Dan Nonte, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-5371
Posted 3-1-07
Janet L. Labuda.
GREENSBORO, NC – Janet L. Labuda, director of textile enforcement for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, will speak Wednesday, March 14, at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
She will talk about the enforcement challenges regarding the importation of textile and apparel products at 3:30 p.m. in Jarrell Lecture Hall of Jackson Library. Her speech, “Sew, Lies and Knitting Machines,” is the Visiting Scholar Lecture sponsored by the Department of Consumer, Apparel, and Retail Studies in the School of Human Environmental Studies.
Labuda is the director of the Textile Enforcement and Operations Division based in Washington. Her responsibilities include oversight of the textile/apparel area including enforcement of quota, illegal textile transshipment activities, trade agreements for textiles and operational policy development and implementation.
A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., she has been with U.S. Customs and Border Protection for 26 years. She began her career as an inspector at John F. Kennedy International Airport in 1980 after teaching high school history for five years.
She is chairman of the Textile Working Group, which determines U.S. Customs and Border Protection policy regarding the importation of all textile products. She participated in the negotiation of the Singapore, Australia and Morocco Free Trade Agreements and works on a continuing basis with her foreign counterparts to ensure maximum compliance of this industry with U.S. laws and regulations.
Before her current assignment, she was an international trade officer with the Office of Strategic Trade and the director of the Revenue Enforcement Division of the Office of Regulatory Audit. Other assignments have included senior program manager, The Interdiction Committee; senior customs representative, Office of Investigations; customs zero tolerance ombudsman; and program manager, Office of Inspection and Control.
She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history from St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn and a master’s degree in European history from New York University. She attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she is senior executive fellow.
She is a member of the Board of Directors for the American Friends of the Kigali Public Library, which is spearheading efforts in the United States to help build the first free public library in Rwanda.
