It wouldn’t be long, Capitol Hill sources were convinced, before Kirk Fordham would leave the world of high-powered Washington consulting and return to Capitol Hill, where he had worked as a U.S. House staffer for nearly 15 years. Sure enough, Fordham has just been named chief of staff to Rep. Tom Reynolds (R.-N.Y.), chairman of he National Republican Congressional Committee.
A native New Yorker, Fordham began as an intern for conservative Rep. (1984-86) Fred Eckert (R.-N.Y.) and then went on to work for then-Rep. Jim Inhofe (R.-Okla.) until1994,when the stalwart conservative won his seat in the U.S. Senate. Fordham went on to be chief of staff to Rep. Mark Foley (R.-Fla.) for a decade and finally left the Palm Beach-area lawmaker to become finance director for Mel Martinez’s winning race for the U.S. Senate from the Sunshine State. Following that election, Fordham went to work for the Washington-based DCI group, which oversees Progress for America, one of the biggest of the so-called “527” groups, which is now taking the lead in generating grass-roots support for Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Recalling his pride in being a top aide to an alumnus of the still-remembered “Class of ’94,” Fordham also noted where some of his classmates among chiefs of staff have gone, such as Ford Motor Co., Koch Industries and the Mercury Group.
