WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama last week bypassed Congress and named Joshua Gotbaum as director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., using a tactic known as a “recess appointment.”

The president appointed Mr. Gotbaum, an operating partner at private equity firm Blue Wolf Capital Management L.L.C. in New York.

In a separate appointment also made while Congress is in recess this week, the president named Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Donald Berwick to be the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

President Obama said he acted so “extremely qualified” candidates can “get to work on behalf of the American people right away.”

The president nominated Mr. Gotbaum to the top PBGC position in November, but the nomination has stalled. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee unanimously backed him for the post in a May vote, but neither the Senate Finance Committee nor the full Senate has acted since then.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, blocked Mr. Gotbaum's nomination as part of dispute with the PBGC over the termination of pension plans sponsored by Troy, Mich.-based Delphi Corp.

As a recess appointee, Mr. Gotbaum can serve through the end of 2011, or longer if he is confirmed later by the Senate.

Financial trouble

His appointment comes at a time when the PBGC's financial condition has deteriorated. Huge losses and lower interest rate assumptions nearly doubled the PBGC's deficit in fiscal 2009, which jumped to $22 billion from $11.2 billion in fiscal 2008.

The PBGC estimated that its exposure to future losses from financially weak companies was about $168 billion in fiscal 2009, up from $47 billion the prior year.

The agency is supported by premiums paid by employers with defined benefit plans and by investment income earned on assets held by failed pension plans that the PBGC has taken over from employers.

The PBGC has been without a permanent director since January 2009.