SUNLIGHT ANNOUNCES THREE NEW HIRES

Zephyr Teachout, Greg Elin, Eric Schmeltzer bring netroots, tech experience to further goals

June 20, 2006

Contact: Gabriela Schneider 202-742-1520 ext 236

WASHINGTON, DC – The Sunlight Foundation (www.sunlightfoundation.com) today announced three key hires that bring organizing, technical, and communications experience that will further the organization’s goals.

 Zephyr Teachout is the National Director of the Sunlight Foundation, focusing on organizing grassroots and netroots to actively participate in Sunlight’s mission to change the relationship between elected officials and constituents and using new technology to bring about an increase in transparency. Zephyr was the Director of Online Organizing for Howard Dean's presidential campaign, spearheading the design and implementation of the new web tools for local organizing (Get Local, Deanlink, Deanspace, Letters for America, Posters for America, Dean Radio, and others). Prior to that, Teachout represented indigent death row inmates in North Carolina for the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, and was the co-founding Executive Director of the Fair Trial Initiative, a fellowship program that trains young lawyers in death penalty trial work. She has a BA from Yale, an MA in political science from Duke, and a JD from Duke Law School (summa cum laude) where she was the Editor in Chief of the Duke Law Journal.

Greg Elin is a technical consultant to the Sunlight Foundation and co-director of the Sunlight Labs (www.sunlightlabs.org ), which will bring together top programming talent to develop new web-based tools to enhance civic engagement and transparency in government. Greg is a research developer specializing in databases and interactive technologies and is the creator of FotoNotes™, an open-source image annotation technology. Since the early 1990’s, he has helped large and small organizations articulate and prototype new technologies. He has provided database and technology services for a variety of clients including: New York University, American Institute of Graphic Artists, Computer Horizons, Mark Green’s 2001 Mayoral campaign, National Performance Network, New York New Media Association, and New York Software Industry Association. From 1998 to 2002, Greg worked with New York University IT organization on enterprise wide data and directory information. His FotoNotes™ image annotation concept has been adopted for use by Flickr.com, a United States Navy micro-satellite project, and others. Greg holds a Masters from the Tisch School of the Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program and a B.A. in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania.

Eric Schmeltzer is providing communications consulting to Sunlight. Eric has been a New York-based communications consultant since the end of the Howard Dean presidential campaign, where he served as a press secretary and Deputy New York State Campaign Director. With the Dean campaign, Eric’s work was largely credited for positioning Dean’s grassroots campaign as insurmountable in New York State. Previously, Eric was press secretary to U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler and Deputy Communications Director for Public Campaign, one of the nation’s leading campaign finance reform organizations. He has been quoted and published in multiple national outlets, and appears occasionally as a political commentator on FOX News. Eric received his B.S. from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, with a major in public relations.

The mission of the Sunlight Foundation is to use the transformative power of the Internet and new information technology to enable citizens to learn more about Congress and their elected representatives, and thus help reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and accountability by government, and foster public trust in the vital institutions of democracy.