President Ryan Mulvey
Ryan Mulvey is Policy Counsel at Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization committed to educating Americans to be advocates for freedom and real change. In that role, Ryan works on various legal policy issues, especially government transparency at the federal and state levels. He also volunteers as Counsel at Cause of Action Institute, where he has specialized in FOIA practice since 2013. As an attorney, Ryan has extensive experience with FOIA litigation and amicus work at the district court, appellate, and Supreme Court levels; as a policy expert, he has advised congressional staff about FOIA reform and researches cutting-edge FOIA issues. In his personal time, Ryan helps run FOIAadvisor.com, a free, online resource on all things FOIA. He is a graduate of the University of San Diego (BA) and Boston University (JD/MA).
Ryan has been a member of ASAP since 2018. In that time, he has contributed to ASAP as a faculty member at both the National Training Conference and the regional FOIA-Privacy Act Training Worship. Additionally, Ryan has served as a presenter for ASAP’s “Food for Thought” seminar series. This past year, Ryan was a member of the 2020 Virtual NTC Planning Committee. He especially appreciates ASAP’s work to bring together FOIA professionals and the requesting community. If elected, Ryan intends to use his position as a director-at-large both to provide a positive requester perspective and, more importantly, to further ASAP’s commitment to dialogue and the importance of communication for an ideal FOIA process. He would also like to help ASAP maintain its reputation for an excellent training opportunity and start to adapt these various programs to the new virtual “normal.”
Vice President Jeremy Lewis
Jeremy Lewis has served as a professor of political science for forty years and has published a number of scholarly articles on the theory and history of freedom of information, the global official transparency movement, and e-governance. He holds two degrees from Oxford University and two from The Johns Hopkins University in American politics and international relations.
He began by writing an MA thesis on the British freedom of information bills of the 1970s and his PhD dissertation on the US FOIA of 1974. He was one of the first scholars to interview FOIA staff and political staff in the US and UK, and to mine official reports for FOIA legislative and administrative trends. In 1986-96, he returned the favor by training FOIA staff at the US FDA.
His articles have appeared in such familiar journals for ASAP members as Government Information Quarterly (1995), and Access Reports; and four of his chapters in different editions of The Handbook of Public Information Systems (2000-2010). From more than fifty conference presentations and keynotes across North America and Europe, he has been cited in Latin America and North America, and two chapters on the open e-governance of public policy have been published in Russian translation (2015, 2019).
Jeremy has served non-profits for many years, notably chairing the global research committee on administrative culture of IPSA, and as Vice President of ALWAC (world affairs council). He has received a national teaching award; helped found an MPP program in public policy; and advised many of his students who proceeded to law careers (sorry) or master’s degrees, and a number of them to PhDs. His numerous television appearances have included several for NBC nightly news and for Canadian CTV news. He is also the father of two public policy experts in Washington DC’s think tanks, and in 2020 moved to northern Virginia to be closer to them.
Secretary Allan Blutstein
Allan Blutstein is the Director of FOIA Operations at America Rising Corporation, a political research and communications firm. His full-time FOIA career began in 2004 as an attorney-advisor with the Department of Justice’s Office of Information and Privacy. In 2009, shortly after the financial crisis began, Allan became the principal legal counsel for the FOIA staff of the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Financial Stability. He subsequently joined the requester community in 2013 at Cause of Action Institute, a government oversight group.
In his free time, Allan manages FOIA Advisor, a website that provides daily FOIA news, summaries of court decisions, reference material, and a question-and-answer forum. He recently served on the National Archives and Records Administration’s FOIA Advisory Committee for the 2020-2022 term, where he led a working group on fee assessments. Before specializing in FOIA, Allan worked for the Social Security Administration and the New York City Department of Health. He received his law degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Treasurer Christopher Carr
Chris Carr is the records manager and technical advisor on rotational assignment for a United States Department of Defense component’s revitalization and implementation of its Freedom of Information Act, Privacy Act, Records Management, and Mandatory Declassification Review programs. Prior to his work as a Freedom of Information Act Officer, Chris played a major role in the formation of recommendations for an agency deliberative engagement process and training for workforce external engagement. Before joining DoD in 2011, his experiences include work in medical libraries, university archives, and the Smithsonian Institution. In addition to providing quarterly FOIA training for new agency personnel, he’s graciously accepted invitations to speak at a number of Records and Information Management conferences and speaker series. He holds a MLIS from Simmons University School of Library and Information Science and a B.S. in History from Coppin State University.
Chris’ contributions to the profession include the formation of DoD Agency component level FOIA & Records Management training forums. He’s fostered engagement from across government and academia on an array of FOIA and Records Management related topic for training and development. Recognizing the difficulties and obstacles in working with FOIA even within the same agency, Chris pursued a seven-month, part-time assignment in the agency’s archives where he conducted research for a number of FOIA cases and attained a deeper understanding of the housed content. Each FOIA case was used as a learning tool in conveying the level of effort required in conducting archival research to the FOIA officers. Upon the end of his assignment, he conducted formal archival research training to the FOIA officers and managed their expectations by explaining the differences between library and archival research. As a result, FOIA officers now reach out to the agency archives for reference assistance rather than research tasking. This improved process has lessened the workload of archivists, shortened response time of FOIA cases requesting archived records, and ensured the reasonable nature of archival searches as FOIA officers now have greater influence in the way these searches are conducted.
Immediate Past President Kirsten Mitchell
Kirsten Mitchell is the Compliance Team Lead with the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), the FOIA Ombudsman’s office located at the National Archives. Kirsten began her work at OGIS as a facilitator helping resolve disputes between FOIA requesters and federal agencies in more than 450 cases. Before joining OGIS in 2010, she worked at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Sunshine in Government Initiative, a coalition of media groups that worked to gain passage of the OPEN Government Act of 2007, which amended FOIA and created OGIS. A former journalist, most recently with the New York Times Co., Kirsten frequently used state and federal records, including databases, to shine a light on how government operates. She earned a certificate in federal workplace mediation in 2011 from Northern Virginia Mediation Service, an affiliate of the George Mason University School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, and is a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). Kirsten earned her undergraduate degree in English at Mary Washington College and her graduate degree in journalism and public affairs at American University.
Director Danielle Duvall Adams
Danielle Duvall Adams leads the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s FOIA program to ensure strong compliance as well as strong leadership engagement. With more than 10 years of government service, Adams is especially interested in developing thoughtful discussions around the intersection between FOIA and Open Data. With Adams at the helm, the CFPB FOIA team achieved a perfect score on the 2021 Department of Justice (DOJ) Summary of Agency Chief FOIA Officer Reports, reduced the backlog by 86% and achieved high marks from DOJ for our Coronavirus response. The CFPB is a data-driven organization committed to improving access to information. As Ms. Adams’ team places renewed focused on proactive disclosure, she is working to integrate the FOIA and Open Data efforts at the Bureau and across the government. Adams has a unique understanding of government transparency and works to clarify the intersection between the public’s right to access information and the government’s obligation to protect certain information. Prior to joining CFPB, Ms. Adams served as the FOIA Officer for the Office of General Counsel for the USDA. Prior, she served as a FOIA Litigation Specialist for the State Department’s Office of Diplomatic Security, managing complex, high-profile requests. Adams also has extensive experience volunteering for the Chief FOIA Officers Council Technology Committee, League of Women Voters, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and the Citizens Advisory Council for the Calvert County Board of Education. She graduated from the University of South Carolina with a BS in political science and received a Juris Doctor from Duquesne University.
Director Camille C. Aponte-Rossini
Camille Aponte-Rossini is the FOIA Manager and FOIA Public Liaison for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Prior to joining OPM, Camille was the FOIA Team Lead at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Information Affairs and served as Acting Departmental FOIA Officer for part of 2019. Before her career as a FOIA professional, Camille was a practicing attorney in the area of trans-national commercial litigation. She earned her J.D. from The George Washington University Law School and her B.A. in Government and World Affairs from The University of Tampa. Camille is an attorney licensed in Maryland and the District of Columbia. She served in ASAP’s 2021 National Training Conference (NTC) planning committee as well as teaching.
Director Michael Heise
Michael Heise grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, went to college and law school in St. Paul, Minnesota (Macalester and Hamline respectively), and was licensed for a time in both Minnesota and Michigan (the latter where he lived for three years while his wife attended the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, MI). Michael has extensive document review experience and began his career in FOIA as a federal contractor with the Department of Energy in Washington, DC.
Michael lives in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, DC. Currently he is an attorney advisor with the EEOC. He began work here in April 2020. Michael processes requests, especially those of potential interest to the Commission, as well as complicated requests with voluminous records that contain material deemed potentially sensitive. He monitors the processing productively agency wide concerning FOIA processing (our field offices process about 90% of EEOC requests) and reports his findings to the Chief FOIA Office on a bi-weekly and monthly basis which he also memorializes in detailed spreadsheets he has created.
Director Martha Murphy
Martha is currently the Deputy Director of the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) at the National Archives and Records Administration. She has worked in FOIA for over 20 years, including positions processing records for release, managing a FOIA program, and setting nationwide access policy for the permanent Federal historical holdings of the National Archives. Prior to coming to OGIS in July 2018, Martha was the FOIA Program Manager in Research Services at the National Archives. In this role, she led several high-profile efforts to provide public access to records. She also oversaw a staff of around 25 FTE that handled FOIA requests for a wide variety of records in the National Archives’ holdings. Martha first joined the National Archives as an archivist in 1991 and has worked in FOIA since 2000.
Martha has taught sessions during the last two ASAP Training Conferences and has been a member for close to 20 years. Her experience gives her a unique perspective on both the agency and requester FOIA experience, as she has acted as both a FOIA Professional and (since 2018) as a member of the staff of the FOIA Ombudsman for the Federal Freedom of Information Act. Martha hopes that this experience will fit well with ASAP’s mission.
Director Bradley White
Bradley is the Senior Director of FOIA Litigation and Policy in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). He has lead the FOIA Litigation team, which handles administrative appeals along with all aspects of FOIA litigation for DHS headquarters components, as well as the FOIA Policy and Oversight teams, which are responsible for creating and disseminating FOIA instructions and directives, tracking FOIA compliance throughout DHS, and provides FOIA training to the entire Department. Prior to serving in this role, Bradley was the FOIA Officer for the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) for three years, and before that, he worked in the FOIA Office for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for seven years as a FOIA analyst, litigation team lead, and supervisory FOIA analyst. Bradley holds a BA from the American University School of Public Affairs in Communications, Legal Institutions, Economics, and Government, and a JD from the American University Washington College of Law.
Bradley was a member of the FOIA Advisory Committee for the 2018-2020 term, and served as co-chair of a subcommittee that explored issues related to the time it takes an agency to process and respond to FOIA request, and related issues related to the increasing volume of FOIA requests received by agencies. He also co-presented a session on FOIA litigation at the 2020 ASAP National Training Conference, and has been asked to present the recommendations of the FOIA Advisory Committee at a virtual “hot topic” training for ASAP in late October. Additionally, Bradley has given presentations or conducted training on FOIA throughout my career, for varied audiences, from new employees, incoming political appointees and senior executives, to non-FOIA staff to explain how all agency employees have a duty to conduct FOIA searches when tasked to do so, to experienced FOIA and Privacy professionals.
Director Jimmy Wolfrey
Jimmy Wolfrey became the Senior Director, FOIA Operations and Management, at the DHS Privacy Office (PRIV) in July 2020. He previously acted in the same role from November 2018 to July 2020. He has worked in the DHS Privacy Office since 2008 starting first as a Government Information Specialist, then moving to other positions such as the FOIA Production Manager, Director, FOIA Compliance and Oversight, and Director, Disclosure. Before working with DHS, Mr. Wolfrey worked as a federal contractor with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 2002 to 2007, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2007 to 2008, and Department of Defense (DOD) from 2008 until his transfer as a contractor to the DHS Privacy Office. Mr. Wolfrey holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP).
