Toon Moves From Hill to Bechtel

By: Aoife McCarthy Politico.com
Jun 12, 2007 02:20 PM EST

Bechtel, an engineering, construction and project management company, has hired a senior staffer from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to lead the firm's D.C. office. Bernie Toon will be working with the Washington staff on Bechtel's government relations priorities, including the funding of Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National laboratories.

Toon came to Washington in 1981 as a presidential management intern from Medora, Ind. Since then, he has done tours as chief of staff for Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and former Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.). He had the same job for former Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.). That relationship has had permanent reverberations; Toon met his wife on one of Roemer's campaigns, and the congressman was best man in the wedding.

He said he is looking forward to taking a break from campaigns and working with a company that has what he called an impeccable reputation in the engineering community.