Obama 'Auto Advisor' a former steelworker's negotiator

His main achievement has been to provide the union with an understanding of corporate finance and investment banking that is often superior to the corporate managers' he's dealing with," said Marco Trbovich, former assistant to the steelworkers' president and the labor director for John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

The steelworkers' union is one of the nation's most muscular, helping to deliver Pennsylvania and Ohio to Mr. Obama, pushing for Buy America provisions in the stimulus package and pressing politicians to renegotiate the Nafta trade agreement. With 800,000 members, it is larger than the U.A.W., representing not just steelworkers, but paper, aluminum, oil, chemical and rubber workers.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Bloom, who graduated from Wesleyan University, was co-founder of the boutique investment firm Keilin & Bloom, He specialized in transactions on behalf of major unions, including the steelworkers, auto workers, Air Line Pilots Association and International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

"I found him first of all very, very pragmatic, not overly ideological," and "a very, very good negotiator," Mr. Ross said.

He added that Mr. Bloom, who has moved seamlessly between labor and corporate finance - was not one to make lopsided deals.


Mr. Trbovich, the former steelworkers' official, said that once when Mr. Bloom was negotiating with Mr. Ross, "he laid out a whole different way to look at a financing proposal than the one that was under discussion."

"Ross listened attentively, and when Ron was done, Ross said, ‘The force is with the young man,' " Mr. Trbovich said.

Mr. Gerard, the union's president, said Mr. Bloom would represent not the U.A.W.'s members, but the Obama administration in seeking to assure a future for the nation's automobile industry.