09-30-2000

PEOPLE: People for Sept. 30, 2000

Interest Groups


Maureen M. Britell, a dedicated advocate of women's reproductive rights,
is the new executive director of Voters for Choice. She replaces Julie
Burton, who left the abortion-rights group after 11 years to become vice
president of politics at Working Assets, a communications firm that
promotes social change. Britell, 34, spent three years as the director of
government relations for the National Abortion Federation, which
represents abortion providers. An Irish-Catholic mother from Cape Cod,
Mass., Britell joined the abortion-rights advocacy movement in 1997 after
she testified before Congress during joint hearings on banning
"partial-birth" abortions. She said she spoke out because the
ban would have prevented others from receiving the same late-term-abortion
procedure she received. When anti-abortion activists protested in front of
her church, Britell said she decided to join the fight. She moved to D.C.,
lobbied Congress for NAF, and headed the Patient Project, a program at NAF
that gives women a forum to speak about their personal experiences with
abortion. Britell became involved with Voters for Choice when Gloria
Steinem, the group's president, asked her to give an informational talk to
Pearl Jam, a rock band that has played benefit concerts for the
organization.


The nonprofit group Environmental Defense has lured Diana H. Josephson
from the Navy to ED's New York headquarters to serve as chief operating
officer and deputy executive director. Josephson's experiences with the
environment run deep. Since 1997, she has been principal deputy assistant
secretary of the Navy and has managed environmentally friendly base
installations. Josephson explains that "a base is like a small
city"; it faces problems with sewage, emissions, and endangered
species. In the Navy, Josephson was most proud of leading the effort to
dispose of napalm by recycling it into fuel. Now in her 60s, Josephson
said her career has been "managing and running major programs."
At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, she was deputy
undersecretary for oceans and atmosphere. She has also worked in aerospace
at Martin Marietta Astronautics Group and at Arianespace.


For more than two decades at the Small Business Administration, Bruce D.
Phillips has championed the causes of mom-and-pop operations, family
farms, minority- and women-owned firms, and high-tech manufacturers.
"Growing up in New York gave me an appreciation for the
underdog," said the 54-year-old researcher and economist, who most
recently served as the SBA's director of the Office of Economic Research
in the Office of Advocacy. On Oct. 2, Phillips will join the National
Federation of Independent Business as a senior fellow in regulatory
studies; he'll work to provide accurate estimates of how proposed federal
regulations will affect small businesses. "You have to have the data
to stare at to come up with an understanding" of the best way to
advance the regulatory interests of small-business owners, said Phillips.
Before joining SBA in 1979, Phillips worked at the Commerce Department's
Bureau of Economic Analysis and at the National Planning
Association.


At the Bar


Senior Vice President for Public Communications Mary K. Young is departing
the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. She was hired in 1997
to coordinate an industrywide advertising campaign promoting hard liquor,
but the effort fell apart because member companies proved more interested
in boosting their own market share than in promoting the overall
consumption of distilled spirits. Young, 44, who spent 10 years with Kraft
Foods in Glenview, Ill., before joining DISCUS, said she's been offered
"a great opportunity" at the Washington law office of Howrey,
Simon, Arnold and White, which specializes in intellectual property.
She'll be heading the law firm's marketing efforts as chief marketing
officer, even though she holds an MBA and not a J.D. Not a lawyer? No
problem, said Young. "This firm does things a little differently. We
are establishing a cadre of people who are experts in their fields."
Young hopes to pursue an aggressive marketing strategy from the start.
"I'm going to help the firm [to] project its No. 1 status in the
intellectual-property and antitrust fields," she said.


In the Tanks


Former Reagan-era Education Secretary William J. Bennett has lined up a
new teacher: H. Nathaniel Koonce has been tapped to bring a sense of the
classroom to the education shop at Empower America, Bennett's think tank.
After two years of teaching Latin, in both a private and a public school,
Koonce, 30, has signed on as the group's new education policy analyst. He
got his first and last taste of public school teaching this past year at
W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax County, Va. The experience, he said,
taught him what is wrong with the public school system-namely, paperwork
and meetings. "I was spending 75 percent of my time on the lowest 25
percent of students, and it was mainly justifying discipline or
grading," he said. "It was time spent on things I didn't feel
were improving the welfare of the class in general." So Koonce joined
Empower America's crusade against the education "monopoly,"
which he describes as largely perpetuated by the teachers' unions. He'll
team up with other conservative groups to help spread the school choice
gospel. "I'm brand new to policy, but I'm learning quickly," he
said. "It's fun to be the person who's not from the policy side. It's
fun to bring a new perspective to this." Koonce replaces Jake
Phillips, 23, who's off to the University of Chicago Law School.


Hill People


"It's not the most glamorous job, but it's a necessity," said
Trent D. Duffy, who's taking a six-week leave of absence from the House
Ways and Means Committee, where he is communications director, to work for
Victory 2000, the campaign strategy and communications arm of the
Republican National Committee. Duffy, 33, joined Ways and Means as deputy
communications director in 1998 and worked under then-Communications
Director Ari Fleischer. When Fleischer left for the Bush campaign in early
1999, Duffy happily took over his job. Most recently, he's been spending
his time on Social Security, taxes, and prescription drug issues. Duffy
has handled the press for many a politico: He was press officer for New
Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman's 1997 campaign, and before that he
spent three years flacking for Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J. He also
worked for Reps. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., and Michael G. Oxley, R-Ohio. At
Victory 2000, Duffy will be coordinating broadcast media, especially
radio, for the Bush campaign, with Communications Director Terry Holt.
"I'll be making sure our surrogates are out there and getting the
governor's message on the radio. We're going to redouble our
efforts," Duffy said.


Morris G. "Mo" Goff, who was legislative director for the late
Sen. Paul Coverdell, R-Ga., until Coverdell's death in July, has joined
the private sector. Goff, 35, who is now director of governmental affairs
at the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, said the
private sector is the only place he can continue the type of work he had
been doing for Coverdell. For five years, Goff worked with the late
Senator to expand tax relief measures for middle-income Americans. Their
major work included a tax relief act that was eventually vetoed. Goff said
he likes the association's goal of "helping people build for
retirement." Raised on a farm in Pea Ridge, Ark., Goff said that his
family, which had only a modest income, had to make sure there was enough
meat to last through the winter, so "preparing for the future"
was always a No. 1 priority. Before he joined Coverdell's staff, Goff
spent four years working for Sen. David Boren, D-Okla.


Piper Fogg

National Journal