Capitol Achiever Kate Cyrul '00

Alumna is Front and Center in Washington, D.C.

In January 1997, as a Bentley freshman, Kate Cyrul ’00 took a bus from campus to Washington, D.C., to stand in the crowd for President Bill Clinton’s second inauguration. She was on hand again for Barack Obama’s swearing-in, admittedly with better seats.

Cyrul arrived at the history-making occasion by way of Ohio. Last fall, the nine-year veteran of Washington politics took a leave from her job with Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin to manage an Obama field office in Cleveland.

“Sitting out this election was just not an option,” Cyrul says of her work in what would become a battleground state in the 2008 election.

Political Pull

Coming out of high school, the Connecticut native was looking to study business, not politics. “I was originally enrolled in the [Five-Year] BA/MBA program,” says Cyrul. “I loved reading and writing, but I always wanted that business career.”

It wasn’t long before she felt the pull of Boston’s vibrant political scene. When John Kerry ran for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 1996, Cyrul started volunteering. The next summer brought her first trip to Washington, and it sealed the deal.

“I took the train from New Haven. Walking out through that main section of Union Station, you see the Capitol – it’s incredible,” she says. “I was just drawn to the city.”

A junior-year internship with Massachusetts Rep. Peter Koutoujian followed, as did a change in her academic plans. Cyrul put aside business studies and focused full time on government. There was some ribbing from her Finance major friends, but she says that the Bentley faculty – and the school’s flexibility – made the transition a success.

“The government professors were so willing to help,” says Cyrul. “It ended up to be everything I wanted.”

Working in the Spotlight

After graduation, Cyrul moved to Washington and things began to fall into place. Her experience at the Mass. State House led to a position with the political-action group EMILY’s List, and then to a PR job at a lobbying firm. She took the national contacts she made there and went on to Capitol Hill, serving as press secretary to California Rep. George Miller. In 2004, she joined the press office of her home-state congresswoman, Rosa DeLauro.

At the time, DeLauro was the ranking member on the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee. So when Harkin needed a spokesperson for his farm bill, Cyrul was tapped for the job. Last February, after a stint as acting deputy communications director for Harkin, she was named to be his communications director.

With a Democrat in the White House for the first time in Cyrul’s professional career, a ranking party member like Harkin can be a difference-maker in the coming years. The senator – and by extension, Cyrul and her office – will work under a bright spotlight on priorities such as economic stimulus, education, and health care reform.

“He’s going to be front and center on all the major initiatives Congress is working on,” she says with obvious relish. “We have a shot at really meaningful reform that’s going to change people’s lives.”

For Cyrul, that means balancing several full plates. Her team must stay in touch with the Iowans who elected Harkin while maintaining the national profile that the senator has developed over the past 35 years. A typical day may find her briefing The Des Moines Register on local farmers and ethanol one minute and taking a call from The New York Times on health reform the next.

“I still consider myself the 19-year-old student who really wants this career in politics and wonders, ‘Can I make this happen?’” says Cyrul. “Then I remind myself I’m doing exactly what I wanted to do.”