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On September 26, Harry Wingo, the new policy counsel in Google's Washington office, drove to work in a car packed with anything that might be needed if his wife, D.C. Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Wingo, went into labor with the couple's third girl. During the interview with National Journal, Wingo did get a call from his wife, but it was regarding family pizza night. Friday was Domino's, but he also makes pizza from scratch.
Wingo, 42, enjoys Brazilian jujitsu, and he is a former collegiate All-American boxing champion. But he also has an introspective side: Wingo calls himself a "spiritual" man and enjoys writing poetry and drawing. He grew up near Annapolis, Md., and at different points in his life he wanted to be a minister and an astronaut.
At Google, Wingo will focus on energy public policy -- he and his wife have been waiting for the right time to purchase a plug-in car. He previously served as executive vice president of the Current Group, and Wingo has also done stints as counsel to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee; as a legal adviser at the Federal Communications Commission; and as a lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He holds degrees from Yale Law School and the U.S. Naval Academy, where he became interested in high-tech communications. Wingo also served as a Navy SEAL, working on counternarcotics efforts in Latin America.
-- Winter Casey
Interest Groups
The National Council on Aging, a nonprofit advocacy group, has added two people to its Washington office staff. Marci Phillips is the new director of public policy and advocacy, and Sandra Nathan is a vice president for workforce issues.
Phillips, 38, most recently worked at the National Community Action Foundation, a group heavily involved in a push to fund federal anti-poverty community-services block grants. She started as an entry-level staffer with then-Rep. Matthew Martinez, D-Calif., in 1992, and she was eventually promoted to senior legislative assistant on education and labor issues. She then spent time as a staffer at the House Education and the Workforce Committee (now the Education and Labor Committee).
Phillips, who hails from Haverford, Pa., and is a Philadelphia Phillies fan, says she developed an interest in social justice while in high school. "Everything I've always wanted to do is helping disadvantaged populations," she says. "I guess I was lucky in Catholic school that a lot of the studies were about serving others." Phillips jokes that she realized she was a "bleeding heart" while visiting the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank in Washington, as part of her school's Close Up Program. "I just remember sitting at Heritage and, even as a sophomore, getting really mad." Phillips says she has since learned to work with moderate Republicans during her time in D.C.
Nathan, 59, is a longtime advocate for the elderly. A native of San Diego and a former gerontology specialist at San Diego State University, she worked in the Carter administration doing advance planning for a 1981 conference on aging. "I had a particularly close relationship with my grandmother," Nathan says. "And always in the back of my mind while working in this field was, 'Here is something I can do to improve the lives of women like my grandmother.' " She has done two stints at AARP, working in Washington in the 1980s and then in the organization's Dallas office in the late 1990s. At that time, the personal side of the aging issue hit home when her father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. "I had to make the unfortunate but no-remorse decision to give up my career within AARP and care for my parents," Nathan says, and she moved back to California. From 2000 to 2002, she worked for then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
Nathan, who recently returned to Washington, was also active in her Bay Area church as an associate pastor.
-- Gregg Sangillo
After spending 10 years as the president and CEO of Earthworks, Stephen D'Esposito is leaving to serve as president of Resolve, a dispute-resolution organization. At the nonprofit Earthworks, D'Esposito pushed efforts to reform the 1872 mining law. He says that after more than two decades of work on the issue, he expects that the law might be changed in the next few years to include higher royalties for leases, an abandoned-mine reclamation fund, and provisions to designate whether public lands are suitable for mining.
D'Esposito, who bikes to work from his Takoma Park, Md., home, says the "one question I needed to know the answer to" during his Resolve interview was whether the office had a shower (thankfully, it does). In his spare time, he enjoys painting and is teaching himself to play the guitar. D'Esposito, 47, previously worked for Greenpeace USA as a deputy director and acting executive director.
-- W.C.
Image-Makers
Christine Bragale, who is joining PR firm Weber Merritt as a managing director, has a "slight addiction to tennis" that her sons call an "obsession." She says she plays on a number of teams in Maryland and the District, and she was a mixed-doubles champion this year. "I play every chance I get, and most of my conversation outside work and family is about tennis," says Bragale, who admits to popping three ibuprofen before playing. She got interested in tennis at an early age and played through high school, but then took a lengthy hiatus from the sport.
Bragale served as director of media relations at Goodwill Industries, headquartered in Rockville, Md., for the past 10 years. She is excited to be working in downtown Washington and being "able to walk outside and get a cup of coffee." Bragale also worked as an assignment manager for Associated Press Television News and as a news producer for France 2 Television, the European Broadcasting Union, The McLaughlin Group, and ABC Radio One. Her husband works in television news.
Bragale, 42, grew up in Bethesda, Md., and still lives there. Her favorite restaurants are Black Market and the Belga Café, and her preferred food is chocolate.
-- W.C.
Ian Ritchie is a new account executive with North Bridge Communications, where he'll monitor and research media coverage. He is a former assistant to Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn, a high-profile Washington player and a controversial senior adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign. Ritchie, 24, most recently worked at the Level Field Institute, an advocacy group set up by retirees from the Big Three U.S. automakers, Chrysler, Ford Motor, and General Motors.
The Wilmington, Del., native says that his travels abroad drew him to politics and international affairs. Ritchie doesn't get to travel as much these days, but when he does go overseas, it's a serious endeavor. "I'm not the type to go to a place and do a checklist of things I see and get back on the plane," he says. "I like to go hang out with the locals." In high school, Ritchie studied abroad in Switzerland, and he lived in Egypt for eight months while attending the American University in Cairo. After graduating from George Washington University, he returned to the Middle East to backpack through Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. And linguistics has become a hobby for Ritchie: He speaks fluent German, is proficient in Arabic and Spanish, and has learned some French and Farsi along the way.
-- G.S.
Shorts
New Blood ... Blair Bjellos has been hired as a staff assistant for Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. Bjellos interned in the summer of 2007 for Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., and graduated from the University of Virginia in May. She grew up in Rockville, Md.
-- W.C.
Alliance ... Health Futures, a new public-affairs firm dealing with genetic information and other cutting-edge issues, has formed a strategic alliance with Cavarocchi-Ruscio-Dennis Associates, a public-affairs firm established in 1980. Health Futures was co-founded by Jennifer Leib, a former staffer at the National Institutes of Health who was detailed to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Her founding partner is Robert Wells, who worked with Leib in the Washington office of the Silicon Valley-based company Affymetrix.
-- G.S.
Have a tip for National Journal's People column? Contact Gregg Sangillo or Winter Casey at 202-739-8400, or at people@nationaljournal.com.
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