MARK BISNOW, FOUNDER, CEO, and BOTTLE WASHER. Our leader hopes to make the Guinness Book of World Records by holding every job in Washington. He worked on the Hill for Senators and Congressmen, and as a senior adviser in at least three presidential campaigns that he can remember (Anderson, Dole, Tsongas—weren’t they great presidents?).

He was a private firm lawyer (Latham & Watkins) and general counsel at two public companies (Atlantic Coast Airlines and INTERSOLV). And he worked in high tech (chief of staff at MicroStrategy and head of marketing for webMethods), making him fabulously rich—briefly. As hobbies, Mark did thousands of irreverent “Bisnow on Business” segments for WTOP; hosted a FOX morning drive radio show (so bad he was replaced by the Greaseman) and created the personality page for the Washington Business Journal.

In 2004, he started the Bisnow e-newsletters, his attempt to become hip without having to buy a sports car, although he ended up buying one anyway. Pretending to be a rich person without enough to do, he’s chaired big fundraising dinners (Washington Business Hall of Fame, American Heart Association), served on boards (National Building Museum, NVTC, GW Loudoun campus, Washington Tennis and Education Foundation, Tower Club) and written two political books that were “critically acclaimed,” which means they didn’t sell. He was a consulting producer for the very strange “McLaughlin Group,” and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where his role was to reduce the average age by many decades.

He grew up in LA, but has a BA and MA from Stanford, a JD from Harvard Law and was a Winston Churchill Fellow in International Relations at Princeton—all schools that have since become accredited. He has a wife, two children, a dog and a ferret who love him but think he’s nuts.

DOUG ANDERSON, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER. A rare Washingtonian who’s not a lawyer, Doug has more than 10 years‘ experience in the news and media businesses, most recently as head of strategy and planning for BNA, a major publisher of legal and regulatory news. (OK, maybe he’s an honorary lawyer.) He has an MBA from Dartmouth’s Tuck School; while there, he worked a bit for AOL’s Business Strategy group, so can claim to be very hip in the online world. Prior to biz school, he was only medium-hip, managing a television production company that produced the PBS programs “Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg” and “Follow the Money,” among others. He’s a graduate of Vanderbilt University, but seems to care only about Nebraska football.

ELLIOTT BISNOW, CO-FOUNDER. What are the chances Elliott would have the same last name as the publication?  Figuring fate was beckoning, Elliott helped start it in its current form and has rapidly risen in the Bisnow family. An avid tennis player, he was ranked 35th nationally in the under-18s when he was just a lad at Landon in Bethesda, then played for the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he was also vice president of the Student Athletic Council. Somehow between the D-1 tennis regimen and classes (he might have gone to one or two), he became a serial entrepreneur, founding two small businesses in his freshman and sophomore years. He remains a tennis enthusiast, rising each day before the roosters to play matches with like-minded loons. The darkness gives him an excuse if he misses a point.

MOUNIR SALHI, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER. Mounir completed his degree in Computer Science with honors at Hampton University, where he played tennis and also volunteered as assistant coach for the men's and women's teams. A tennis career seemed to be in his stars, so he moved to Orlando to become the Head Tennis Professional at Walt Disney World. But when he learned about Bisnow's insightful articles on the state of the DC condo market, he knew he had found his true calling and immediately joined the team.

JOHN FORD, MANAGING EDITOR. Mark thought he was the only one in town who attended Stanford University, worked at an elite D.C. law firm, and went on to write books—then this guy came along.  We’ve managed to discover a few differences in their bios, though; John attended law school in his home state of Michigan, where he was Book Review Editor of the University of Michigan Law Review.  He went on to a clerkship with Judge Tacha of the 10th Cir. Court of Appeals before a stint with the firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now Wilmer Hale) in D.C.  John got drunk on his creative juices one night and decided he’d rather be writing mystery novels—his debut, “The Morgue and Me,” is being published by Viking/Penguin in 2008 (watch for it in a store near you!).  With the Bisnow day job, John is picking up where he left off years ago as a reporter and the author of a weekly column for The Stanford Daily that was read religiously by members of his family.

STACEY PFARR, ABOUT TOWN EDITOR. Stacey brings glamour and savoir faire to the Bisnow enterprise. (This is only natural: She hails from Erie, Pa.) A former middle-school English teacher, she knows where to put commas, even though punctuation is optional in Fairfax County. Stacey lived in Southern California for four years, which explains why she wants the next Nobel Prize in literature awarded to the staff of US Weekly, and an inaugural blogging Nobel bestowed upon Perez Hilton. A modern Renaissance woman, she enjoys sailing, golfing and cheering for Penn State football (when they’re winning).

ARAM TAGHAVI, DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT. Aram, whose name we believe we have spelled correctly, is finishing up a degree in finance at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. His colleagues at Bisnow hope this means they can all retire to private islands by FY ’08. Like Elliott, Aram has had a long romance with judges in highchairs, growing up as a RTP (Real Tennis Player) and wielding his racket for the U of Md. His worldview has been shaped by formative stints at Smith Barney, Paine Webber and the Tequila Grill restaurant.

CHRIS FAVA, ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE. Chris comes from the International Development field. He grew up in Europe but went to college in Florida. Working in the afore-mentioned field impaired his sense of humor, and thus his biographical entry stops here.

CURTIS RAYE, ACE REPORTER. Following fine schooling at GW, Curtis found himself in the thick of the 2008 presidential campaign.  Campaign finance rules forbid naming one's candidate within 100 characters of a biography. So he won't name names.  But he wants it on the record that she was a good boss.  While city life is grand, he hails from a rural area of northern New Jersey nestled near the green and beautiful Shawangunk Ridge.  He also has a tendency to over-pastoralize his hometown.  Prior performances include an FCC intern and Ko-Ko in Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Mikado."  For photos and tales from his travels, visit http://www.curtisraye.com.  Sure, the name is a bit egotistical, but it helps his grandmother remember it. 

DAVID STEGON, ACE REPORTER. After earning a master’s degree from the famed Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, David decided to ditch the fledgling world of newspapers for greener pastures at Bisnow. A native of Woodbridge, Va., David has tried to escape the Beltway many times, first to get a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Temple University, then for a summer internship at the Austin American-Statesman and later as a reporter at The Home News Tribune in central New Jersey. He also spent time on the Upper West Side of Manhattan as an author’s assistant for “The Echoing Green,” a book on how the 1951 New York Giants cheated their way to the pennant. Locally, he covered crime for the Potomac News and Manassas Journal Messenger and was an intern for The Junkies at WJFK, where he hit a man in the face with a pie.

KARIN TANABE, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR. Karin had an inkling all along that women were better than men. Writing the Washington Women column for Bisnow cemented it for her. A DC native, she dreamt of becoming a cross between Jackie O and Edna St. Vincent Millay and went to Vassar to study French and English. Starting out her professional career in Asia as a travel writer for newspapers (yes they still exist) including The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Chicago Tribune, after four years of overnight train rides across Central Asia she decided that bedbugs and living out of a backpack were not as glamorous as what Bisnow had to offer.

NICK GREENE, ACE REPORTER.  As a founding member of Wings (check out his percussion work on “Live and Let Die”), Nick grew weary of life on the road. He left the supergroup after Sir Paul McCartney objected to his desire to have the band billed as Nick Greene & Wings.  Before joining Bisnow, he served as Secretary-General of the United Nations. Nick has a Bachelors Degree in English and undeserved self-entitlement, both received from The George Washington University.