Washington Scholar’s Graduate Joe Kotalik will soon be moving over to the Department of Homeland Security to work in their Science & Technology Division. Joe has been on the Secretary of the Navy staff working for Assistant Secretary Navas and Deputy Assistant Secretary Blair. General Navas has announced his plans to retire from that position on 1 JAN and Ms. Blair has been designated by the President as his successor.

We are also pleased to advise all that one of our more recent WS Grads and Vice President of this past Summer’s Intern Class, John Vehmeyer, has been selected to replace Joe Kotalik on the SECNAV staff where he will hold Kotalik’s old job. Joe Kotalik was preceded in that position by Washington Scholar Grad Ryan Tully who went from the SECNAV staff to the Staff of Senator John Ensign of Nevada.

OK, so maybe I’m overly proud of The Washington Scholars Fellowship Program , but in my opinion it has truly become one of the absolute finest training programs in the nation for bringing our nation’s future leaders to Washington, DC and providing them with experience and credentialing that then prepares them to be a future leader of the country. The program has now graduated almost 100 young men and women, with close to 40% now fully employed in national public policy careers where they have the opportunity to work for America and make ours a better nation. The other 60% are back in college completing their undergrad degrees, or in Grad School or Law School, and I fully expect them to enter national public policy careers once their formal education is completed and they have those sheepskins to hang on their office wall. In my opinion, America needs the best and brightest of our sons & daughters in it’s leadership if we are to continue to prosper and survive the challenges the world keeps sending our way, and I am seeing the GREAT ROLE that these young Washington Scholars can AND ARE playing in making all that happen. Read more »