Lobbyists

Bio, via FDIC.gov:

In July, Brandon Milhorn was appointed Chief of Staff for Chairman McWilliams. He joins the FDIC from Raytheon Company, where he was the acting vice president of Government Relations. Prior to Raytheon, Mr. Milhorn served in several positions in the Senate, including staff director and chief counsel for Sen. Susan Collins on the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and as generalcounsel for the Select Committee on intelligence. Before joining the Senate, Milhorn held several positions in the Office of General Counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency. He holds a Bachelor of Science in economics, summa cum laude, from East Tennessee State University, and a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Cornell Law School.

Bio, via Sidley Austin LLP:

Morse most recently served as the manager of legislative and political affairs at the American College of Surgeons.

Bio, via General Services Administration:

After graduating from Smith College, I interned for my Member of Congress, Jim Talent. He eventually hired me to work for him at the House Committee on Small Business. As I’m sure some of your staff can attest, the newest staffer often gets the issue no one else wants, and so I started working on Federal procurement policy. Working on contracting, I realized I could make a difference by saving money for taxpayers, improving competition, and helping agencies deliver on their unique missions. More than twenty years later, I still find it compelling. I attended law school at the University of Virginia, earning my J.D., and returned to Washington to practice government contracts law. In 2004, I was honored to join the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) as a senior advisor for government contracts and business development and the Acting Administrator for Government Contracting. In that role, I directed a team of over 140 staff nationwide to help the agency better provide assistance to small businesses seeking Federal procurement opportunities. Our team was able to successfully reduce the cycle time for some small business certifications by 65 percent. I am proud to say that during my tenure, the SBA - for the first time in history - met its statutorily-mandated goal of awarding 23 percent of prime contracts to small businesses. In 2005, I had the privilege of joining GSA and serving as its inaugural Chief Acquisition Officer. In this role, I participated in leading the transformation of the agency’s assisted acquisition centers, as well as the consolidation of the Federal Supply Service and the Federal Technology Service. As the agency’s representative to the Federal Acquisition Regulatory (FAR) Council and the leader of the Civilian Agency Acquisition Council, I coordinated efforts to modernize the FAR and GSA regulations to more closely reflect the Federal Government’s increasing use of service contracts, as opposed to commodity buys. Most importantly, I worked closely with the Inspector General (IG) to address contracting issues in GSA’s eleven regions, where the IG had identified problems with improper sole source contracts, misuse of small business contracts, out-of-scope orders being placed against contracts, and Anti-Deficiency Act violations. The auditors attributed their findings to an ineffective system of internal management controls and contract personnel prioritizing customer preference over proper procurement procedures. To address these issues, I worked with the GSA Commissioners and the Regional Administrators to: 1) communicate that failure to follow the law would not be tolerated; 2) identify areas where contracting specialists perceived ambiguity and provide clarity regarding expectations and policy; 3) engage in workforce training targeting identified failures or weaknesses; 4) implement an ongoing series of procurement management reviews to identify other outstanding issues; 5) realign reporting chains and performance plans to ensure that contract specialists were evaluated on the quality of their work; 6) communicate with contractors regarding the proper procedures to follow should a task order appear to exceed to scope of the contract; 7) develop the Schedules eLibrary to assist contracting officers in making scope determinations; 8) institute regular meetings with the Department of Defense (DoD) to insure that any DoD specific requirements or funding issues were appropriately addressed by GSA; and 9) engage in ongoing dialogue with the IG so that all issues could be addressed promptly, thus mitigating risk to the taxpayer. GSA continues to have regular program management reviews, engage in targeted training, and maintain many of these processes. After my time at GSA, I rejoined the private sector and gained critical experience and insight on the Federal contracting process from different perspectives – as a customer, prime contractor and subcontractor; from the civilian and defense sides; and as a lawyer representing clients seeking to navigate the Federal procurement system. These firsthand experiences have been invaluable, as they provided a holistic view of the Federal contracting process. I know the frustrations of customers seeking to contract with the Federal Government because I have been in their shoes, and if confirmed, I will continue to use that experience to improve the process. In 2011, I returned to the House Committee on Small Business, serving again under a Missouri Chairman, Congressman Sam Graves, and then Chairman Steve Chabot of Ohio. While I specialized in acquisition policy, I also worked on capital access, regulatory reform, tax, and trade issues. The Committee conducted rigorous oversight of contracting agencies, including GSA, and worked on bipartisan legislation that aimed to help small businesses seeking to compete for contracts with the Federal Government. These bipartisan reforms - many of which originated in a Republican House, but were adopted by a Democratic Senate and signed into law by then-President Obama - sought to improve opportunities for service-disabled veterans and small technology firms; minimize barriers to entry; reduce regulatory burdens on prime and subcontractors; reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in government contracting; and streamline design-build contracting. I gained further valuable experience during my time on the House Committee on Armed Services (HASC), working on acquisition issues specific to the DoD, such as challenges with commercial item contracts, auditing, service contracting, program management, acquisition workforce, and business processes at the DoD. Earlier this year, I rejoined GSA, where I analyze topics related to acquisition to provide advice to the Acting Administrator, Tim Horne. For instance, I worked with Acting Administrator Horne on the merger of the Federal Acquisition Service and the Technology Transformation Service, the implementation of the Transactional Data rule, and opportunities to improve how GSA facilitates purchases of technology.

Bio, via Federalist Society:

Maya M. Noronha is an associate at Baker & Hostetler LLP in Washington, D.C. As a member of the Political Law Team, she focuses on redistricting litigation, voting rights cases, and campaign finance law. She has advised Members of Congress, federal candidates, state officials, state legislatures, campaigns, and political committees on election law. Ms. Noronha also works on Baker & Hostetler’s Public Policy Team, where she analyzes Congressional legislation and executive branch priorities to advise clients on political affairs. Ms. Noronha previously served as Deputy Director of the Republican National Lawyers Association, where she published extensively on voting laws, and coordinated state and national election law trainings in preparation for the 2012 general election. In 2011, she researched election law for former FEC Commissioner Hans A. von Spakovsky at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal & Judicial Studies. In 2006, she served as a law clerk at the Republican Governors Association, where she analyzed campaign finance law for 36 gubernatorial races. Ms. Noronha is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Georgetown University where she majored in Government. At Georgetown Law, she published a note and served as development editor of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. She also held programming on election law when she served as vice president of the Georgetown Law Federalist Society. Ms. Noronha has delivered presentations on election law at George Mason University Law School, Arizona State University, and the Republican National Lawyers Association’s Election Law Seminar. In 2012, she was recognized as one of Forbes "30 under 30" in Law and Public Policy.

Bio, via White House:

Mr. Oppenheim is currently the Education Policy Director and Counsel for the majority staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. During his tenure on the Senate HELP Committee staff, Mr. Oppenheim was instrumental in negotiations leading to the enactment of several landmark education laws, including the Every Student Succeeds Act, the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, and the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013. Previously, Mr. Oppenheim was Senator Lamar Alexander’s (R-TN) Legislative Counsel, advising the Senator on education, labor, and pensions issues. Before working on the Hill, Mr. Oppenheim was a Managing Associate in the education and workforce practice at the Carmen Group. Mr. Oppenheim also served as a public policy research assistant for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA), a finance coordinator for the Republican Governors Association, and a project manager for the Republican National Committee. Mr. Oppenheim earned a B.A. from Colby College and a J.D. cum laude from the American University Washington College of Law.