President Barack Obama today announced he intends to nominate King County Executive Ron Sims to become the deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

As the deputy secretary, Sims will be charged with managing HUD’s day-to-day operations, a nearly $39 billion annual operating budget and the agency’s 8,500 employees.

Sims, 60, a Spokane native, was first elected to the Metropolitan King County Council in 1985 and was re-elected to that position twice.

He has earned numerous accolades and a national reputation for his environmental stewardship, aggressive reforms of government, and for willingness to make the tough choices necessary to ensure that American tax dollars are spent wisely.

“Ron’s track record as an innovative leader with an exciting vision for the future of our nation’s communities make him the perfect Deputy Secretary candidate as we tackle the nation’s housing crisis amidst the biggest economic downturn in decades,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. “His experience at the helm of a large urban government provides a critical perspective and his collaborative approach to problem-solving has prepared him to effectively lead HUD’s operations as the agency charts a new aggressive course.”

Elected to a third term, Executive Sims oversees the 13th most populous county in the nation, a metropolitan area with 1.8 million residents and 39 cities including the cities of Seattle, Bellevue and Redmond.

King County accounts for 40 percent of the state’s jobs and is home to businesses and organizations such as Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon.com, Nordstrom’s, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The county government has a workforce of over 13,000 and an annual budget of $4.9 billion.

Sims is a graduate of Central Washington University. He is a board member for Reconnecting America Center for Transit Oriented Development, advisory board member of the Brookings Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, board member and former chair of Sound Transit, board member of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, the National Committee of Quality Assurance and Rainier Scholars.

Sims also is co-chair of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County and founding chairman of the board of the Puget Sound Health Alliance.