What drew you to the world of business advocacy and what do you fi nd interesting about policy work?


There are many “magic” things about America that make our nation and our economy unique, but my favorite magic is the free enterprise system our founders adopted. Entrepreneurship and the ability for anybody to start a business, grow that business and then use that business to help support their community is why I got involved in politics. The capitalist economic model is often taken for granted, but it must be constantly defended. Politicians must be routinely re-educated on its benefi ts — not just in terms of wealth building and job creation but also the value that employers and entrepreneurs bring to the idea of America. The work is always evolving, with new challenges coming every year, new ways to attack the system or for governments to put their fi nger on the scale and pick winners and losers. I enjoy those challenges and am passionate about the cause. I also get to learn the diversity of American industry which is amazingly complex.


Since joining the National Association of Wholesaler- Distributors in 2023, what have you come to appreciate more about the distribution industry?


I have learned that there is a unique pride in company culture in this industry. To a tee, at every company I tour, the CEO I talk to begins with a conversation about their company culture and the pride they have in their employees and their mission. It really is unique. When talking to politicians I often say that the difference between my members and other companies is when my CEOs walk through their warehouses, they know their forklift operators’ fi rst names and probably their kids’ names, too.


What do you see as the biggest policy needs for distributors?


Most distributors operate on incredibly tight margins, making them vulnerable to any swings in the economy whether it’s infl ation/defl ation, or state or federal policy shifts. Therefore, the biggest policy need is consistency: the government needs to set the rules and then walk away. When policymakers constantly change the tax code or introduce wave after wave of new regulations, they harm a company’s ability to plan and grow. As the middle of the supply chain that provides services both upstream to manufacturers and downstream to


customers, distributors are sensitive to any regulatory changes that happen along that chain.


What would you consider the NAW’s most signifi cant policy and advocacy successes in the past two years?


NAW has been aggressively pushing back against the new regulatory state and has found success in the courts to peel back some of the anti-business rules that emerged from the Biden administration. With Congress deadlocked and incapable of checking the executive branch, we have had to turn to the judicial branch to reign in the bureaucracy. We recently won suits against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Labor (DOL) and we are just getting started. Since January, we fi led fi ve amicus briefs and were the lead plaintiff in two cases challenging the Biden administration. These are real wins that have an immediate and direct impact on our members.


You had a reputation for being a fi refi ghter in Washington D.C., having the ability to build coalitions to work toward common goals. How has that helped you in your role at NAW?


Politics is all about creating coalitions. Whether you are running for student council or getting elected to Congress, the goal is to create a coalition of supporters. In those instances, it’s a coalition of individuals. In my world, it is about building coalitions of like-minded organizations. Sometimes those organizations are fellow trade associations like FEDA and other distributor associations, including NAW, working together on comments to a rulemaking. Other times, a coalition can include think tanks, law fi rms, advocacy organizations, activists, and even odd bedfellows that disagree on almost everything but that singular issue. The goal is to build a broad enough and loud enough coalition that the politicians have no choice but to support our policy position.


When I worked on Capitol Hill and the White House much of my job was to identify interested groups and recruit them to the cause to support specifi c legislative proposals. Bringing people together, forging alliances and fi nding common purpose is a skill set I discovered when I fi rst came to D.C. 31 years ago. Perhaps it is me being the youngest of four children, or my Colorado libertarian background, but bringing people together has always been in my DNA.


Fall 2024 23


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