Larry J. Beat, who goes by his nickname, Jerry, is currently the Director of the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Jerry has worked in the field of Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility for more than 29 years and has worked for the Department of Transportation, Food and Drug Administration, Internal Revenue Service, Treasury, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board. He was inspired to go pursue a career in Civil Rights by his mother, a high school educator, and first-generation Mexican-American who was active in the Chicano Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Jerry launched his Federal career in DOC OCR in the early 90s and is excited to be back at DOC and serving as OCR’s Director.

In 2001, Jerry served on a year-long Intergovernmental Personnel Act Assignment from NOAA to the national non-profit, Society for Advancement for Chicanos and Native Americans in Science, located in Santa Cruz, CA. He left Federal service to become SACNAS’ Executive Director in 2002 and 2003 and returned to Washington DC in 2004 and worked in FDA’s OEEODM.

While serving as Merit Systems Protection Board's Equal Employment Opportunity Director, Jerry and two colleagues from other agencies founded the Small Agency Council’s EEO, Diversity and Inclusion Committee in 2014-15 and later served as its chair from 2016-2018.

Jerry received his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Classics (Attic Greek and Latin) from the University of Pittsburgh and completed graduate work in Counseling Psychology (MFT) at Dominican University in Marin County, CA. For more than two decades Jerry also taught English and Citizenship to speakers of other languages in Pittsburgh, PA, Rockville, MD, Washington, DC, and in San Mateo County, CA.