Placement Report to the IEEE-USA
Government Fellowship Committee

Why I Chose to Work For
Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)

Peter S. Winokur, Ph.D.

Congressional science fellows chosen by most science and engineering professional societies are treated to a 2-week orientation organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The orientation, which begins the first week of September, is a wonderful introduction to DC and the Congress, and provides exposure to a broad range of national issues. Throughout the orientation, you get a great deal of advice from former fellows and Washington insiders on how to make the best placement for yourself in the Congress. The advice goes something like this: "the only place to work is in the House...in the Senate...on a personal staff...on a committee...in the majority...in the minority. And everyone’s right, because choosing a placement in the Congress is kind of like picking a college. I’m certain we could all be happy at a dozen colleges, especially if we’re undecided on a major field of study. I know I would have enjoyed many different placements in Congress. In the end, there were several opportunities that intrigued me, but my bias was always to work on the personal staff of a Senator. I thought the Senate would be a better match to the Sandia Labs environment I came from and hopefully a better use of my talents as a career scientist. I wanted to work in the Senate where I felt I could focus in a few key areas, but still sample a wider range of issues. (In Congress, everyone works a myriad of issues because staff and resources are limited and there’s a lot of ground to cover - so take the word "focus" lightly.) Although I wasn’t interested in spending half my time answering constituent mail, I still wanted to get a flavor of that experience so I chose a personal staff position as opposed to a committee assignment.

Some of the fellows in the AAAS orientation had a burning desire to concentrate in a given field of interest, e.g., diabetes research, telecommunications, or K-12 science education, but I considered myself more of a generalist. I was here to learn the political and legislative process, so I was fairly flexible. Based on my one-page resume (no one reads anything more than a page here), I was an R&D, space, and defense guy. Consequently, I thought I’d only interest offices who wanted help in space and defense issues. I began to interview in several offices and really enjoyed it, but Congress was still in session in late September trying to pass 13 appropriations bills (little did we know it would take until mid-December to complete the job), and many congressional offices were too busy to either interview or make staff decisions. Another complication for me was that IEEE fellows begin their assignments at the start of the calendar year, so there was no immediacy to my placement. After a few days, I returned to Sandia Labs in Albuquerque where I polished off a matrix of Senators and Representatives who might be a good match for me. I liked Warner, Rockefeller, Frist, Bingaman, and Lieberman on the Senate side, and Boehlert, Markey, Wilson, and Morella on the House side. I plotted my strategy and had an opportunity to interview at a few of these offices on subsequent business trips to DC.

On one of these trips, I interviewed with Senator Harry Reid’s staff and had the good fortune of speaking to a Legislative Director who was a former congressional fellow. He asked probing questions like: Why do you want to work for the Senator? What do you hope to gain from this experience? What do you want to work on? After we covered the essentials, he asked: How would you like to work in energy, renewable energy? I said I didn’t know much about energy. He said: "so?" I was really excited about the opportunity of working in a new area. I also felt that energy was one of the most significant issues facing the nation in the 21^st century, so what a great chance to expand my horizons. We agreed to talk again and I considered my options. I was also interested in Senator Lieberman’s office. Lieberman was a national figure and his office had a great reputation for effectively using fellows. If I worked with Lieberman I’d stay in defense, but it would be a great way to cap off my career. I kept in touch with Lieberman’s office for the interminable weeks following the election, but in mid-November decided to accept the position offered to me by Senator Reid.

I’ve been on the job for a month and, as advertised, I’m working on legislation to promote the development of clean, renewable energy sources such as wind, biomass, sunshine, and geothermal heat. The Congress is considering a major Energy Bill this year, which will be introduced early in February. My assignment fits in well with the interests of Senator Reid, who is the ranking member of both the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. Reid holds the opinion that stewardship of the environment and energy use is inextricably linked. He believes that diversifying America's energy portfolio to include a greater percentage of renewable energy will yield national security and trade balance dividends, and would also result in major air and water quality improvements. The Senator is committed to making renewable energy technologies a priority. And so am I.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - United States of America