Greenville, SC (October 14, 2024) – Wyche, a leading full-service law firm with offices across South Carolina, is pleased to announce that Inez Tenenbaum has been honored with the University of Georgia Graduate School Alumni of Distinction Award. This award recognizes graduates who have achieved meritorious success in their professions, distinguished themselves as mentors and role models in their fields, and made substantive impact at the regional, national, and international levels. These alumni exemplify the University of Georgia’s mission, “to teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.”
Tenenbaum focuses her practice at Wyche on consumer product safety and risk management, working mainly with manufacturers and retailers of consumer products to ensure compliance with applicable consumer product safety requirements to protect the client’s brand. She also counsels clients on public policy issues regarding education on a state, regional, and national level.
In 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Tenenbaum to be Chairman of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. She was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate and served until her term expired in November 2013. During her tenure, she fulfilled a key promise to Congress and consumers by working to ensure compliance with all major safety regulations required by the Consumer Product Safety Act of 2008, a law that reformed and empowered the CPSC.
Tenenbaum was elected South Carolina’s State Superintendent of Education in 1998, and again in 2002. At the end of her tenure in that office, South Carolina was a leader in the nation in education improvement. Standard & Poor’s identified South Carolina as an “outperformer” on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and the state’s SAT scores increased 34 points over the eight years, the largest such gain in the nation. She was presented with the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest civilian award, following her tenure as State Superintendent of Education.
Tenenbaum serves as Chairman of the Board of the South Carolina Institute of Medicine and Public Health. She is a graduate of the University of South Carolina School of Law, and earned both a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Education degree from the University of Georgia.
