FTC Official to Be First Lady’s Press Aide

The White House on Monday named Jennefer Austin Hirshberg, 42, now director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Public Affairs, as press secretary to First Lady Nancy Reagan, effective next Monday.

Hirshberg is a former director of corporate communications for Bendix Automation in Cleveland, a former media consultant with Gray & Co. in Washington, a former reporter with the now-defunct Washington Star, a former part-time rock music critic for the Washington Post and a former English teacher at Glendale (Calif.) Community College.

“The nicest thing anybody ever said to me was ‘You know who looks just like you?’ and I said, ‘Who?’ They said, ‘Farrah Fawcett,’ and I said, ‘That’s a twist--it’s usually the other way around,’ ” Hirshberg said Monday in an interview.

Often mistaken for the star of the television series “Charlie’s Angels,” Hirshberg said it is not unusual for “a little old lady” to come up to her in a supermarket and ask, “Aren’t you Farrah Fawcett?”

She said Nancy Reagan will be her first woman “boss” in her varied career.