My workday typically fell into three buckets. The first was policy research. This was the process of actually coming up with legislation. This disguises a lot of different tasks. Sometimes, it was reading Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports to see how a specific program worked. Sometimes, it was bringing in outside experts to answer our questions. Plenty of time was spent writing the legislation, reading it over, and rewriting it.
The second typical task was stakeholder meetings. Because I worked as a committee staffer, I had fewer of these meetings than usual. However, they still occurred, albeit infrequently. I would meet constituents who cared about specific small business issues, from tax policy to research and development programs. My boss cared a lot about bringing people together. One of the highlights of my time working for the Senate Small Business Committee was the startup expo Senator Ernst ran. The startup expo was an event that brought together small businesses and people who could contract with them. They included Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program officers, offices across the Department of Defense, and small business contract officers at large defense companies.
The third, and more unusual, part of my day as a Hill staffer was working as a data scientist. There is a large need for data on the Hill, however, Congress does not have the resources for intense data science work. Staffers can ask CRS for data analysis, but data science is not their specialty. During my fellowship, I helped fill this gap. I analyzed data on the SBIR program to strengthen our justifications when writing various pieces of legislation. I also wrangled data from the Federal Procurement Data System to help a colleague answer questions about federal contracting.
I decided to enroll as a TechCongress fellow because of my interactions with congressional staffers when I first worked for the Foundation for American Innovation (FAI). I always felt strange providing recommendations without knowing what it was like to make policy in Congress. TechCongress helped me gain a policymaking perspective from the side of someone trying to implement policy, and the complexities that come with that, versus someone pitching ideas. It makes me a more effective advocate having that insider perspective.
My proudest moment was working on due diligence in the SBIR program. Through open-source research, I helped track down companies that had foreign risks. This had two peaks. First, in a hearing back in March, Senator Ernst called out a company whose CEO was on the board of multiple Special Purpose Acquisition Companies associated with a state-owned Chinese bank. Second, in May, a report I worked on about due diligence was launched and received excellent media coverage from outlets including Bloomberg, Politico, and National Review. It was nice to see a year's worth of work result in good coverage for the boss.
I learned a lot through TechCongress. I learned how policymaking functions inside a committee. I also gained in-depth policymaking experience on a specific subject area, the SBIR program. Chiefly, I learned how to manage bureaucracy and how to get things done despite sometimes dealing with more processes than I was used to working with. Working on the Hill and collaborating with many innovative companies made me realize that while I love policy, the policy area I am most interested in—industrial policy—requires a perspective on both industrial needs and legislation. I believe that working on the Hill took me over the finish line for admittance as an MBA student at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. There, I plan to focus on operations management and eventually do something manufacturing-related.
Lars Erik Schönander
This piece was written by TechCongress alum, Lars Erik Schönander (Congressional Innovation Fellow, January 2024).
Lars Erik Schönander is a Research Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. He holds a BA from The George Washington University in International Affairs and Economics and is an incoming MBA student at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, American Affairs, the National Interest, Tablet, and elsewhere.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lars-erik-schonander-32b57a13b/
Twitter: @LarsESchonander