Gilbert F. Casellas

Gilbert F. Casellas (born August 2, 1952) is an American lawyer and businessman.

He is a private investor and business consultant in the Washington, D.C. area, a director of Prudential Financial, trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, and advisor to Toyota Motor North America, T-Mobile US, and Comcast Corporation.

He was awarded a financial scholarship to Yale University in 1970, and received a BA in Latin American Studies in 1974.

In 1977, he received a JD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.

Following law school, Casellas served a two-year clerkship with the Honorable A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

In 1977, he helped to form, and served as outside counsel to, the Latino Project, Inc., a public interest law firm engaged in protecting the rights of Philadelphia's Latino community.

He later served as a board member of The Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, Community Legal Services, the Philadelphia Bar Foundation, and the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

He was called upon in many other civic and public matters in Philadelphia.

He served as a member of the Mayor's Commission on Puerto Rican/Latino Affairs.

From 1980 through 1993, he practiced with the Philadelphia law firm of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker and Rhoads where he specialized in civil litigation.

He ultimately served as a member of the Management Committee and as Personnel Partner, overseeing all professional personnel matters for all 165 lawyers, in the entire firm.

In 1984, Casellas was elected National President of the Hispanic National Bar Association, serving as the leader and spokesperson for the thousands of Hispanic American lawyers in the United States.

In 1985, he was appointed by the federal court to serve as a receiver to negotiate and settle fee disputes in three job discrimination class action lawsuits by Latinos against the City of Philadelphia's Police and Fire Departments.

With Court approval, in 1986 he directed a portion of the proceeds from the successful fee resolution of those class actions to establish a scholarship for Latino law students at the University of Pennsylvania and personally supplemented the fund in 2008.

In 1989, he became the president of the University of Pennsylvania Law Alumni Society, representing the interests of the thousands of graduates of the Law School.

Locally in Philadelphia, he served as chair of the board of governors of the Philadelphia Bar Association, chair of its Young Lawyers Section, as well as chair of numerous bar association committees.

He also served as a member of the House of Delegates of the American and Pennsylvania Bar Associations and member of the American Bar Association's Commission on Opportunities for Minorities in the Profession, among others.

During 1990, he was called upon and served on a pro bono publico basis as Special Counsel to the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations during its citywide inquiry into concerns of Philadelphia's Latino community following a summer of unrest arising out of the arrests and treatment of several Latino youths.

In 1993, Casellas was appointed by President Bill Clinton and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as General Counsel of the United States Department of the Air Force.

In that capacity, he served as chief legal officer and final legal authority to more than 2,000 military, civilian and reserve attorneys throughout the world.

During this period, he also served as the governor of Wake Island.

Among his accomplishments, he provided essential legal support for streamlining acquisition processes to achieve National and Defense Performance Review Objectives and ensured legal authority was available to indemnify the Civil Reserve Air Fleet for contingency operations in Somalia and Haiti.

He also served as a member of the Defense Department's Task Force on Discrimination and Sexual Harassment.

For his leadership and superior achievements, he was presented with the Department of the Air Force Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service.

In July 1994, President Bill Clinton called upon him to leave the Pentagon and serve as Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), an office for which he was confirmed unanimously and in which he served with well-recognized distinction until 1998.

As Chairman of the commission, he served as the chief administrative official for all operations of the commission, its fifty field offices, its 2700 employees and its annual budget of $250 million.

As EEOC chairman, Casellas led broad changes in the way the Commission does business, including streamlining its case-handling system, expanding the use of alternative dispute resolution, forging a new and productive partnership with nearly 100 state and local fair employment practices agencies, and developing practical policy guidelines on applying the EEO laws to the workplace.

For his personal intervention in successfully resolving the EEOC's historically acrimonious internal labor-management disputes and in transforming the agency into a model of labor-management partnership, the agency received a "Hammer of Reinvention" from Vice President Al Gore.

In accepting his resignation with regret, President Bill Clinton stated that "you have helped restore Americans' trust that the EEOC is an agency dedicated to providing prompt and fair enforcement of civil rights laws. In these and in many other ways, you have been an important part of our mission to make America a nation of equal opportunity for all."

The changes instituted during his tenure remain largely in place today.

His legacy and imprint on the commission were recognized by The New York Times in a front-page article more than a year after his departure.

In 1998, after he stepped down as EEOC Chair, President Clinton appointed him to the bi-partisan Census Monitoring Board to oversee the conduct of Census 2000 and named him co-hhair of the board in 1999.

During 1998, Casellas managed the Washington, D.C. office of the San Juan, Puerto Rico based law firm of McConnell Valdés.

There he developed a national employment law practice, advising some of the world's largest companies on diversity, equal employment opportunity and anti-discrimination policies.

That February 22, 1999 story noted that "Much of the credit for the commission's resurrection has gone to Mr. Casellas, who presided over an overhaul beginning about five years ago to bring down the backlog, promoted alternative ways to resolve disputes, including mediation and arbitration, and looked to file high-profile lawsuits against companies that jolted other companies into becoming aware of the practices that often spawned discrimination complaints….That the agency is being looked on more favorably is, to some longtime observers in the field, nothing short of amazing."

Created by Congress to monitor the largest peacetime mobilization in U.S. history, the Census Monitoring Board was given responsibility for monitoring all aspects of Census 2000, including operational planning, implementation, and post-census analysis.

A detailed account of the activities and accomplishments of the Presidential members is contained in the final report to Congress dated September 1, 2001 and is archived at http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/cmb/cmbp/.

He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Law Institute, trustee of the Pan American Development Foundation and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Workplace Harassment Second Edition 2018 published by Bloomberg Law.

Gilbert F. Casellas was born and raised in the Ybor City section of Tampa, Florida and attended the segregated St. Peter Claver School until he was twelve years old.

He worked his way through Jesuit High School of Tampa.