Commerce Department to Name Director of Western Export Office

The U.S. Department of Commerce is expected to name Michael E. Hoffman as director of the western regional office of the Bureau of Export Administration in Newport Beach.

As director, Hoffman will oversee the issuance of export licenses to companies selling sensitive high-technology products abroad as well as help educate local companies about new export regulations. He will be responsible for 11 western states, including Arizona, California, Hawaii and Washington.

Hoffman, 32, succeeds Michael W. Liikala, who left this month to establish in San Francisco the western regional office for the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service, a branch of the Commerce Department that promotes U.S. exports. The appointment is effective May 1.

Hoffman is Liikala’s counterpart in the New England and East Coast areas, where he is responsible for 10 states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York.

The appointment is a homecoming of sorts for Hoffman. He left California in 1981 after graduating from UC Berkeley to pursue a master’s degree in government at Georgetown University in Washington. After his graduation in 1983, he stayed in Washington to work for the Commerce Department until September, 1990, when he left for New Hampshire to open the department’s eastern regional office.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department has appointed Paul Tambakis, 38, as manager of its Orange County trade promotion office in Santa Ana, effective May 4. Tambakis, an export specialist at the Bureau of Export Administration, succeeds Jesse Campos, who retired last November.