ON THE MOVE

People

Saturday, Aug. 2, 2008


Consulting Game

Lori Denham has joined Kountoupes Consulting as a principal. The government-affairs firm--whose clients include Freddie Mac and Yahoo--is celebrating its first anniversary.

Denham will be working on health care, financial services, technology, and trade issues. Most recently, she served as the executive vice president of government affairs and industry operations for the Retail Industry Leaders Association. She was also the association's lead Democratic liaison to Capitol Hill. In 2004, she was chief of staff for Elizabeth Edwards during the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign.

Her success in Washington goes back to the lessons she learned as a child in Central California, Denham says. "My parents were very involved in the community, and you were successful based on your relationships, your hard work, and your personal integrity.... Even though D.C. and Central California are very different--they are very similar, and those values work," she says.

The 39-year-old Denham also has Capitol Hill experience from her work in the offices of Reps. Cal Dooley, D-Calif., and Darlene Hooley, D-Ore. Denham enjoys reading, travel, and swimming in her free time. She and her husband, Todd Stein, also a former Hill staffer, have three young children.

At Kountoupes Consulting, Denham will join Lisa Kountoupes, a former House liaison for President Clinton, and Julie Hershey Carr, a former senior aide to Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa.
--Winter Casey

Lobby Shops

The new director of government relations at C&M Capitolink, Bryan O'Leary, has seven children ranging in age from 10 months to 10 years old.

O'Leary enjoys a big family and says that having a lot of children has actually made life simpler. "It is easier to go out and do things now than when we had one, because now we have a system, with the kids holding each other's hands and looking after each other."

At C&M Capitolink, the lobbying arm for Crowell & Moring, O'Leary's principal client will be the troubled security firm Blackwater Worldwide. "I am happy to work with Blackwater, and I think they are great folks," he says. The company is "almost entirely made up of veterans."

O'Leary served in the Marine Corps for 12 years as an F-18 Hornet pilot and an air combat tactics instructor. He also held jobs as national security legislative assistant to Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and military legislative aide to Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., a senior member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. O'Leary is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.
--W.C.

Kevin Matthews has been named vice president for energy and the environment at National Strategies Inc., based in Washington. NSI helps companies design state and local lobbying plans. The firm boasts a network of 1,000 government-affairs specialists in state capitals and counties across the country.

While in college, Matthews worked in the office of then-Sen. Dale Bumpers, D-Ark. He most recently was the director of government relations for AIG Environmental, and he earlier served in various positions with the Environmental Protection Agency. In one EPA post, the agency "loaned" him out to work for Sen. Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., on oil spill issues related to the first Persian Gulf War.

Matthews, 43, holds a graduate degree from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas (Austin). He serves on the editorial advisory board of the Brownfield News and Sustainability report and is certified as an environmental risk manager by Texas State University. He also likes to hike and take nature photographs.

NSI has also hired Steve Rauschenberger, erstwhile president of the National Conference of State Legislatures and a former member of the Illinois state Senate, as managing director of the firm's legislative practice.
--W.C.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has hired ex-Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Mark Esper as executive vice president for its Global Intellectual Property Center.

He was national policy director for Fred Thompson's 2008 presidential campaign and has since been doing independent consulting. Earlier in his career, Esper served as executive vice president at the Washington-based Aerospace Industries Association of America and as chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation. He held a number of positions on Capitol Hill, working for then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., the House Armed Services Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the then-Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

Esper is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and fought in the first Persian Gulf War. He earned a master's degree from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Ph.D. from George Washington University. He serves part-time on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Outside of work, Esper, 44, cheers at his three children's sports games and volunteers for Boy Scout trips. He enjoy fitness and outdoor activities such as kayaking and mountaineering. And he tries not to lose too badly to his kids in video-game face-offs.

The U.S. chamber has also promoted Caroline Joiner to vice president of the Global Intellectual Property Center.
--W.C.

Eric Ebenstein has joined the American Electronics Association as a manager and counsel of domestic policy issues and as the group's Southeast regional director. He will split his time between state-level e-commerce issues and federal policy topics.

In his last job, Ebenstein was a trial attorney for the Transportation Department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Before that, he worked as an associate for two New York City law firms--Winget, Spadafora & Schwartzberg; and Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler. He was also a summer associate at Tannenbaum, Helpern, Syracuse & Hirschtritt.

The 32-year-old earned his law degree from the New York City's Cardozo School of Law. He is a big Mets fan and a New York Giants season ticket holder. Off hours, Ebenstein likes to play soccer, tennis, and racket ball; watch movies; and travel. He lives in the Shirlington neighborhood of Northern Virginia.
--W.C.

Lobby Shops

The Entertainment Software Association has tapped Jason Knapp as its new director of federal government affairs. He is a video-game aficionado and often plays Guitar Hero. Knapp spent seven years as a technology staffer for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. He briefly worked as a legal analyst at eLink Systems, an Internet service provider, but left when the company took a downward turn.

Knapp was partially attracted to the ESA's flexibility; he has been attending law school at American University's Washington College of Law part-time for the past two years. He decided on law school, he said, because "people who are making the law should understand the law."

Knapp, 33, grew up in Bennington, Vt.
--W.C.

Shorts

Flash Mob ... Sarah Burns has signed on as the director of development for Just Foreign Policy, a groups that bills itself as a "mass membership organization" dedicated to reforming U.S. foreign policy through coordinating American views on the issues through online efforts. Burns--who will be based in Los Angeles and focus mainly on membership and fundraising--was attracted to the "chance to help build a nationwide movement to support a different foreign policy for the country." That includes "immediately trying to prevent the U.S. going to war with Iran," she said. Burns previously was the chief lobbyist and deputy director of the United Nations Development Program in Washington, a foreign-policy adviser to then-Rep. Joseph Kennedy, D-Mass., and a public information officer at the State Department. She holds a graduate degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
--W.C.

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