Outgoing Federal Communication Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is joining the Aspen Institute, the organization announced on Thursday.

“Chairman Martin has been a longtime participant in Aspen Institute forums,” Executive Director Charles Firestone said in a statement. “We look forward to working with him and to the advice he will give us.”

Martin, who began at the FCC in 2005, will be a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute’s Communications and Society Program, which the group describes as a “non-partisan venue for global leaders and experts to exchange insights on the societal impact of advances in digital technology and network communications.”

The Bush appointee’s departure comes as lawmakers consider delaying his agency’s Feb. 17 digital television transition deadline.

Martin, too, is considered a possible statewide political aspirant in his home state of North Carolina, making high profile visits back to the Tar Heel State while on official agency business, including a November 2007 trip announcing $400 million in state-level grants.

Martin was student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and president of the UNC Association of Student Governments.

“Folks that know Kevin Martin know that he’s a rising star in our party,” a North Carolina Republican insider told Roll Call during the previous election cycle. “It would not surprise me that he’d come back to North Carolina at one point” to run for political office.