Public Policy and Political Science

Public policy is an essential component of any individual’s life. As a private citizen, you need to understand laws and programs that can deeply affect your personal life. In your professional life, your activities will be regulated and affected by a wide range of government laws, programs, agencies, and services. Towns, counties, states, nations, and international laws and organizations all affect modern life and each other as never before, since the planet has never been so connected or felt so small.
 

The same goes for politics, in that politics is the process by which policy is made; also, in societies with a measure of democratic participation for its citizens, politics is also the process by which individuals and societies engage their government, and is also much of the process by which individuals and different parts of societies engage the rest of society. Politics, along with legal policy, is the main way individuals and entities resolve their differences with other individuals and entities when they are unable to come to a private agreement.
 

​Without politics, only dictators could make public policy; without public policy, there would be no way for government to function; public policy is, essentially, the art of the action of government. You need to know what aspects of public policy will most effect you, how politics will change or create those public policies, and how you as a citizen or other stakeholder can engage public policy to ensure access to the privileges to which you and your organization are entitled and, conversely, you need to know how to adhere to your responsibilities. Finally, you need to know how to engage in the political process in a manner in which you are working competently towards your interests. No matter what you do professionally or privately, whether you are a homemaker, a professor, a legislator, or a field commander of a United Nations peacekeeping force, you will need to know the public policy and political landscapes around you in order to be able to best pursue your public and private affairs. How will changes in tax policy changes affect your business? What do you need to know about a country’s public policy and political environment before and while you do business there? As a staffer for a newly elected Congressman, how would a US trade dispute with China affect your work priorities? What is the best way to engage various public policy and political actors? As a UN commander, what are the local political movements, and how should you adjust your mission to gain widespread support among them?
 

​Brian can answer all these questions and more with depth and clarity. His experience with both public policy and politics goes back almost two decades, for even in middle and high school, Brian was involved in student government. As an undergraduate, he earned a double major degree which had Politics as one of the majors. While in college, Brian became active in College Democrats, eventually becoming his campus chapter’s Vice President. While still in college, Brian internet for a Massachusetts state senator in Boston over one summer, and subsequently campaigned for his (successful) reelection. He performed exit polling of the 2004 Virginia Democratic Primary while in school for a major research organization that reported its results to the major American news media (a task he performed so successfully that he was asked to repeat this work for national and state elections in 2012 and 2013). He volunteered for the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, and campaigned for a Congressional Democratic primary candidate and a Lieutenant Governor primary candidate while in Boston, as well. Brian also internet for then-Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., in Washington, DC, during the fall and winter of 2006, before Sen. Biden was later elected Vice-President of the United States. While interning for Sen. Biden, he did substantive work not only for the Senator’s personal office, but for the Senate Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committees, which Biden was then chairing and serving on, respectively. Some of his work was passed up to senior officials, and in one instance a meeting he arranged between one of his own contacts and a Foreign Relations Committee staffer resulted in a shipment of military vehicles to an allied foreign government being accelerated, where before that shipment had been delayed. 
 

​In graduate school, he looked at public policy and politics while at the George Mason University School of Public Policy, where he particularly looked at how international peacekeeping, United Nations, humanitarian/relief, and military occupation operations all engaged in public policy and politics at everything from the village to the international levels. Since earning his master’s degree, he has engaged in various freelance political and policy work, from research to political consulting to writing articles about public policy and politics that received national attention and tends of thousands of unique reads. He is also substantially into a long-term scholarly book project looking at the Roman Republic for public policy and political lessons, in terms of both the foreign and domestic arenas. His broad and deep background in public policy and politics make him ideal for any of your public policy or political projects, inquiries, or needs.

Consulting

​Many times, you might know what you want to do, just not how to do it.  Other times, you know you should do something, but you just aren’t sure what, exactly.  Still other times, you will just want a second opinion.  In today’s world, the exchange of ideas has never been more frequent or rapid, and consulting is ever more common in professional environments, whether private or public, local or global. And a globalized world is a far more competitive one, where “winging it” is just too risky these days.  And whatever your standard burdens are in your workplace, adding a massive analysis project may not be the best use of your time, and you may see your department suffer.  Furthermore, all too often, each department will come to the conclusions that it is the most indispensable department, and thus, it needs more resources and staff.  This is often not from a cynical level of dishonesty and selfishness, but, rather, from a natural attachment an employee has to his own department, and a natural tendency to emphasize the importance of your own work and your team’s work. Bringing in an outside consultant is often a great way to overcome the inherent biases present in most departments and in most employees.  An outside consultant has no dog in the fights over resources within any organization, and works from a strong desire to delver recommendations that will bring about positive results for the client, thus enhancing his own and his consulting firm’s reputation.

​Today, almost any reputable business, government agency, political campaign, non-profit, or international organization engages consultants for precisely the reasons listed above.  Over the last few decades, when consulting has become ever more common, consultants have helped many large businesses, organizations and institutions that were deeply tied to longstanding yet inefficient and failing practices transcend their massive organizational inertia and transform and reinvent themselves for the dynamic but unforgiving 21st-century operating environment.  Smaller businesses and institutions also realized that they had a lot to gain from formally bringing in an outside set of eyes to look at their problems and practices, and today it is generally regarded as bad practice to not engage consultants.

​Brian’s range and depth of study and work experience make him an ideal person to bring in as a consultant for your organization.  His unique background means he can draw on a wide range of case studies that a more typical consultant would overlook, yet his thoroughness in tackling any subject will ensure that the the relevant traditional materials are examined as well.  His deep knowledge of history will bring in a yield for you of unconventional case studies that will complement some of the more expected research.  In addition, his study of and experience with many different types of organizations—small businesses, multinational corporations, international organizations, an active United Nations peacekeeping mission in the field, government at the state and federal level, political campaigns, non-profits, academic institutions, organizations on five continents, and freelancing gateways—mean that he can take lessons from one type of institution and apply them when appropriate to organizations of a different nature.  What this means for you is that you will get from Brian a deeper, more creative base upon which his specific recommendations and reports for you will be built; recommendations and reports as unique as you and your organization.