Personal

The non-resumé version.

Life

I grew up in New Orleans as the son of two teachers — which probably explains more about me than any job title does. I live north of Cambridge, Massachusetts now, with my wife and two boys. My wife is an interior designer; her work is at BeckwithBarrow.com and worth a look.

I'm an Eagle Scout. I mention it less for the nostalgia and more because the habits — planning ahead, finishing what you start, leaving things better than you found them — have a way of showing up everywhere else.

Before policy and technology consumed most of my waking hours, I spent a meaningful stretch of college and early DC life doing musical theater: performing, directing, and a lot of technical work behind the scenes. I won a small award for scenic painting and design.

Community

Housing equity matters to me in a concrete way — I try to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, not just donate to it. My parents and I also support All God's Babies, a New Orleans-based nonprofit that provides free caskets, entombment, and funeral services for babies under two years old born to impoverished families. If you're looking for somewhere to put some generosity, these are two organizations I'd point to without hesitation.

• Habitat for Humanity
• All God's Babies

Fun Facts

• I once bumped into Condoleezza Rice in a hallway because both she and I were too absorbed in our BlackBerries to look where we were going. She was very diplomatic about it — appropriately, given the job.
• Morgan Freeman once told me I was welding too loudly. I was just doing my job in UVA's scene shop — where he'd parked himself instead of the green room. I guess the sound of actual work was not to his liking.
• I build a lot of Lego. Much of my marriage is an ongoing negotiation between me and my interior-designer wife about where to display (i.e. hide) my beautiful sets without compromising her professional reputation.