Home-Field Advantage


December 17, 2003

Robert Zucker is leaving Capitol Hill after nine years for a career in lobbying at Winning Strategies Washington, where he signs on as a vice president. Zucker, 31, was most recently legislative director for Rep. Steven Rothman (D-N.J.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

Zucker handled road and transit funding initiatives for Rothman on the Transportation-Treasury Appropriations Subcommittee and will focus on similar issues as well as health, education, homeland security, and defense matters at the lobbying firm.

Zucker—a native of South Orange, N.J.—will still keep his eye on his home state, though, because the firm focuses on clients based there. Recent clients of Winning Strategies Washington include Madison, N.J.'s Drew University; Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent Technologies; and the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency.

"It’s a cool chance to get to work for people in New Jersey," says Zucker, whose first Hill job out of college was as a driver to Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). "It's a natural extension of what I was doing."

The firm's other two lobbyists also hail from New Jersey members' offices. Winning Strategies' managing partner Donna Mullins was chief of staff to Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), and partner Michael Merola served as deputy chief of staff to then-Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.).