Steven Chu (Nobel Prize in Physics 1997) was succeeded by Ernest Moniz (Nuclear Physicist, MIT Professor) who was succeeded by Rick Perry (who forgot which agency he was going to abolish if elected [1])
George W. Bush didn't always appoint slouches either. Samuel Bodman was a professor at MIT and then went into industry. Spencer Abrahams, the prior officeholder, was a politico.
Yeah. GWB appointed a horse-trainer with zero experience to be head of FEMA, aka the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is, not surprisingly, responsible for dealing with, you know, emergencies.
That wouldn't be so surprising (since the Environment Dept. head wanted to abolish it too, and Betsy Voss I'm sure wants to abolish the Education Dept). The surprising thing is that he believed that the Dept of Energy was to do with regulating the "Energy" aka Oil and Gas industries.
1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTNjhcyx7dM