Fed Event: March 9th, Panel with VA and OPM

Federal Careers and Internships Panel: Veterans Affairs and Office of Personnel Management

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, 2511 Van Munching Hall, Panel Discussion

Learn about careers and internships in the federal government. Panel features speakers from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and the Partnership for Public Service. Event includes light refreshments and networking time. Event cosponsored by the School of Public Policy and the Federal Semester Program. (Room is upstairs on the School of Business side of Van Munching Hall.)

Speakers

Known throughout the military blogosphere as “GI Kate,” Kate Hoit was born and raised in Albany, New York. She joined the U.S. Army Reserve at 17 and served for eight years—including time as an Army photojournalist in Balad, Iraq from 2004 – 2005 with the 301st Area Support Group out of Queens. In addition to maintaining the blog GIKate.com, her work has appeared in the New York Times (at The Caucus: The Politics and Government Blog of The Times), The Huffington Post, and VetVoice. She has appeared in the History Channel documentary special Band of Bloggers and has worked on a documentary film about women in the military. Kate recently graduated from the State University of New York at Albany with a BA in Journalism.

As a New Media Specialist for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Alex Horton is the primary writer for the Department’s official blog. He is best known as “Army of Dude,” the title of his blog and nom de guerre as an enlisted infantryman at Fort Lewis, Washington. He deployed to Iraq in 2006 with the Third Stryker Brigade, Second Infantry Division for a fifteen month tour, where his unit saw some of the heaviest fighting during the troop surge in 2007 in Baghdad and Baqubah, Diyala Province. Along with his writing at Army of Dude, Alex’s work has been published in the St. Petersburg Times and he has been profiled by CNN, BBC, Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, The Economist and several NPR affiliates. His blog has been twice nominated for military blog of the year. Prior to arriving at VA, Alex was a student majoring in global studies in Austin, Texas.

Cheryl Ndunguru works at the Office of Personnel Management as a Policy Writer in Executive Resources and Employee Development. She has authored and co-authored Government-wide policy and guidance related to leadership development programs, training, and enterprise-wide change initiatives. Cheryl also speaks regularly at national training conferences (e.g. American Society for Training and Development, Training Officer’s Consortium) on all matters related to training and training policy. Cheryl holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work from the Catholic University of America and a Master’s Degree in Quality Systems Management from the National Graduate School of Quality Systems Management. Cheryl is a member of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). She lives in Bowie, Maryland with her husband and four children.