Joining Weiner as Senior Associates are:
At his White House farewell ceremony Monday, attended by 150 well-wishers including ABC’s Sam Donaldson and Olympic marathon champion Frank Shorter, Weiner urged his Office of National Drug Policy to “keep that profile of openness and information” which, over the past six years of over 25,000 electronic and print news stories, had ended the office and the Administration’s previously being “blasted for being AWOL in the war on drugs.”
“If I can impart one message”, Weiner said, “it is to keep the American people informed and involved. That way, they are invested as a partner in the efforts of their government.”
Weiner said his company will develop electronic and print ads for political and private sector clients and will generate news coverage. They will also consult with media on drug policy, aging issues, government operations, and other issues in which he and his associates have expertise.
Weiner served as press spokesman for the White House Drug Czar’s office for the last six years, including assisting the new Bush Administration over the past six months. “Saving our children is not a partisan issue – it’s a fight we all must join in,” Weiner said. He expressed appreciation to the new Administration for the privilege of reaching the twenty-year Federal milestone this month.
“I’ve had the incredible privilege of working for and learning from some spectacular national movers and shakers for several years each including Barry McCaffrey, Lee Brown, Claude Pepper, John Conyers, Charlie Rangel, Ed Koch, and Ted Kennedy,” Weiner stated. “I’ve been very lucky to have had a such an unusual learning experience from many of the best our country has.”
Prior to his White House position, Weiner worked for Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) as Communications Director of the House Government Operations Committee, Charles Rangel (D-NY) as Press Secretary for the House Narcotics Committee, and Claude Pepper (D-FL) as Staff Director of the House Aging Committee, where Pepper credited him with leading the successful legislative effort to abolish age-based mandatory retirement. He also worked for then-Congressman Ed Koch (D-NY) as Legislative assistant and Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) as political aide to his presidential and senate campaigns. He has been Director of the Democratic National Convention General Press Rooms and Filing Centers at the last four conventions (2000, 1996, 1992, and 1988).
Weiner was National Youth Voter Registration Director at the Young Democrats’ Watergate office of the Democratic National Committee in 1971-72 – coordinating the Democratic Party’s outreach to youth in the first elections following the June 1971 ratification of the 26th amendment to the Constitution lowering the voting age to eighteen. In 1998, Weiner was called to testify before Ken Starr’s Whitewater Grand Jury concerning Monica Lewinsky for private phone calls he and his wife made from their home expressing their opinions to friends, and Weiner was praised in the media for expressing outrage against the violation of his family’s right of free speech. Weiner said he is working on a book, “Watergate to Whitewater, Near the Center of the Storm – the Joy of Politics.”
Weiner has a B.A. from Oberlin College and M.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is married to Patricia Berg, Ph.D., Associate Professor and genetics research specialist in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at George Washington University Medical School.