Appointee Directory

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Steven Harold Murdock -- Department of Commerce Director of the Census President George W. Bush nominated Steve H. Murdock for director of the U.S. Census Bureau on June 18, 2007, and the Senate confirmed him unanimously on Dec. 19, 2007. He replaced Louis Kincannon, who retired on Jan. 3, 2008, after nearly six years as director and a combined 29 years at the Census Bureau. The first official state demographer of Texas, Murdock headed the Texas State Data Center and Texas Population Estimates and Projections Program for more than 25 years taking a leadership role in the State’s activities in the 1980, 1990, and 2000 decennial censuses. Murdock received his bachelor’s degree from North Dakota State University and his master’s and doctorate from the University of Kentucky. He taught at North Dakota State in his home state before joining the faculty of Texas A&M University in 1977. He joined the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2004, becoming the Lutcher Brown Distinguished Chair in Demography and Organization Studies. In 2007, he went to Rice University in Houston as the Allyn and Gladys Cline Chair in sociology specializing in applied demography, migration, rural sociology, and socioeconomic impact assessment. Murdock is the author of 12 books and more than 150 articles and technical reports. He received a Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award from Texas A&M University, the Excellence in Research Award from the Rural Sociological Society and the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Sociology at the University of Kentucky. Texas Business named him one of the 50 most influential Texans in 1997, and Texas Monthly named him as one of the 25 most influential persons in the state in 2005. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Eta Epsilon national honor societies. Murdock is a member of several professional associations including the Population Association of America, the Rural Sociological Society, the Southern Regional Demographic Association, the Southwestern Sociological Society and the Southern Sociological Society. He is married to Mary Zey, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and they have one son and one grandson.