US Postal Regulatory Commission Hires Russell Rappel-Schmid as its First Chief Data Officer

(US and Canada) The US Postal Regulatory Commission has hired Russell Rappel-Schmid as its first chief data officer to lead its open data and data governance efforts.

Rappel-Schmid, who joined the agency recently will oversee the Commission’s data management and compliance with the OPEN Government Data Act.

Most recently, Rappel-Schmid served as the State of Alaska’s first chief data officer. In that role, he worked with the State Office of Information Technology and other state departments on the data governance plan for their move to the cloud. He also launched Alaska’s first non-geospatial open data portal, and created data tools to help users better visualize and understand the state’s data.

Rappel-Schmid is already familiar with the postal world, having previously served at the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (USPS OIG). He was a member of the USPS OIG’s data analytics team and also worked as an audit manager, overseeing audits of Postal Service costs, pricing, and international mail.

PRC Chairman Michael Kubayanda commented: “I am excited to welcome Russell Rappel-Schmid to the Commission. With his experience implementing data initiatives and his knowledge of the postal sector, Russ is well-positioned to lead the Commission’s emergent open data efforts, and to support the Commission as it continues to provide transparency and accountability of the postal system.”

Rappel-Schmid will report to the PRC Secretary and Chief Administrative Officer Erica Barker.

Meanwhile, as part of its data initiatives, the Commission has introduced the beta version of a service performance data dashboard to make postal data more accessible and usable, and opened a public inquiry (Docket No. PI2022-2) to receive feedback on it.

Developed by the Commission’s Office of Accountability and Compliance, the beta dashboard displays data provided by the Postal Service on national-level service performance results for specific Market Dominant postal products and/or product components.