2000 Republican National Convention.
U.S. Secretary of Labor (2001–2009)
Chao was the only cabinet member in the George W. Bush administration to serve for the entirety of his eight years. She was also the longest-serving Secretary of Labor since Frances Perkins, who served from 1933 to 1945 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Chao was unanimously confirmed by the Senate for her appointment as Secretary of Labor. Of Chao's staff, Victoria Lipnic, Assistant Secretary for Employment Standards Administration, later became Member, EEOC and acting chair.
In 2002, the Bush administration obtained a national emergency injunction to end an employers' lockout of unionized dockworkers on the West Coast, invoking the Taft–Hartley Act for the first time since 1971 after Chao had been unable to negotiate a new contract between the employers and the union in a dispute over the use of new technology.
In 2004, the department issued revisions of the white-collar overtime regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Union pension plan and trust disclosure requirements
In 2003, the department updated the labor union financial disclosure regulations under the Landrum–Griffin Act of 1959, requiring more extensive disclosures for union-sponsored pension plans and union-related trusts such as strike funds.
Response to 9/11, Hurricane Katrina