We are also pleased to showcase Neri Martinez and Sarah Khasawinah, Ranking Member Scott’s staffers on the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Martinez is staff director, and Khasawinah is deputy staff director for the committee.
Taken together these three women represent something important about what their boss prizes in hiring—talent and diversity.
DeCasper is described by Roll Call newspaper as one of the Hill’s black women staffers who is among the “movers and shakers” of Capitol Hill. She is the first African American to serve as a chief of staff to a United States senator.
It’s frankly amazing that DeCasper ever made it onto Scott’s staff, much less rose to be chief of staff, after her initial job interview.
“I gave [Scott] my best professional answers to his questions,” DeCasper recalls of the interview, “and then when he started talking about his faith and his journey, I just lost it. And he was completely shocked as one should expect. I interview people all the time now and if somebody started crying, I’d be like ‘Oh my goodness, what’s happening?’ And so, he asked me, ‘Do you want to talk about it?' And I said no, I would like to end this interview and he said, are you sure? And I said absolutely. I got up and left and called my dad and said I definitely did not get that job and a week later they called me and hired me.”
Why did Senator Scott overlook the awkwardness in what should have finished DeCasper’s hopes? “I would say a year into my job, I finally got comfortable enough to ask him, ‘Sir, why on earth would you hire me [after that interview]?’"
“He admitted it was the most awkward interview he’d ever had,” she tells IWF, “but he went home and prayed about it and felt led to hire me. He felt that he was being told that I was going to be a big part of his team, and help him get to where he wanted to go, and help carry out his agenda, and hopes and dreams. But I did seem like a mess, and he has joked about it—he said he even asked, ‘God, are you sure?’"
It says a lot about DeCasper and Scott that they were both able to move past the awkwardness. She has input on opportunity zones, diversity in hiring, and many other issues. She is a former prosecutor with a law degree from the University of Michigan.
Neri Martinez and Sarah Khasawinah are both first-generation Americans but from different backgrounds. Neri’s Cuban-born father is a reverend and she grew up in the ministry and as a missionary’s daughter. Her father had a church for over 25 years in Miami and continues to serve his community. “I never intended to get into politics necessarily,” she said, “I wanted to study theology, but God had other plans. Politics is the business of people and ideas, and my faith drives my approach to both and my role in public service.”
Sarah spent her early years in Missouri and later Virginia. “Whenever a new neighbor came in,” she recalls, “my mother was the first to bake them brownies and always make sure that we were available to help whenever they ever needed anything. Often we were the only Muslims on the block, but I didn’t feel different, I just felt like a part of the community and found that whenever I talk with people of faith from any other faith, we have more in common than we have apart.”
We know you’ll love meeting these Capitol dynamos—and, if you are able to come to IWF’s Annual Awards Gala on November 17, meet the trio in person, as their boss will be receiving our Gentleman of Distinction award that evening.
