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Feb. 9, 2011 – Todd Harper on Feb. 14 will take the post of NCUA Director of Public and Congressional Affairs after a 14-year stint working on Capitol Hill with Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., NCUA said Tuesday.

As director of PACA, Harper will also serve as chief policy advisor to NCUA Chairman Debbie Matz. He will replace John McKechnie, who, after five years, is leaving NCUA in early March to pursue a private-sector opportunity, the agency said.

Harper was a senior aide to Kanjorski and also served as staff director for the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises, which Kanjorski chaired until last November, when he lost his bid for a 14th term.

Harper has worked on all major financial services legislation dating back to the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act up through the Dodd-Frank Act.

He was instrumental, NCUA notes, in all versions of the Credit Union Regulatory Improvements Act (first offered in 2003); helped set up the first hearing in 2009 on corporate stabilization legislation; and helped secure passage of S. 4036, a bill that includes Federal Credit Union Act technical amendments aimed at decreasing the costs of managing the corporate stabilization fund and the federal share insurance fund.

Matz said Harper "will be of immediate benefit to NCUA; he knows and understands credit unions, and he knows and understands the issues that affect them."

She said McKechnie, who also played a key role in the above issues, made "invaluable contributions" to NCUA during the economic downturn and in working to "communicate the facts and preserve consumer confidence in federally insured credit unions."