PROFESSIONALS

Michael Gale is a consultant on international trade and government relations to Warnaco, as well as a number of other U.S. and foreign apparel manufacturers. He has over 20 years of experience on international trade, government relations, and textile/apparel issues in the U.S. and overseas, especially with the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). He has served with Warnaco as head of its Washington, DC office, Director of Government Relations of the American Apparel Manufacturers Association (AAMA, currently the American Apparel & Footwear Association-AAFA), and the Florida law firm Greenberg Traurig where he served as Washington Counsel for the Central American and Caribbean Textile and Apparel Council (CACTAC). He has also served in various positions in the US Government, including Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs (Bush Administration), Deputy Special Assistant to the President and Associate Director of the Office of Public Liaison (Reagan Administration), and Senior Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA).

In these capacities he has represented the legislative and regulatory interests of U.S. apparel manufacturers and developed and executed lobbying strategies on legislation and regulations under consideration by the U.S. Congress, the Executive Branch and administrative and regulatory agencies. Michael also represented U.S. apparel manufacturers in negotiations with foreign governments and foreign apparel manufacturers and served as an industry advisor to the U.S. Trade Representative’s Chief Textile Negotiator and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Textiles and Apparel; the Board of Directors of the U.S. Apparel Industry Council (USAIC); the U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel; and to serve on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Textiles, Apparel and Consumer Goods Exporters’ Textile Advisory Committee and the U.S.-Turkey Business Council.