O'Leary, Hazel Rollins, 1937-

Hazel Reid O'Leary (born May 17, 1937) is an American lawyer, businesswoman, and cabinet official. She served as the seventh United States Secretary of Energy from 1993 to 1997, the first woman and first African American to hold the position.

Born in Newport News, Virginia, she attended school in a segregated school system there for eight years. Thereafter, she and her sister were then sent to live with an aunt in Essex County, New Jersey, and attend Arts High School, an integrated school. She went on to earn a bachelor's degree at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee and a Bachelor of Laws degree from Rutgers Law School in Newark, New Jersey. O'Leary worked as a prosecutor in New Jersey on organized crime cases after graduation, later becoming an assistant attorney general for the state. Later, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she joined the consulting/accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand. During the Carter administration, O'Leary was appointed assistant administrator of the Federal Energy Administration, general counsel of the Community Services Administration, and administrator of the Economic Regulatory Administration at the newly created Department of Energy. In 1981 O'Leary and her husband established the consulting firm O'Leary & Associates in Morristown, New Jersey, where she served as vice president and general counsel. From 1989 to 1993 she worked as an executive vice president of the Northern States Power Company, a Minnesota-based public utilities.

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