Senior Vice President
A native of Seattle, Washington, and a proud veteran of the United States Marine Corps, Rory has spent over two decades at the highest levels of political organizing, campaign management, non-profit advocacy management, and legislative/government affairs work.
Rory began his career in 2001 as a legislative intern for the Washington State AFL-CIO and worked in Washington State politics for nearly a decade. Rory is a founding member and former Executive Director of the Washington Bus, a nonprofit organization created to increase political participation among young people across Washington State. In 2007, Rory was invited to join U.S. Senator Barack Obama’s campaign for President as his Western Iowa Director, where his organizing work was profiled by the New York Times.
In addition to these roles, Rory has also served as Political Director for Sen Maria Cantwell during her 2006 election and Coordinated Director for Senator and President Pro Tem, Patty Murray during her 2010 election. Rory also worked as the Deputy Political Director for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee in 2012, focusing on western states and again as the committee’s Campaigns Director, with a national purview during the 2014 election cycle.
From January 2013 to April 2014 and again from December 2014 to April 2015, Rory served as Deputy Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp, where he focused on the day-to-day management of her office and policy issues of military and defense, veterans affairs and international relations. During this time, Rory successfully supported a coalition of interested parties to create the Grand Forks/Grand Sky Industrial Air Park, a partnership among the United States Air Force, the County of Grand Forks, and Grand Sky Development, which was the nation’s first commercial UAS business and aviation park.
Following this experience, Rory managed Vice President Kamala Harris’ California campaign for U.S. Senate. From 2016 to 2019, Rory was the founding Voting Rights Director for Priorities USA, where he successfully led a national effort to protect access to voting and defeat voter suppression initiatives.
In 2019, Rory moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he served as the Government Affairs Manager for World View Enterprises, a near-space exploration and technology company founded with the goal of increasing access to and the utilization of the stratosphere for scientific, commercial, economic, and military purposes. He served in this position, coordinating regulatory affairs work with state, local, federal and international governments until late 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted their business operations.
During the 2022 election cycle, Rory served as Chief of Staff of With Honor Action. With Honor is a veteran service organization that supports a bi-partisan slate of veteran candidates and elected officials committed to decreasing the growing partisanship and polarization in our politics. Rory led their legislative efforts and successfully supported over 50 legislative victories that supported military, veterans and national security priorities.
Throughout his career, Rory has worked to develop innovative strategies and tactics, including Political Action Committee and non-profit creation, management and direction to support a variety of causes and issues that advance principles of fair and free access to our elections, strong community participation, and empowerment through direct political engagement and interaction with our elected representatives.
