Government Relations
András Simonyi grew up listening to traditional Yiddish and Hungarian folk music, but his true love was rock and roll music. This became a lifeline for him growing up behind the iron curtain and helped him feel less isolated. Mr. Simonyi became an economist and later an ambassador for Hungry which...
Leo Coco is a senior policy advisor at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP in the firm’s Washington DC office and for many years has worked with NAMM’s government relations team to advocate for access to quality music education programs. He has played a vital role in representing music...
Mike Huckabee served as the 44th Governor of Arkansas from 1996-2007. He was a candidate for the 2008 presidential primaries and currently hosts a program on Fox News. He is also a musician and strong supporter of music education. He has made music advocacy a main topic in many of his roles over...
Richard Riley served as Secretary of Education under Bill Clinton and was a two term Governor of South Carolina. His love of music goes back to his parents and his piano lessons as a boy. While he followed the avenue of public service, his musical passion was always a deep part of his life. As...
David Israelite is the president/CEO of the National Music Publishers Association located in Washington DC. While his career before NMPA was in politics, David played the guitar at a young age and always had a real passion for music and music making. Today his job focuses on representing music...
Mary Luehrsen is a music advocate dedicated to music education and promoting support for music education. As Director of Public Affairs and Government Relations for NAMM and a former music teacher and professional musician, Mary has helped NAMM and its partners with policy issues and legislation...
James Goldberg grew up in Washington DC and was a journalism major in college, which led to jobs as a writer for newspapers. He later received his law degree at George Washington University with the hope of getting involved in government affairs. He began working as a lobbyist in the late 1960s...
Robert Morrison was fully involved with marching band and percussion in school and into college, where he studied music education. His involvement with school bands and music education landed him the job at Pearl Drums to help build the marching and concert band division, which he began to do in...