DeParle was a partner at the law firm of Bass, Berry & Sims in Nashville before serving as commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Human Services in the cabinet of Governor Ned McWherter from 1987 to 1989 [REF].
DeParle has also served as a trustee at the nonprofit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a research fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a fellow at the Wharton School of Business.