Jeff Andrade

Background

About Jeff Andrade

Jeff Andrade is a leading expert on education and workforce policy, economic development, Federal appropriations, Federally-funded research and innovation, Department of the Air Force and other DoD partnerships with academia and small businesses. He combines over 35 years of political insights from working in the Executive Branch and Congress with real-world business experience to help corporations, universities, and non-profits understand and navigate the Washington political environment to solve tough problems. He has had extensive government relations experience in 4 bipartisan firms, and has been an in-house government relations/compliance executive for a higher education finance company and an international medical school. In the public sector, Jeff served for over 14 years in the Executive Branch as both a career civil servant and political appointee and served in the Senior Executive Service at two agencies including - • Associate Administrator for Entrepreneurial Development at the U.S. Small Business Administration, where he managed $100 million in programs that provide education and business counseling for over 2.4 million small business clients. • Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, Planning, and Innovation in the Office of Postsecondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education (ED); • Director of the ED's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE); and • Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Education. During his over 10 years as a civil servant at the Education Department, he worked his way up from entry-level policy analyst to senior budget analyst responsible for the agency’s largest appropriation account. On Capitol Hill, he was a senior Professional Staff Member on the House Education and Workforce Committee, successfully enacting major bipartisan legislation on the Higher Education Act, Workforce Investment Act, Vocational Rehabilitation Act, Education of the Deaf Act, and Assistive Technology Act. He also worked closely with Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) to enact landmark legislation to modernize the Federal student aid programs and created the Federal government’s first performance-based organization, the U.S. Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid (FSA) office. A first-generation American from New Bedford, Massachusetts, Jeff was the first in his family to graduate from college - financing his education with Pell Grants, student loans, work-study and university scholarships. He holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in Political Science from The American University in Washington, DC.