At 9:05 a.m. on September 11, President George W. Bush was reading to children at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, when Andrew Card KSGP 1980 interrupted him. The news that Card delivered to the president would set into motion an unknown series of events throughout the days, weeks, and months to come. It was up to Card, Bush’s chief
of staff, to tell the president that the first plane had struck the World Trade Center that fateful morning. Card whispered those words into Bush’s ear as Bush sat surrounded by students in S. Key Daniel’s second grade classroom. Bush continued reading. A half hour later, he announced to the nation his decision to return to Washington, DC, to deal with the unfolding crisis.

That’s not the only time that a Kennedy School alumnus has been faced with the incredible challenge of delivering devastating news. Nearly nine years before, Mary Wakefield SMG 1991, then chief of staff to U.S. Senator Quentin Burdick (D-ND), got a call from the hospital at 4 a.m. with news that her boss had unexpectedly died of heart failure.

“I sat there thinking, ‘I can’t call anyone,’” says Wakefield. “I’m sitting on this information that has to be conveyed to the staff, the White House, the majority leader in the Senate. News that would change lives and change seniority in the Senate. All of this would happen in three hours.” But all Wakefield could do was wait, this terrible news weighing heavily on her shoulders. In the end, she was able to contact all but one staff member in Senator Burdick’s office. “It still bothers me that I couldn’t contact everyone in time,” says Wakefield.

To be sure, not every chief of staff has to deliver such crushing news, but many Kennedy School alumni who have served as chiefs of staff agree that they’ve had to wear many hats: from personnel manager to media expert, from political operative to crisis management guru.

According to Jennifer Luray MPA2 1991, chief of staff to U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), the real challenge is trying to get above the crisis of the moment. She must be able to free her mind to see the big picture at all times, to be constantly thinking about the senator’s priorities from one week to the next.

“Senator Mikulski is the composer and, as chief of staff, I’m the orchestra conductor,” Luray says. “I try to keep our musicians playing harmoniously and on key. My overarching responsibility is to implement the senator’s agenda.”

Roy Neel MPA 1983, former chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore, would no doubt agree. He believes that hiring successful political figures or policy advisors as chiefs of staff is a “big mistake.”

“You need to bring a strong and skillful management hand to the office,” says Neel, who worked with Gore since his early days in Congress. It’s easy to get mired in the details. “This is a management job, and you can’t let the organization run itself. You may have responsibility for 100 people who are all responsible for different parts of the office. That requires a fairly steady hand.”

But managing people in different offices — sometimes at a location 3,000 miles away — can also be a test of your wits. Benjamin Haddad SMG 1990, chief of staff to former U.S. Congressman William Lowery (R-CA) and former San Diego Mayor Susan Golding, recalls his days on the job as very unpredictable. The key was integrating the staffing as much as possible. “[When working for Representative Lowery,] we sent San Diego staffers to DC for a week so we could all have some face time. That breaks down the barriers,” he says. “You need to keep nurturing this whole set of issues, or there’s a tendency for the different staffs to begin resenting one another.”

Anyone who’s been chief of staff knows that they’re often put in the hot seat and told they need to respond to situations immediately. One suggestion from Rick Wade MPA 1997, chief of staff to former South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Nick Theodore, is to “Get off the dance floor and go to the balcony where you can look down and see the dancers and see what’s really going on. Once you see all the dancers, then you can make a better decision.”

Luray, who has been put in the hot seat herself, agrees with Wade. “The greatest challenge is the need to think ahead,” says Luray, who suggests stopping and taking half an hour — or even waiting until the next day — to make a decision. “You’re going to make a better decision. People will always want you to make quick decisions. But you’re supposed to make [decisions] well, not fast.”

All these Kennedy School alumni would concur that the role of chief of staff is an incredibly stressful one, but it’s certainly not without its share of fun and games. With a chuckle, Wade looks back on the many times his boss would introduce him in front of huge crowds. “He’d say ‘for all the ladies, he’s a single man.’ The funny thing,” says Wade, who has since gotten married, “was all these women — and their mothers — would be staring at me. It was incredible. [Lieutenant Governor Theodore] always got a big kick out of it.”

Neel also looks back fondly to the days when Al Gore had just been elected to Congress in the late 1970s and they would return to Tennessee for town meetings. “We got up one morning and got a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts and milk. [Gore] ate all of them within two stops. We had
a lot of fun in Tennessee. A lot of it centered on eating.” — AC