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Stormy beginning for Granger chief of staff |
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By The Hill Staff
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Posted: 06/14/05 12:00 AM [ET] |
Debra Larson, new chief of staff to Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), received a rude welcome to Capitol Hill: On her second day on the job, the Cannon House Office Building was locked down, preventing some of the office staff and interns from getting to work. She hopes it won’t be a harbinger of things to come but recognizes that working on the Hill will certainly be a new experience.
Larson, 47, brings an outsider’s perspective to Granger’s office. For one thing, she knows more about meteorology than your average House chief of staff. She served most recently as legislative director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and has worked in the communications office and international office of NOAA’s National Weather Service.
All told, she has worked in Commerce Department agencies for all but eight months of the past 16 years, which is partly why she was happy to make the move to Granger’s office. “I figured it was time for something new,” she says. “I’d never worked on the Hill before.”
At first glance, her background might make her seem a strange pick for Granger, whose legislative work is heavily concentrated in two areas — defense and healthcare — that are about as far removed from meteorology as possible. But Larson says she and Granger hit it off from the beginning of their interview, easing her uncertainty about taking the position.
“To be a chief of staff, the fit really has to be perfect,” Larson says. “You’re closer to the representative than anyone else in the office. I was only going to take this position if I knew it was the right place for me, which I believe it is.”
Though she admits it will take some time to get up to speed on Granger’s legislative priorities, Larson isn’t worried. She notes that the chief of staff’s biggest task is to manage the office —“to make the trains run on time,” as she puts it — and let the legislative staff do their work.
Larson, a Wisconsin native, graduated with a degree in business administration from the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire and later earned her master’s degree in international transactions from George Mason University. But she is no stranger to Texas Republican politics, having worked in political jobs for both Presidents Bush. She points out, “I’m probably one of the few people on the Hill to go from a political position to a career position and back again.”
She is also familiar with Granger’s Fort Worth-based district. She lived in the area for a year before coming to Washington. In true Texas fashion, Larson enjoys hunting and fishing, occasionally rising before dawn to go deer hunting with her fiancé. She’s also a big golf fan, but laments that her busy work schedule has limited her time on the links in recent years. Larson doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon: “Kay has a pretty hectic schedule, and we do our best to keep pace.”
• One of Granger’s ex-constituents is also in a new office. Adrienne Elrod, 28, is the new regional press secretary at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Elrod is a graduate of Texas Christian University, in Granger’s district, and is no stranger to the Hill; she comes to the DCCC from the press office of Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.). Elrod’s hobbies include running, which should help her work off all the chocolate she ate on her recent trip to Switzerland.
Though she’s switched from Ross’s folksy southern drawl to the blunt manner of her new Chicago boss, DCCC Chairman Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), Elrod’s duties will remain largely the same: handling press inquiries from local newspapers. Except now, in addition to fielding calls from the Pine Bluff Commercial, she’ll have to deal with the rest of the country’s papers, too. |
