ALUMNI PROFILE
Chief of staff and go-between
Brian Gunderson, Arts ’85, met Condoleezza Rice just as she was about to be named U.S. secretary of state. “I think we hit it off — at least, I hope so,” he says.
By Joni Moths Mueller
 Gunderson is a master of understatement. He started work as Rice’s chief of staff the day she was sworn into office in 2005. “Basically it’s my job to make sure that the decisions she makes get carried out,” he says. “I work on politically charged issues and serve as a go-between for the State Department and the White House on certain issues.”
Gunderson covered these topics and more when he met Marquette’s congressional intern students at the Aspin Center. He gave students a sense of his workday. In exchange, he wanted to learn about the center. “I wish I’d had that opportunity at Marquette,” he says.
Gunderson’s ambitions were fairly ordinary when he went to Washington, himself a new graduate. “Get a couple years of on-the-job experience and then go to law school,” he thought. He took a job in Congressman Dick Armey’s office; the then freshman from Texas went on to become House majority leader. “There never was a good time to leave because it always felt like we were accomplishing something important,” Gunderson says.
He worked for Armey for 17 years before moving into the executive branch and then the State Department.
|
