ARKANSAS – Maria Luisa Mabilangan Haley, 66-year-old daughter of a Filipino diplomat who migrated to the United States 30 years ago, assumed her post Feb. 26 as head of the Arkansas Department of Economic Development."Maria Haley will open doors around the world for Arkansas," said Arkansa Governor Mike Beebe when he announced Haley’s appointment on Jan 31.
"With economic development so vital to our State's future, Maria's unique and global experience will help create the opportunities our state needs to attract new business to Arkansas," he said.
Haley was the highest-ranking Filipino-American at the White House under the Clinton administration as Special Assistant to the President in the Office of Presidential Personnel. She was in charge of overseeing the appointment of administration officials in the economics, commerce and trade sector.
She also played an integral part in theselection and approval of political appointments in three Cabinet departmentsand 12 independent agencies.
In the last six years, she was seniordirector at Kissinger McLarty Associates in Washington, D.C., a hotshotinternational consultancy headed by former U.S. Secretary of State HenryKissinger and former Clinton administration chief of staff Thomas F. “Mack”McLarty.
Haley is no stranger to the economicdevelopment agency. She worked for the agency from 1979-1992, when it was knownas the Arkansas Industrial Development Corporation.
She was in charge of the internationaland marketing divisions at the former Arkansas Industrial DevelopmentCommission when Bill Clinton was Arkansas governor. She later served inPresident Clinton’s administration as board director of the Export-Import Bankof the United States.
Educated in India, Manila, Paris andMadrid, Haley fluently speaks English, French, Spanish, and Filipino has livedin seven countries in Europe and Asia.
Her community interests range fromFilipino Youth Scholarship Foundation to membership in the Sales and MarketingExecutives Association both in Little Rock, Arkansas and in Manila.
She then moved on to various managerialpositions with the Manila Hilton and, after she married lawyer John Haley andmoved with him to Little Rock, Arkansas, she joined Fairfield Communities Inc.and established its resort division.
Afew years later, she joined the administration of then-Governor Bill Clinton asDirector for Communications and Marketing for the Arkansas IndustrialDevelopment Commission (AIDC).
It was this post that earned her valuableexperience and skills in international business and export development, amongothers, and made her a certified Friend of Bill and Hillary, with whom shemaintains a close friendship.
After two terms with Ex-Im Bank, shereturned to the White House as Deputy Assistant to the President and DeputyDirector of Presidential Personnel until the end of the Clinton administrationin 2001.
Her father, the late Ambassador FelipeMabilangan Sr., served as consul general and subsequently ambassador to India,Pakistan, France, Spain and Laos, and representative to the United Nations.
By 1997, three years after she tookoffice, the bank’s small-business portfolio had grown to 81 percent of itstotal transactions. Such accomplishment didn’t come as a fluke.
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