He balances a career on the Hill with the Army reserve

Position: Deputy chief of staff for legislative operations for Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick, R-Pa.; captain in the Army Reserve

Age: 28

Alma Mater: Bachelor’s from University of Maryland, College Park, law degree from the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University

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Washington Examiner: Tell me a little about how you got to Capitol Hill.

Rusk: I grew up in the district that we represent, so my family is still there. Came down to the Washington area to go to school at University of Maryland. I did four years of Army ROTC program there. Studied political science and then got my commission coming out of Maryland into the Army Reserve as a second lieutenant.

I was in a little bit of a waiting pattern where I had to go to additional training out in Arizona for the Army, so I went back home to Bucks County, to my parents’ house for a little bit waiting for that, and started helping out in the 2010 cycle on [Fitzpatrick’s] campaign.

During that race, I went and helped out. He won, I got the opportunity to interview for a position down here and got offered it and accepted, and I’ve worked my way up since that time, since 2011.

Examiner: Can you talk more about your experience in the Army?

Rusk: The requirement for the reserves is you go to four months of training, so I went to Fort Huachuca in Arizona in 2011.

Then in 2013, for a short period of time I was on active duty, we deployed to Afghanistan as a reserve unit and went to do intel support for special forces in Afghanistan, so I was over there just before Thanksgiving until summer 2014, and then came back and started working again for him here.

Examiner: How does your experience in the reserves influence how you do your job now and some of the topics that you work on?

Rusk: One of the biggest impacts the military has on me that I bring here would just be a mission-focused sense on how we approach things here, both in terms of planning and focusing our resources on the objectives we want to get done.

There are also certain things and decisions up here that have a real impact on the military, so it’s interesting to be able to provide him that personal experience of the things that we’re voting on or dealing with and the way it may impact soldiers on the ground.

Examiner: What’s your favorite part of your job?

Rusk: Just being able to work with some of the incredible constituents that we have back in Bucks County. One bill that we have is the Saracini Aviation Safety Act, and we wrote that and have been working on that with a widow of one of the pilots on 9/11. Her name is Ellen Saracini, her husband was Victor.

His plane was hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center and since then, she has become an extremely passionate advocate for aviation safety and security. So we have a bill with her that we work on to try to make sure a terrorist can never hijack the cockpit again.

It requires the installation of a second barrier door, which protects the cockpit when the door is open. So it’s just really inspiring to be able to see these constituents who have these ideas and these solutions to problems and then work with them to try to get it done.

Examiner: What do you do in your free time?

Rusk: Free time is kind of a new thing for me, because I was working here, I was doing law school at night, which was a five-year process for me because I had to take a year off when I deployed to Afghanistan. So I started in 2011 and just graduated this year. I’m spending the next month or so studying for the bar. And then on the weekends, I do Army Reserve stuff.

When I’m not doing all of that, I have a couple of real estate properties that I bought and manage. I’m also married and have two rescue dogs, so normally that’s what it is, going on family walks with the two dogs. They are a Pomeranian and Maltese, Sophie and Sadie.