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New Acting Veterans Affairs Chief Has Kansas City Ties

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The new acting secretary of Veterans Affairs is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Sloan Gibson IV graduated from UMKC in 1979 with a master's degree in economics, according to a release from the Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Gibson became acting secretary following the resignation of retired U.S. Army General Eric Shinseki on Friday.

The resignation comes as the VA faces claims that veterans are waiting months for medical appointments, NPR reports.

Shinseki resigned in an effort to not distract from efforts to fix the agency's problems, President Obama said Friday.

The U.S. Senate confirmed Gibson as deputy secretary on Feb. 11.

He was born in Washington D.C. and is a 1975 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He also earned a master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

He served as an infantry officer in the Army.

As a health care reporter, I aim to empower my audience to take steps to improve health care and make informed decisions as consumers and voters. I tell human stories augmented with research and data to explain how our health care system works and sometimes fails us. Email me at alexs@kcur.org.
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