*05/22/15 EDIE SMITH, Senator Angus King's State Director

Our speaker this week is Edie King, State Director for Senator Angus King. She will share with us what it’s like working for Maine’s Independent Senator in a fractured Congress. She will be accompanied by Dan Reardon, former CEO of Bass Shoe, who works as a Constituent Service Representative for the Senator.

Edie Smith grew up in Winthrop Maine and is a graduate of Bowdoin College. She has served as State Director for U.S. Senator Angus King since December 2012, after serving as Field Director for his statewide campaign to fill Senator Olympia Snowe’s seat. Responsibilities include management of three U.S. Senate offices (Scarborough, Augusta and Presque Isle); management of all duties of 17 employees; consistent communication with the Senator’s D.C. office, including with Senator King, Chief of Staff Kay Rand, and media, policy and scheduling teams; traveling throughout Maine; staffing the Senator when he is in Maine; representing the Senator at meetings and events as his surrogate.

Previous to working full time for Angus King, Edie owned Maine Directions, Inc., a political and public relations consulting firm, specializing in the management of candidate and referendum campaigns, coalition building, grassroots networking, legislative monitoring and lobbying, trade association management, market research (focus groups and polling), PAC management, public relations, media relations and marketing. Through her 30-year tenure with Maine Directions, Edie would often go full time with organizations or with specific projects. She worked for seven years as Executive Director of Eaton Peabody Consulting Group. She is, in her own words, a “professional political junkie.”