This summer, in collaboration with The Ohio State University Alumni Club of Washington, DC, my law school has been hosting a weekly speaker series with prominent alumni Ohio State who work in law and policy in Washington, D.C. In addition to a kick-off conversation with our law school dean Lincoln Davies, we’ve had conversations with Nichole Reynolds, ’01 (VP Gov’t Affairs, INGAA), Carter G. Phillips, ’73 (Supreme Court litigator, Sidley Austin), Debra Dixon, ’89 (Principal, TwinLogic Strategies), and Chris Geidner, ’05 (Senior Advisor, Justice Collaborative; former Legal Editor, BuzzFeed). More-junior alums do the interviewing, and we do a deep dive into their careers, issues facing their industries, etc. We hold these virtual conversations via Zoom every Friday during the noon hour, and they are free and open to the public (registration here).

Our next three Friday sessions may be of interest to readers of the blog, so I thought I’d flag them. This Friday, 7/17, we’ll be chatting with Ken Kies, ’77, who is presently the Managing Director of the Federal Policy Group. He has had a fascinating career on the Hill and as a tax lawyer and lobbyist. Perhaps most noteworthy, Kies served as the Chief of Staff of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation from 1995-1998, during which he was a key figure in Clinton Administration’s successful balance budget negotiations. In John Hilley’s account of those bipartisan legislative efforts, he referred to Kies as “the Republican taxman.” This should be a fascinating conversation.

The next two weeks we’ll have conversations with two alums who currently serve in leadership positions at federal agencies. On Friday, 7/24, we’ll be chatting with Marlene Dortch, ’92, who serves as Secretary at the Federal Communications Commission. And then on Friday, 7/31, we will chat with Gay Gilbert, ’87, who serves as Administrator of the Office of Unemployment Insurance at the U.S. Department of Labor. Both of them will obviously be speaking in their individual capacities and not on behalf of their federal agencies—reflecting on their careers and their roles in leading at their agencies.

If you’re interested in joining us for any of these three weekly conversations, you can register for any or all of them here.