As part of Roll Call’s 70th anniversary, we’ve asked several notable alumni to reflect on their time working for the paper. We’ll run these columns throughout the summer.

My time at Roll Call was probably the most rewarding of my professional career.

I started as a cub reporter in Washington in the late 1990s and quickly realized that I needed to get a job at Roll Call.

Before joining Roll Call, I spent five years at CongressDaily, where I wrote about business and industry regulations at the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The job gave me an incredible education into how Congress works and how lobbyists influence public policy on behalf of corporate America.

But after a few years, I realized that I really needed to get a job at Roll Call.

In the early 2000s, Roll Call had an incredibly talented team of cutthroat reporters who dominated coverage of Congress.

Reporters like Jim VandeHei, John Bresnahan, Paul Kane, Mark Preston, Tim Burger and the late Damon Chappie broke virtually every big story and scandal during that era.

What was most amazing is that during that era, Roll Call dominated the big stories even though the paper only published two days a week — on Monday and Thursday —and there was no Internet or website.

That meant that the reporters at Roll Call were so dominant that they would uncover some scandal or hidden controversy — and the news would have to hold for several days until it could be published.

Eventually, Roll Call decided to double its publishing days to four. To find the extra copy to fill the paper, Roll Call needed two more reporters.

I eagerly applied.

After a round of interviews with top editors, I was invited to meet at a nearby restaurant with the late Tim Curran, who was then a co-editor of the paper.

Curran said he could offer me a job, but asked how much money I was making at CongressDaily. I told him about my piddly salary — and demanded a salary that was much higher.

Curran looked dejected. He said he could offer me a job ― but said the salary would be far less than I was already making.

“Sold!” I shouted. Curran looked stunned. People normally switch jobs to make more money – not less.

But I knew that the opportunity to work at Roll Call would be worth it.

I was right.

Over my time at the paper, I broke some of my favorite stories, learned how to be a hard-nosed lobbying reporter and made a roster of trusted sources.

More importantly, I had a blast and while working with an incredible team of people who later became some of my dearest lifelong friends, including Ben and Beth Pershing, Kenny Day, Anna Palmer, Chris Cillizza, Tom Williams, Nathan Gonzales, Matt Rohan and many others.

But my most memorable moment at Roll Call came just before the start of my first game playing for the Roll Call softball team (the Edit-Orioles).

Jogging out to my defensive position before the first inning, I stopped at second base to introduce myself to another new young employee I had seen around the office.

As she shook my hand, she said her name was Lauren and that she worked in the advertising department.

Today she goes by Lauren Mullins.

(Brody Mullins, who worked for Roll Call from 2005 to 2006, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who spent nearly two decades covering the intersection of business, politics and corporate influence for the Wall Street Journal. He is the co-author of “The Wolves of K Street” with his brother Luke, who is also a Roll Call alumnus.)