Tech's New Lobbyist

TechAmerica's new chief lobbyist started last week. Naturally we were there to greet him on his first day. (Bisnow: We're like a fruit basket with a pen and paper.)

Mike Hettinger has been involved in tech issues for two decades. His career spans from lobbyist for the Software and Information Industry Association to staff director of the House's Subcommittee on Government Management, Finance, and Accountability. He says it'll be a busy year for tech policy, including federal IT acquisition reform and federal CIO authority. The association represents the information and communications tech industry. Mike, who grew up in the DC area, says he got into public policy because he wanted to make government better.

Mike, here with TechAmerica prez/CEO Shawn Osborne, was also inspired by dinnertime conversations with his dad, who worked for Grumman Aerospace as a business planner on the F-14 program. (Watching our dad at dinner inspired us to go into vacuum cleaner sales.) When Mike went off to college in Illinois, he knew he wanted to come back to DC to work on the Hill. He studied some public policy but ended up with a philosophy degree. No surprise, he's benefited in DC from knowing how to think and argue.

Mike sits in TechAmerica's conference room, where briefings are held with members of Congress. One career milestone was writing the legislation that put DHS under the Chief Financial Officers Act. The original 2002 bill to create the department didn't have any provisions saying it had to audit its books. Mike says it was one of the first things he did when he took over the House subcommittee. The Bush administration opposed it, but he fought for 18 months. The results took awhile, but the agency recently received its first clean audit opinion. When Mike isn't playing government management policy wonk (his words), he golfs near his home in Loudoun County, Va., and spends time with his 15-year-old daughter.