Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker today named an advisory board drawn from business, labor groups and former government officials to provide an outside perspective on plans to revive the economy.

Obama this morning signed an executive order establishing the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which will be headed by Volcker. The members include former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson, former Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson, UBS Americas Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Wolf, General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey Immelt and Service Employees International Union Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, the administration announced.

“The board will bring a diverse set of perspectives and voices from different parts of the country and different sectors of the economy to bear in the formulation and evaluation of economic policy,” according to a White House statement.

The announcement is Obama’s latest move to advance his economic agenda as Congress tries to finish work on his stimulus plan, which has been hitting resistance from Republicans. Democratic leaders are vowing to get a bill to Obama for his signature by the end of next week.

The 16-member commission will be established for a two-year term, after which Obama will decide whether to extend its work.

Board Members

Also on the board are David Swensen, chief investment officer at Yale University; Mark Gallogly, founder and managing partner of Centerbridge Partners L.P.; Penny Pritzker, chairman of Pritzker Realty Group; John Doerr of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers; Jim Owens, chairman and chief executive officer of Caterpillar Inc.; Monica C. Lozano, publisher and chief executive officer of La Opinion, the largest Spanish- language newspaper in the U.S.; Charles Phillips, president of Oracle Corp.; Richard L. Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL- CIO; Laura Tyson, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley; and Harvard University Professor Martin Feldstein.

Austan Goolsbee, a top adviser to Obama’s campaign whom the president has picked for the White House Council of Economic Advisers, will serve as the group’s chief economist.

Several of the board’s members played a role in Obama’s campaign as donors and advisers, including Donaldson, Ferguson, Gallogly, Wolf, Burger and Tyson. Pritzker was the finance chairwoman of Obama’s campaign.

Independent Perspective

Modeled after the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which provides an independent voice outside of regular government channels on intelligence issues, the panel will directly advise Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on programs to jump-start economic growth and facilitate economic stability. It will also look long-term, focusing on how the current response to the economic crisis is affecting reforms necessary for future prosperity.

When Obama announced Volcker’s appointment to lead the newly created group on Nov. 26, he billed the board as a vehicle for new ideas about solving the economic crisis.

“The walls of the echo chamber can sometimes keep out fresh voices and new ways of thinking, and those who serve in Washington don’t always have a ground-level sense of which programs and policies are working,” Obama said at the time.

To contact the reporter on this story: Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: February 6, 2009 11:06 EST