[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 81 (Friday, June 23, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5722-S5723]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         TWENTY YEARS OF CONGRESSIONAL SERVICE BY DAVID GARMAN

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have come to the Senate floor today 
to offer my congratulations and thanks to my Chief of Staff, David 
Kline Garman, who has dedicated his entire life to public service. 
Today, in fact, marks the 20th anniversary of David's service in the 
United States Senate.
  David's public service career began even before he came to the 
Senate. While attending Duke University in the 1970s, he participated 
in Naval ROTC and during the summer of 1976 he served with the naval 
amphibious task force which rescued American Nationals from Beirut 
during the Civil War in Lebanon.
  After graduating with Honors from Duke in 1979, he served in the 
Peace Corps working on rural water supply projects in Nepal. He came to 
the Senate on June 23, 1980 to work as an intern with Senator Richard 
Dick'' Stone (D-Florida), beginning in the Senator's mail room and 
working his way up to assist on defense, finance, banking and energy 
issues.
  After David attended the Democratic Convention in 1980, he began to 
reconsider his political affiliation and on the day Ronald Reagan was 
inaugurated in 1981, David joined my staff to serve as Legislative Aide 
on defense and foreign relations. He was soon promoted to Legislative 
Assistant for energy and natural resources.
  In addition to his legislative expertise, David is extremely 
knowledgeable in the nuts and bolts of high technology. In the late 
1980s he became Founding Coordinator for the U.S. Senate Microcomputer 
Users Group. This group was instrumental in changing Senate technology 
policy so that each office could decide what type of computer system it 
would utilize. Previously, Senate offices could only use a system 
selected by the Senate Computer Center.
  David's broad range of intellectual interests led me to select him to 
join the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when I 
was a Member of the Committee. He played a key role in the development 
of ``environmental intelligence'' capabilities in the intelligence 
community and at the national laboratories.

  Some of David's best work occurred when he joined the staff of the 
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He was responsible for 
environmental issues, including the Clean Air Act, Global Climate 
Change Policy, energy R&D and Arctic Research, Science and Technology 
policy.
  While David worked incredibly long hours on highly technical policy 
issues at the Energy Committee, he went to school at night and in 1997 
earned a Master of Science in Environmental Sciences at Johns Hopkins 
University. That I consider a very noteworthy achievement.
  Despite his many hours of work and study, David did find the time to 
meet a beautiful woman, Kira Finkler, and her lovely daughter Bonnie. 
Kira, who works on the Minority staff of the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee did not allow energy policy differences to stand in 
the way of their relationsip. They were married in December of 1998.
  By this time, I had asked David to move from the Energy Committee and 
become my Chief of Staff. And as all Senators know, this is about the 
hardest job there is in a Senate office, because it is the Chief of 
Staff who has to get the trains to run on time. David does a superb job 
and I am deeply

[[Page S5723]]

grateful to him for how well he does his job.
  I encourage his friends to join me in celebrating and recognizing 
this 20th anniversary.
  As anyone can tell, David is a highly versatile and intelligent 
person who can handle almost any responsibility given to him. There are 
few people I know who are as capable as David. In addition to all of 
his substantive knowledge, David is a superb, outstanding speech 
writer, although he didn't write this speech. Some of the best speeches 
I have given were written by David.
  Mr. President, there is a huge turnover of the staff on Capitol Hill. 
That reflects the long hours, modest pay and economically rewarding 
opportunities available in Washington's private sector. It is rare to 
find such an incredibly dedicated public policy servant as David Garman 
and I salute him today for 20 extraordinary years of service in the 
Senate and to the American people.

                          ____________________