N.H. Woman Settles Into Capitol Hill Job
By Dennis Mayer
WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2004 – Three days into her new job as Rep. Jeb Bradley’s press secretary, Stephanie DuBois was settling into life at her new desk, which was pressed against a wall in a five-by-seven room that looked more like a closet than the communications center of a congressional office.
“This is where the magic happens,” she said, laughing, of her unassuming new surroundings.
A couple of picture frames and an average assortment of office supplies had been arranged around her computer screen, which she’d set up as she liked it. Her BlackBerry – the wallet-sized wireless device that congressional staffers use outside of the office to keep track of their e-mail – was charging on its stand, waiting for use.
On a ledge, a box of her new business cards sat next to a box of her old ones, the ones that list her old job – deputy press secretary, based out of Bradley’s Manchester office.
Her new job includes, but is not limited to, composing press releases about Bradley’s work and opinions on various legislation, writing speeches and dealing with inquiries from reporters.
“It’s a big move,” she said of the new position. “It’s something I’ve always aspired to.”
The job is also one known for its difficulties. Aside from the long hours that all congressional staffers work, press secretaries work under the added pressure of being their boss’s public voice – a position that subjects them to scrutiny and speculation. Presidential press secretaries have a half-joking tradition of passing down a flak jacket from one secretary to the next, and while congressional press secretaries are not in the spotlight as much as their White House counterparts, the sentiment is similar.
DuBois said she’s ready for the job, though, and after her first few weeks in Bradley’s office – in which Congress passed a spending bill to fund the federal government next year and worked out a compromise on an intelligence bill – she said she was excited to be part of the lawmaking process.
“I think I’ve been warned about everything,” she said. “The job is challenging, but I thrive on challenges.”
DuBois grew up in Goffstown, N.H., the older of two daughters of a 25-year veteran of the police department and a graphics art designer. She said growing up with a father on the police force was fun because the other officers became an extended family for her and her sister as they grew up.
“It’s a tight-knit group,” she said of the department.
Frank McBride, the principal of Goffstown High School, where DuBois graduated in 1998, said he wasn’t at all surprised that DuBois got into politics.
“You can’t find enough people like her to get into it,” he said.
McBride met DuBois when he was a U.S. History teacher and she was a 17-year-old junior.
“She was clearly at the time one of the most prepared, thorough” students in the class, he said, adding that she displayed a unique blend of “type-A” organizational skills and creativity.
DuBois took those skills to Providence College, where she majored in political science and interned in then-Sen. Bob Smith’s office. Her experience there convinced her she might want to consider a career in politics, and after graduating in 2002, she took a job with the New Hampshire State Republican Party.
Jayne Millerick was working for the party as a consultant at the time, and worked with DuBois on the party’s get-out-the-vote operation in the three days leading up to the election. (That year, Republicans Craig Benson and John Sununu won the governorship and a U.S. Senate seat, respectively, and Bradley won the U.S. House seat that Sununu gave up for his Senate bid.)
“She does a great job of working with volunteers and supporters of the party,” Millerick said. “She has a really stick-to-it attitude.”
After that election, DuBois took the deputy press secretary job in Bradley’s office.
Jeff Rose, who was then Bradley’s district director, was impressed with Dubois.
“I thought she had a very strong work ethic and brought a great amount of creativity to the position,” said Rose, who is now the legislative director at Nashua-based BAE Systems.
DuBois also can count her New Hampshire upbringing as a positive, Rose said, because she understands the “values and virtues” of the state and its people.
DuBois said she’s excited to be in Washington – she’s already seen the botanical gardens and several of the Smithsonian museums. However, she said she still misses her home state.
“I love New Hampshire, and I think eventually I’d like to make my way back up there,” she said.
