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Ohio Valley Native Named to Federal Consumer Product Safety Board

BAIOCCO

YORKVILLE — Dana Baiocco went from a working-class home in the Ohio Valley to a presidentially appointed position in the nation’s capital.

The 1984 Buckeye South High School graduate said getting from Yorkville to Washington, D.C., was anything but a straight line.

“It certainly was a long and bumpy road,” said Baiocco, who recently was named as one of five commissioners of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission by President Donald Trump.

Baiocco, 52, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in May to a seven-year term and took over her commissioner’s seat June 1. As a commissioner for the CPSC, she is charged with protecting the public from “unreasonable” risks of injury or death associated with the use of 15,000 types of consumer products that fall under the agency’s jurisdiction.

“We work with the regulatory community to ensure products are made consistent,” she said.

A Wheeling native, Baiocco grew up the daughter of a coal truck driver and stay-at-home mom who later worked in a doctor’s office. Her parents, Jerry and Joyce Baiocco, still live in Yorkville. Her sister now lives in Columbus.

“I get back (to the Ohio Valley) less often, I think, than I probably should,” she said. “I like it there. It’s my home.”

Baiocco graduated from Ohio University in Athens before moving to Pittsburgh and taking on a job in sales. Soon, she realized that she liked the work the attorneys were doing on her sales contracts more than she liked selling.

“I thought, ‘I’m smart enough to do this,'” she said. “And I thought I might be pretty good in front of a jury.”

Baiocco began attending classes at Duquesne University. In 1997, she graduated cum laude with her juris doctor. She served until 1998 as a federal judicial law clerk to Judge Gustave Diamond in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Then, she took a job with Jones Day in a law firm that employs 2,500 lawyers.

Eventually, Baiocco became a partner in the firm. She worked as a trial lawyer on product liability and moved to Boston in 2011 to work in the firm’s office there. She spent seven years in Boston before moving to Bethesda, Maryland, to take on the role for which President Trump nominated her.

“I don’t really know exactly how my profile and resume came up for this,” she said.

Baiocco said CPSC commissioners consider petitions on product safety issues. The five-member board holds public hearings on those petitions and then votes on what action the agency should take. The commission is governed by the Consumer Product Safety Act and the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which she said is an expansion on the original act.

The board has a vacancy in one of its five slots. However, Baiocco said the president has appointed a fifth commissioner who is going through the same Senate confirmation process she endured earlier this year.

Baiocco said she loves her new role and working with the 500 people who make up the CPSC.

“The people here are amazing,” she said. “It’s pretty impressive.”

Baiocco said the hardest part about moving has been helping her 17-year-old daughter, Ava Bruening, adapt. Ava mostly grew up in Boston, where they still own a house. Baiocco and her daughter are living in an apartment with her husband, Andrew Susko, until they sell their home in Massachusetts and find something more permanent close to Washington. Susko also is a lawyer, and Ava is hoping to follow in her mom’s footsteps.

“She definitely wants to be a lawyer,” said Baiocco, who also said Ava’s father is a lawyer as well. “She wants to be a prosecutor.”

Meanwhile, Baiocco said she spends a lot of time learning about her new role and the products for which she is responsible.

“It’s a lot to keep up with working for the American people,” she said.

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