09-08-2001

PEOPLE: People for September 8, 2001

HILL PEOPLE


The third time's the charm for agriculture lawyer Charlie Rawls, who will
be helping to hammer out another farm bill now that he's back on Capitol
Hill as general counsel for the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and
Forestry Committee's majority staff. As a House aide, Rawls, 44, worked on
the 1985 and 1990 farm bills, but this time, he said, "I'll need to
learn a lot about how the Senate does business." After earning a law
degree, Rawls joined the House Agriculture Committee staff in 1983 and
spent five years there before becoming legislative director and later
chief of staff for then-Rep. H. Martin Lancaster, a Democrat from Rawls's
home state of North Carolina. In 1993, Rawls moved to the Clinton
Administration, taking a position as the chief of staff to then-Deputy
Agriculture Secretary Richard Rominger. In 1998, he became USDA's chief
legal officer. In addition to his mastery of the sometimes arcane
nomenclature of agriculture, Rawls has recently added another language
skill: Between his departure from the executive branch and his return to
the Hill, he studied Spanish intensively, "for
self-improvement."


In the Tanks


Julie Englund, the Brookings Institution's treasurer and vice president
for finance and administration, will become Harvard Law School's dean for
administration on November 1. Englund helped Brookings significantly
strengthen its endowment and renovate a building, she said. The move to
Harvard takes her back to old stomping grounds: She completed her
doctorate in education there in the early 1980s. Englund served as special
assistant to Education Commissioners John Ottina and T.H. Bell in the
former Health, Education and Welfare Department. She later went on to the
Education Department, where she helped negotiate and implement a national
labor agreement, before departing to become an associate vice president of
Hood College in Frederick, Md. Englund, 53, joined the Brookings
Institution in 1993, following a stint as senior vice president with the
Washington-based nonprofit Council for Advancement and Support of
Education. Englund said: "Returning to Harvard as an administrator is
a tremendous opportunity to build on the sorts of things that I've done at
Brookings."


Media People


After just eight hours on the job as CNN's new Washington deputy bureau
chief and executive editor, Kathryn Kross sees herself remaining with CNN
for a very long time. Kross, 40, knows something about longevity in the
news business. She began her career almost 20 years ago as a production
and desk assistant at ABC, where she continued to work through this
summer. "It was too interesting a challenge to pass up," the
former Washington senior producer for World News Tonight said of the CNN
offer. "CNN is in a time of change, moving to a programming-centered
[model] from the 24 hours a day/seven days a week news that it
created." But Kross isn't ready to speculate on her next 20 years.
"My immediate task is all-consuming," she said, "getting to
know CNN and how folks here work, and how we can make their lives
better."


Around the Agencies


Communications specialist Elizabeth "E.R." Gregory has left the
private sector to join the Bush Administration, where she's signed on as
the associate undersecretary of communications in the Commerce
Department's Economics and Statistics Administration. Gregory, 35, has
focused on three areas in her career: legislative, international, and
business issues. "It would be hard to think of another job that
really pulls those experiences together," she said. Gregory worked
for seven years on the Hill, ultimately becoming the press secretary for
Rep. John Linder, R-Ga. She then spent three years at the nonprofit
International Republican Institute, and most recently served as the
communications director for the Financial Services Roundtable, which
represents banks, investment groups, and other financial service
companies. The primary function of Commerce's ESA is to produce economic
and demographic information. "Legislators and business leaders can't
make decisions without this information," Gregory said.


Interest Groups


During his 14 years on the Hill, Steve Hall became one of the go-to guys
for transportation and infrastructure policy. That experience will come in
handy as he gets started at the American Council of Engineering Companies
as its director of government affairs. "Water, air,
transportation-ACEC is really focused on infrastructure investment across
the board," he said. Hall, 38, comes from the office of Rep. Sue W.
Kelly, R-N.Y., where he started out in 1995 as legislative director and
became chief of staff. Before he joined Kelly's office, Hall handled work
for then-Rep. Bill Zeliff, R-N.H., on two House committees: Government
Operations, and Transportation and Infrastructure. In an earlier stint, he
managed transportation and infrastructure issues for then-Rep. Matthew
Rinaldo, R-N.J., including the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation
Efficiency Act. Hall replaces Jack Kalavritinos, who was named the Office
of Management and Budget's associate administrator of procurement
policy.


Lobby Shops


Maurice Kurland grew up in El Paso, Texas, watching the lengthening shadow
of free trade on his family's store, Kurland Salzman Music Co. As the
maquiladora assembly plants grew up along the Texas-Mexico border, the
store expanded into a full line of musical equipment. Kurland will draw on
that experience in his new role as a lobbyist at Alcalde & Fay.
"El Paso is a microcosm of NAFTA, trade, and technology," the
former assistant district attorney said. Kurland, 36, left El Paso in 1996
to head telecommunications and technology initiatives for then-newly
elected Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas. Five years later, after learning
how to sail both congressional politics and the Potomac River, Kurland
accepted an invitation from Alcalde & Fay to become their newest
associate, focusing on telecommunications, technology, Texas, and Hispanic
policy issues. First, though, he took a month off to go home to El
Paso-and work in the family music store.


For Richard E. May, things have come full circle: The former Republican
staff director for the House Budget Committee remembers the day in early
1995 when he hired Lee Cowen to serve as a committee counsel. Flash
forward to the present, and it's Cowen who's recruiting May. The
47-year-old May has joined his former counsel to work as a legislative
consultant in the Washington office of the Denver-based law and lobbying
shop Brownstein Hyatt & Farber. May first signed on with the Budget
Committee in 1993 after serving as the legislative director for then-Rep.
John Kasich, R-Ohio. He was there for the Republican takeover of Congress
and the government shutdown in 1995. But May's most memorable experience,
he says, was playing a role in the drafting of the Balanced Budget Act of
1997. "I had my hands in the mess," is how he describes it.
After that, he joined the Washington government relations firm Davidson
& Company Inc., where he has worked for the past four years. At
Brownstein, May says, he will focus on budget, tax, and telecommunications
issues.


Erin Heath

National Journal