National-Service Board Chair Appointed N.Y. Deputy Mayor

Stephen Goldsmith, chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service board and an expert on social innovation, has been named New York’s deputy mayor of operations. He said he plans to step down from his board post “whenever the timing works best for the White House.”

Michael Bloomberg, the New York mayor, praised Mr. Goldsmith’s tenure as mayor of Indianapolis in the 1990s, saying in a statement, “Lots of people talk about ‘reinventing government’ — Steve Goldsmith has actually done it.”

Mr. Goldsmith, a Republican who has led the national-service board on and off since 2001, is also a professor of government at the Harvard Kennedy School. He said in an e-mail message that he plans to take a leave of absence from that position.

He added that “no city has embraced service like NYC.”

Mayor Bloomberg started a program, NYC Service, a year ago to promote volunteerism to tackle some of the city’s pressing problems. He was also instrumental in creating Cities of Service, a coalition of cities that are working to engage volunteers at the local level.

Mayor Bloomberg wrote the foreword to Mr. Goldsmith’s new book, The Power of Social Innovation: How Civic Entrepreneurs Ignite Community Networks for Good.

Mr. Goldsmith chaired the bipartisan national-service board during the George W. Bush administration, then became vice chairman after President Obama took office and the board elected Alan Solomont, a Democrat, as chairman. Mr. Goldsmith, whose term officially ends next October, agreed to serve as chairman again on an interim basis after Mr. Solomont’s term ended last October. (Mr. Solomont is now ambassador to Spain and Andorra.)

The board is already missing seven of its 15 members, though now that Patrick Corvington, the corporation’s new chief executive, is on board, President Obama is expected to fill the vacancies shortly.

See The Chronicle’s interviews with Mr. Goldsmith and with Mr. Corvington.