National Journal Profiles Total Spectrum
National Journal - June 14, 2008 - Consulting Game
Steve Gordon and Gregg Keller have teamed up to found Total Spectrum, a firm helping companies, associations, and grassroots groups on legislative and political work. Gordon, a longtime Republican fundraiser, has run his own firm since 1979. He has worked for then-Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., and for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and he is consulting for Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. Keller most recently served on the Mitt Romney presidential campaign. The two met when Keller was working on Republican Jim Talent’s 2002 Senate bid in a special Missouri election. Talent beat Jean Carnahan that year but lost to Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., in 2006.
Gordon, 60, started in his family’s industrial scrap business and held other private-sector jobs in Minnesota. After an HMO he was working for went belly-up, he took a position with Rudy Boschwitz on his 1978 campaign for Senate. “I became finance director, and I had just about zero experience,” Gordon says. But he took to politics naturally and has remained in the field ever since.
Keller, 31, is from St. Louis, worked in finance in Boston, and volunteered for Talent’s exploratory committee before being hired as the “body man,” or personal assistant, for his 2002 race. Keller worked on Talent’s Senate staff, the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign, and Talent’s 2006 re-election bid. “Missouri is the bellwether of bellwethers,” Keller says. “If you don’t learn a lot very quickly in that kind of environment, it will be made clear to you that you’re not cutting it.”
–Gregg Sangillo
PDF: National Journal Profile of Total Spectrum - June 14, 2008
Link: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/pp_20080614_7062.php