Kennedy Chief of Staff’s Passion for Public Service Began In New Bedford
MOGILNICKI
The New Bedford Standard-Times
Valerie Sullivan
Boston University Washington News Service
April 25, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 25 —Eric Mogilnicki spent the summer of 1982 in grocery store parking lots, urging voters to support Rep. Gerry E. Studds, D-Mass., by sporting a Studds bumper sticker on their cars.
One evening that summer, Mr. Mogilnicki and fellow campaigner Kevin Gallagher, both in their early 20s, attended a debate between Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. Gordon Humphrey, R-N.H., at Harvard University.
“There we were in our suits, with sunburn from spending the day out in a parking lot,” Mr. Gallagher said.
The ride back to New Bedford was filled with an elated discussion of Sen. Kennedy’s impressive oratory and debate skills, Mr. Gallagher said. “Kevin and I were both deeply impressed by Sen. Kennedy’s eloquence and understanding of the issue,” Mr. Mogilnicki said.
Today, Mr. Mogilnicki is 46 and chief of staff to Sen. Kennedy. “I can scarcely believe 25 years have gone by since [then],” he said.
Mr. Mogilnicki’s hair may be gray now, but his passion for public service has never faded. “Sen. Kennedy was my hero of my childhood,” he said. “So coming to work with him was a dream come true.”
Mr. Mogilnicki grew up in the North End of New Bedford, where he was raised in a close-knit Democratic family, along with his two brothers, Robert and Stephen, who are now schoolteachers and live in suburbs of New Bedford. His father, Robert, who passed away in 2005, was a professor at Bridgewater State College. His mother, Georgette, worked as a teacher and then head of the Lower School at Friends Academy in Dartmouth, and still lives in New Bedford for part of the year.
“I had a wonderful childhood in New Bedford,” Mr. Mogilnicki said, recalling memories of Horseneck Beach, Buttonwood Park Zoo and coffee frappes at Frates Dairy.
Following elementary and middle school in New Bedford and high school at Friends Academy in Dartmouth, Mr. Mogilnicki attended Yale University. During college, he interned for Rep. Studds. When Rep. Studds won reelection, Mogilnicki joined his Washington staff as legislative assistant.
“I loved being down here,” he said. “Young people in Washington can do a tremendous amount of good.”
Mr. Mogilnicki returned to Yale for law school in 1983, and after graduating accepted a job as assistant attorney general under then-Massachusetts Attorney General James Shannon.
“As soon as I was done with [law school], I was back in public service again,” he said. “I was very proud to be an attorney general in the Massachusetts office. I had the opportunity to argue before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts several times.”
After his work in the attorney general’s office, Mr. Mogilnicki in 1991 joined a law firm in Washington. When Sen. Kennedy was looking for a chief of staff at the beginning of 2006, mutual acquaintances suggested Mr. Mogilnicki, who was both dedicated to public service and had ties to Massachusetts.
“For me, growing up in New Bedford, the idea that I could get to work 10 feet from Sen. Kennedy is just a remarkable honor.”
Mr. Mogilnicki and his wife, Peggy Dotzel, met while they were working at the law firm in Washington. They live in suburban Maryland with their two children, Annie, 8, and Sam, 6, but Massachusetts is “the place he still considers his home state,” Ms. Dotzel said.
Ms. Dotzel, who grew up in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., has found her husband’s love of New Bedford and Massachusetts contagious. “We go up there for family visits several times a year…. It’s been fun for me,” she said.
Son Sam is a fan of New England sports teams – even those he hasn’t seen – and daughter Annie “loves being up in Cape Cod or Horseneck. They know that they have a home away from home [in Massachusetts],” Mr. Mogilnicki said.
In addition to his love of Massachusetts, Mr. Mogilnicki’s passion for politics also has affected his children.
“I feel like I’m instilling in them some of the values that my parents instilled in me, that I’m helping them understand the way the world works… in a way that I hope means that they’ll be dedicated to trying to make the world a better place,” Mr. Mogilnicki said.
“He’s met my kids and he’s wonderful with them,” Mr. Mogilnicki said of Sen. Kennedy. “When it’s my birthday, he’s the one who leads the singing of Happy Birthday around the cake…. He’s terrific about thanking people, acknowledging their contributions, and he’s just fun to be around.”
If you listened to Mr. Mogilnicki, you would think his job was all good. But Tamera Luzzatto, chief of staff to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., knows well the challenges of such a position.
“There’s a saying that current chiefs of staffs don’t say ‘Congratulations’ to new chiefs of staffs. They say, ‘I’m sorry.’ ” she said.
But Mr. Mogilnicki is well-equipped for the challenge, she said. After working with him on issues both senators were involved with, Ms. Luzzatto said, “He can both be very aggressive and intense in the best sense of the word.” She said he also “is one of these people comfortable being friendly and warm.”
But the bottom line, Ms. Luzzatto said, is “if you work for Sen. Kennedy, you… work hard…. It’s a big order to fill to manage his operation in the Senate.”
Mr. Mogilnicki’s daily tasks include answering “the hundreds and hundreds of e-mails [Sen. Kennedy] gets,” briefing the senator on daily issues, previewing memos going to the senator’s desk and coordinating projects with both the Washington staff and people in Massachusetts.
In Mr. Mogilnicki’s words—“to make sure that the trains are all running on time and not crashing.”
His younger brother Stephen Mogilnicki said his brother is up to the challenge.
“From a very early age, Eric’s been an incredibly hardworking, dedicated individual who has always had extremely high standards for himself and has always been willing to give back to others in need,” he said Stephen Mogilnicki.
Peggy Dotzel said her husband is very fortunate and knows it. “I firmly believe…that not everybody gets the opportunity do something that is so near and dear to their heart,” she said.
“I know this has been the job of my lifetime,” Mr. Mogilnicki said, “and I’ll probably feel that way even 20 years from now.”
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