 | |
| |
TechnologyDaily Mobile
Playing The Name Game
Joking that he likes to work with Gregs, Art Brodsky, the director of communications at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), will be leaving next month to join the high-tech lobbying group Simon Strategies, founded by Greg Simon. The most recent head of NTIA was Greg Rohde, who left when President Bush took office. "I had a lot of success with one bright, energetic person named Greg, and I am loathe to break tradition," Brodsky said of his choice of a new job.
At Simon Strategies, Brodsky said he would be a liaison between the company's clients and media relations firms. Simon Strategies represents several high-tech clients, including OpenNet, which has fought to open broadband cable services to competition. Before starting his business, Simon was former Vice President Al Gore's domestic policy adviser.
Before NTIA, Brodsky spent 16 years at trade newsletter Communications Daily. His last assignment there was as a senior editor.
Podesta Drops .Com, Adds Mattoon
Podesta is dropping the .com that has been part of the name of Tony Podesta's lobbying firm since 1998. The company is making the change to pave the way for adding the name of new partner Dan Mattoon to the firm.
Mattoon, a veteran Republican, will join the lobbying shop in mid-February as co-chairman and co-CEO. Podesta told The Washington Post that dropping the .com did not reflect a commentary on tumbling high-tech stocks but rather made it simpler to rename the firm Podesta/Mattoon.
Mattoon currently is vice president for congressional affairs at BellSouth, a job he took after a sabbatical as deputy chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. At the NRCC, Mattoon's mission was to help Republicans keep the House in the last election. Podesta is the brother of John Podesta, former President Clinton's chief of staff.
Elsewhere, the name of the National Security Council Directorate of Nonproliferation and Export Controls has been changed to the Directorate of Proliferation Strategy, Counter-proliferation and Homeland Defense. Its new senior director is Robert Joseph, and the deputy director is Richard Falkenrath, both of whom worked for former President George Bush, the current president's father.
The jurisdiction of the newly named directorate still will include export controls.
Filling The Bush Administration Gaps
Nina S. Rees has been named deputy assistant on domestic policy to Vice President Richard Cheney. She will help coordinate strategy to pass President Bush's education package. Before her appointment to Cheney's staff, Rees handled education policy at the Heritage Foundation.
She will be working with Cesar Conda, who was the administrative assistant and legislative director to former Sen. Abraham Spencer, R-MI, and who has been named assistant to the vice president for domestic policy to Cheney. Conda's ties to Spencer, who is now energy secretary, are likely to be useful given that Bush has tapped Cheney to head a national energy strategy.
Meanwhile, another former high-tech staffer to Abraham, Kevin Kolevar, has decided not to take a high-tech policy position with the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Instead, Kolevar has decided to become a senior counselor to Abraham at the Energy Department.
In other adminstration staff news, Gary Edson has been named the deputy assistant to the president for international economic policy. Edson was the president of the Chicago-based venture capital firm ECG Inc. and a chief of staff to former U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills.
Edson is to serve as liaison between chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Before working at ECG, Edson was the vice president of business development at Ameritech.
News reports also say that Faryar Shirzad, the Senate Finance Committee's former international trade counsel, is likely to be named general counsel at USTR. Shirzad currently heads the Bush administration's trade transition team.
The New Clinton Mouthpiece
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, has named James Kennedy as her communications director and senior policy adviser. Kennedy will oversee the office's communications with the media and assist Clinton as a senior policy adviser and speechwriter.
Kennedy previously was the communications director to former Vice President Al Gore. Before that, he served as a spokesman for former President Clinton and for Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-CT. Kennedy succeeds Howard Wolfson, who was Mrs. Clinton's communications director in her 2000 campaign. Wolfson plans to live and work in New York City.
Changes In The Lobbying Scene
The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) has hired Bruce Cox as vice president for regulatory policy and law. It also has promoted Robert Roche to vice president for policy and research.
"Bruce comes to us from AT&T, where his years of service in congressional and regulatory affairs have had a positive impact throughout industry," said Tom Wheeler, CTIA's president and CEO. "Now, we are proud to make him a part of the CTIA team." Most recently, Cox was vice president of congressional and regulatory affairs. His duties included lobbying Congress and working with the FCC on a wide range of issues, including universal service reform.
Meanwhile, the Electronic Industries Alliance has named Barbara Ennis Wortmann as senior vice president for policy, planning and industry relations. Formerly external affairs director for Lucent Technologies, Wortmann was responsible for the development and management of all external interfaces globally for environment, health and safety issues for the corporation, including government, industry and non-government organizations. She brings more than 30 years of experience with Lucent to the alliance.
Kara Kennedy, the chief of staff to Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-WA, also is leaving her job to become vice president at the Petrizzo Group, a Washington-based government relations firm. Kennedy will be working on policy and strategic communications for Petrizzo's clients, including the Electronic Industries Alliance and Paul Allen's Vulcan Northwest. Before joining Dunn's office, Kennedy worked for then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, first on policy and then on communications strategy.
Tech 'Players' Get Their Due
Former TechNet Democratic Director Wade Randlett, venture capitalist John Doerr and New Democrat Network President Simon Rosenberg are the stars of Sara Miles' book on Silicon Valley's coming of age in the political world.
Beginning in 1996, Miles began interviewing and following Randlett, Doerr and Rosenberg as they gained political clout in Silicon Valley and other parts of the country. The result is an engaging 246-page book, "How to Hack a Party Line: The Democrats and Silicon Valley," which paints a picture of how the Democratic Party successfully courted the high-tech industry.
The book also gives some insight into the high-tech political players. Whether they still will be players given that Congress and the White House both are in Republican hands for the first time in a half-century remains to be seen.
 | - by Bara Vaida |
NEW FEATURE
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
