FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                    2000-75
                                
     Kathleen M. Hamm, Assistant Director in the Division of
                          Enforcement,
            to Leave SEC After Nine Years of Service

     Washington, DC, June 5, 2000 -- Kathleen M. Hamm, Assistant
Director in the Division of Enforcement of the Securities and
Exchange Commission, today announced that she will leave the
Commission in July to join the law firm of Wilson Sonsini
Goodrich & Rositi, P.C.  Ms. Hamm will focus on the areas of
enforcement defense, litigation, and securities counseling in the
firm's Palo Alto, California office.  A successor has not yet
been named.

     SEC Enforcement Division Director Richard H. Walker said,
"Kathleen is a very talented lawyer, who has served the
Commission with distinction for nearly a decade.  She leaves
behind a solid record of important enforcement actions.  On
behalf of the Commission, I thank her for her service, and wish
her well in her new position."

     Ms. Hamm, 37, became Assistant Director in September 1997,
after serving in various capacities in the Division of
Enforcement since 1991.  During her nine-year tenure with the
Division, she conducted and supervised a broad range of
enforcement activities, including investigations involving
financial and accounting fraud, insider trading, broker-dealer
and investment adviser misconduct, and municipal securities
matters.  Among many others, she supervised the Commission's
yield-burning investigations, which have recovered more than $170
million to date, supervised its prosecution of the apparel
manufacturer Donnkenny Inc. and its former chief executive
officer for financial fraud, and investigated and litigated the
SEC's first enforcement actions charging fraud for markups below
5 percent on debt securities.

     Ms. Hamm graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center
with a Masters in Securities Regulation and earned her law degree
from Duke University.  She received her undergraduate degree in
business administration and accounting from the State University
of New York at Buffalo.  Prior to her tenure at the SEC, Ms. Hamm
was an associate with the Arizona law firm of Streich Lang, P.A.
                                
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