Douglas Domenech, a native of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

 and resident of Loudoun Conunty, Virginia,, is the former Deputy Chief of Staff of the United States Department of the Interior

United States Department of the Interior

The United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U.S. government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and natural resources, and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native...

 and a Bush Administration appointee to the White House Working Group on the Political Status of Puerto Rico, the body that fashions the Executive Branch's policy regarding Puerto Rico's political future. He was one of the highest-ranking Puerto Ricans in the Federal government at the time.

On January 6, 2010, Governor-elect Bob McDonnell

Bob McDonnell

Robert Francis "Bob" McDonnell is an American politician who has been the 71st Governor of Virginia since January 2010. A former lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, McDonnell served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1993 to 2006 and served as Attorney General of Virginia from 2006...

 appointed Domenech to serve as Secretary

Secretary

A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...

 of Natural Resources of the Commonwealth of Virginia, making him the first Hispanic

Hispanic

Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...

 and Puerto Rican

Puerto Rican people

A Puerto Rican is a person who was born in Puerto Rico.Puerto Ricans born and raised in the continental United States are also sometimes referred to as Puerto Ricans, although they were not born in Puerto Rico...

 to be appointed to McDonnell's cabinet. At the time of his appointment, Domenech, whose background is in forestry management, was working for a lobbying firm. Domenech worked for 12 years for the Forest Resources Association, a national trade association representing the forest products industry.

He is the great-nephew of Manuel V. Domenech

Manuel V. Domenech

Manuel V. Domenech was a Puerto Rican politician and engineer.-Early years:Domenech was born in Isabela, Puerto Rico...

, former legislator, Mayor of Ponce

Ponce, Puerto Rico

Ponce is both a city and a municipality in the southern part of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government.The city of Ponce, the fourth most populated in Puerto Rico, and the most populated outside of the San Juan metropolitan area, is named for Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the...

, Commissioner of the Interior, Treasurer, and acting Governor of Puerto Rico

Governor of Puerto Rico

The Governor of Puerto Rico is the Head of Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Since 1948, the Governor has been elected by the people of Puerto Rico...

. He is the father of blogger and columnist Ben Domenech

Ben Domenech

Ben Domenech is an American conservative writer and blogger who co-founded the RedState group blog. In March 2006, he was hired to write a conservative blog for washingtonpost.com but resigned after three days amid allegations of plagiarism during his college years...

.