LegiStorm

For most Hill staffers, their background before arriving in Washington includes fellowships and top-level undergraduate and law degrees. But for one new scheduler, her recent job history includes running her own wedding planning business.

Natalie Armijo founded Oh, So Natty LLC in July 2014, specializing in day-of event coordination, including weddings and other events in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area. She started the business several years after leaving Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town where she was event ambassador, coordinating events.

"From the rehearsal, to chair covers, to fluffing the bride's dress when she walks down the aisle, to the champagne toast...Every detail is covered," Armijo writes on her business' website. 

Now, Armijo works for Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.) in a job that also requires a high-level of day-to-day coordination. Her other experience includes working for Sandia National Laboratories, The Garrity Group and DW Turner Communications.

Armijo has a 2007 bachelor's in mass communication, journalism and Spanish and an MBA in marketing in 2010 from the University of New Mexico.

Rep. Doug Lamborn's (R-Colo.) deputy chief of staff and military legislative assistant will be working on similar issues with a new job on the outside at the Heritage Foundation.

Justin Johnson, a veteran defense policy staffer, took a position this month as senior budget analyst for defense budgeting policy at the Heritage Foundation after leaving Lamborn's staff. Johnson started with Lamborn in 2013 and also worked as legislative assistant and director for Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) between 2005 and 2013.

Heritage's advocacy wing lobbies on a variety of issues and the foundation sponsors trips for members and staffers, including one for Johnson in 2012 to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His overnight trip cost Heritage $265 for meetings on leadership lessons derived from the Battle of Gettysburg and battlefield site tours. 

Johnson also served as a Heritage George Marshall Fellow in 2012. He has a 2003 bachelor's from Covenant College and a 2012 master's in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College.

Rep. Alcee Hastings' (D-Fla.) former general counsel has registered to lobby for a water reuse organization where he is now legislative director.

Ian Wolf left Hastings' office last month after four years, starting in 2010 as legislative counsel and serving later as general counsel and aide to Hastings on the House Rules Committee. He has filed his first lobbying registration with his new position at the WateReuse Association.

Wolf, who has a bachelor's from Stevens Institute of Technology and a JD and LLM in 2008 from the University of Miami School of Law, once covered a range of issues for Hastings including public lands and natural resources and environmental protection.

WateReuse, which focuses on finding ways to reuse and desalinate water, started in California but has grown beyond the drought-ridden state. 

Resigned Rep. Mike Grimm's (R-N.Y.) former deputy chief of staff will return to the payroll of New York's 11th Congressional District office after a brief sojourn in the lobbying world.

Grimm's successor, Rep. Dan Donovan (R-N.Y.), hired Blaire Bartlett for a June start as his scheduler as he continues to build on his staff since taking office earlier this month. Grimm resigned from Congress in January after pleading guilty to felony tax evasion.

Bartlett registered as a lobbyist after joining Polaris Government Relations LLC in April, working for 1-800 Contacts and the City of South Jordan in Utah. Before her departure, she had nearly a decade of Hill experience with Reps. Jim Walsh (R-N.Y.) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) along with Grimm.

Bartlett started as executive assistant to Grimm in 2011 and rose to deputy chief of staff later that year, continuing until her move to Polaris. She has a 2005 B.S. and B.A. from Spring Hill College in Hispanic and international studies.

A longtime counsel for a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee has taken a public policy job with the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

Ron LeGrand started this month as vice president of public policy with the organization, which registers to lobby on violence against women and family violence issues. He left his position as Democratic counsel to the House Judiciary Committee's Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations Subcommittee last month.

The former staffer has also worked as a consultant on diversity and inclusion, served as deputy director of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and held the position of chief diversity officer and director for strategic diversity outreach and alliances at AARP.

During a previous stint in Congress, LeGrand served then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) as chief investigator and counsel on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary in the late 1980s. He has bachelor's and law degrees from Boston College.