Robert Odle
Robert C. Odle, Jr. is a former public official and an American lawyer.
Mr. Odle joined the Washington office of the New York-based law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in 1985 after serving as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. He retired from Weil on February 23, 2015, after thirty years of service as a partner. Mr. Odle represented clients on a wide range of matters before Congress, and agencies, departments, boards, and commissions of the federal government. In addition to his work on major policy issues in the areas of corporate governance, energy, the environment, housing, and mass torts, he served and continues to serve, now pro bono, as counsel to several private equity funds and charitable foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He also continues to serve pro bono as the general counsel of the Richard Nixon Foundation at the presidential library in Yorba Linda, California. Nominated by President Reagan and confirmed by the Senate in 1981, Mr. Odle was responsible for the Department of Energy's legislative, public, intergovernmental, and consumer affairs programs, DOE's Office of Competition, and the environmental, health, and safety compliance of DOE facilities, including the Nation's nuclear installations. He also served as the principal adviser to the Secretary of Energy in the formulation and review of national energy policy.
Prior to his DOE appointment, Mr. Odle was Washington Representative for the International Paper Company.
From 1973 to 1976, Mr. Odle served as Deputy Assistant Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
From 1969 to 1971, Mr. Odle was a Staff Assistant to President Nixon, and Director of Administration of the Committee for the Re-election of the President from 1971 to 1973. As the administrative director of the Committee, he was the first witness to testify at the Senate Select Committee's 1973 televised hearings investigating the Watergate matter, where he explained the organizational structure of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President after praising "President Nixon and the million volunteers across the nation and 400 people at national headquarters who did nothing unethical or illegal."
Mr. Odle is a member of the District of Columbia and Michigan Bar Associations and is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Reagan Alumni Association, the Federalist Society, the Republican National Lawyers Association, the President's Club of the Heritage Foundation, the President's Cabinet of the Richard Nixon Foundation, the University Club of Washington, the John Carroll Society, Saint Mary's Church in Alexandria, Virginia, the Review Board of the Diocese of Arlington, and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Born in Port Huron, Michigan, Mr. Odle resides in Alexandria, Virginia, and Oxford, Maryland, with his wife, Lydia, and their son, John Paul.
Mr. Odle was awarded a B.A. degree by Wayne State University in 1966, a J.D. by the Detroit College of Law in 1969, and a Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa, by the Detroit College of Law in 1992.