The Honorable Mike Panetta,
Vice President, Public Affairs and Emerging Media
Mike Panetta came to Grassroots Enterprise, Inc. with an impressive background in both political advocacy and technical Internet skills.
He is currently Assistant Vice President for Public Affairs and Emerging Media where he manages a number of Grassroots Enterprise's non-profit, trade association, and political clients and leads our embrace of new technology for political, marketing and advocacy purposes.
In November 2006, Mike was elected to the position of U.S. Representative in the the District of Columbia. The position is often referred to as the "Shadow Representative" and should not be confused with the office of Delegate to Congress, which is currently held by Eleanor Holmes Norton. In this role, Mike is a leading voice in the fight to give the District of Columbia a vote in the U.S. Congress.
Prior to joining Grassroots Enterprise, Mike was a Senior Consultant at Issue Dynamics, Inc., a public affairs consulting firm in Washington, DC. As part of the firm's Internet practice, Mike worked with a number of clients on online public affairs and campaign management services such as strategic consulting, online media relation services, online recruitment, grassroots mobilization, and web site development for clients including the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, and Mark Warner for Governor.
Mike was also the executive director and treasurer of X-PAC, a federal political action committee for "generation x-ers" that focused on Social Security reform. During his leadership tenure at X-PAC, Panetta petitioned for, and was granted, an Advisory Opinion from the Federal Election Commission allowing the use of web-based advocacy spots for online campaigns. X-PAC also ran several online independent expenditure campaigns including dumpsantorum.com and demandarevote.com and released several Flash commercials during the 2000 election.
Mike also has experience working with government agencies in helping them utilize technology to better serve their communities. Working as a Deputy Task Leader for Internet Development at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as a contractor with Advanced Technology Systems, Mike maintained the agency's flagship site, www.hud.gov and providing advice and counsel for many of HUD's other Internet projects. Mike also worked with a number of regional HUD field offices on best practices regarding local government web sites and trained HUD staff on technical issues.
Before his work with Advanced Technology Systems at HUD, Mike was Membership Director at 20/20 Vision, a non-profit environmental advocacy organization. He has also previously worked for the Federation of American Scientists as the organizational web master and Research Analyst. In both of these positions Mike worked with other non-profit organizations to promote the use of Internet technology for policy and advocacy goals.
Mike graduated from American University's School of Public Affairs in 1993 with a B.A. in Political Science, and earned an M.A. in Political Science from the same school in 1994 with a concentration in American Politics.
