Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) has hired a new crew to man the Education and Labor Committee. [IMGCAP(1)]

New labor policy adviser Tico Almeida comes to the team after serving Judge Sidney H. Stein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Before that, he was at the law firm of Freid, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. There he focused on litigation and regulatory matters for investment banking and did pro bono work for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Lambda Legal Defense and several individual clients. He also has spent time working for the AFL-CIO and UNITE!.

Almeida’s areas of expertise are immigration reform, labor rights and international trade. He also is working on the committee’s efforts toward the Employment Nondiscrimination Act.

Almeida, 30, has two hometowns — Madison, Wis., and Miami. He has a 2004 J.D. from Yale Law School.

From Atlanta, Christopher Brown also is a labor policy adviser for the committee after working as a legal intern for the then-Education and the Workforce Committee in 2006. Like Almeida, he served a judicial clerkship, his with Judge Clarence Cooper of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

His issues as policy adviser include work on fair-labor standards, civil rights, employment, work force protection and safety of mine workers.

Brown, 28, also has work experience at the American Civil Liberties Union and the law firm of Greene and Letts in the corporate and employment divisions. He earned his law degree from DePaul University.

Patrick Findlay is Education and Labor’s new investigative counsel. He formerly was an assistant attorney general in New York and also has private experience at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York. He also has served a clerkship for Judge Fortunato Benavides of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Austin, Texas, and for Judge Keith Ellison of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, located in Laredo.

Findlay’s law degree is from the University of Chicago. From San Antonio, he is 29.

Financial staff assistant Marjorie Bingham-Hamilton comes from a national Catholic social justice lobbying group called Network, where she worked as human resources coordinator. She is now responsible for handling committee finances. [IMGCAP(2)]

Bingham-Hamilton has experience at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the D.C. Office of Personnel. A graduate of Clark Atlanta University (formerly Clark College), Bingham-Hamilton has an M.S.A. in human resources management from Trinity University in Washington, D.C. She is from Bennettsville, S.C.

Coming from the office of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Will Johnston joins the committee as a new media specialist. He will take care of the panel’s Web site and tackle its new media strategies.

Johnston, 23, has a degree in theology from Wheaton College and is originally from Bolingbrook, Ill. He spent time both as a Web site designer for PC TechSpec and as a credit analyst for AccuScore, Inc.

Sharon Lewis now will showcase her talents as disability policy adviser for the committee, coming to the post from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families, where she was the Joseph P. Kennedy Policy Fellow. Lewis, 26, also has experience at the Arc of Oregon and the Oregon Developmental Disabilities Coalition, where she worked on public policy.

She has a degree from Washington University and claims hometowns in both Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and Portland, Ore.

As disability policy adviser, she will take care of issues such as No Child Left Behind, the Higher Education Act and Head Start.

Margaret Young is the new staff assistant, responsible for supporting the education staff. She was a third- and fourth-grade teacher with Teach for America in Chicago and an assistant manager at Paper Source in Washington, D.C. Young, 26, is a 2003 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Go Heels!) with a degree in international studies. She originally is from Morganton, N.C.

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