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Alyssa Mastromonaco, deputy chief of staff for operations for President Barack Obama’s administration, discussed how she became involved in politics as a college student during an event Tuesday. 

Students Demand Action and Syracuse University’s College Democrats hosted the virtual event, which was moderated by David Bruen, communications director for College Democrats, and Isabella Brown, chief of staff for College Democrats.

During the event, Mastromonaco shared her keys for success as well as her favorite memories during her years in the public sector.

“Really, I was not someone who was like, ‘Oh, I want to get into politics,’” Mastromonaco said.

During her freshman year at the University of Vermont in Burlington, where she studied French and Japanese, Mastromonaco watched then-Rep. Bernie Sanders on the news almost every night and was curious about his work. So, she applied to be his intern.

While working as an intern at Sander’s office, she answered a call from Ed Garvey, a politician and activist for whom she later worked in Wisconsin for two years. Though she hoped to work for Sanders after graduation, she ended up getting a job in then-Sen. John Kerry’s office after hearing him speak and messaging his intern coordinator

After Kerry lost the presidential election in 2004, Mastromonaco called Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary for Obama, and he set up a meeting. Though Obama initially did not seem interested in having Mastromonaco take the position, she later got the job.

“(Obama) called me up about a week later, right before Christmas, and he left me a voicemail, which I wish I still had, but it was on my very old cell phone. And it said, ‘Alyssa, it’s Obama, let’s do this,’” Mastromonaco said. “And so for the next 10 years, I worked for Barack.”

Mastromonaco spoke about how she had a tampon dispenser installed in a women’s bathroom at the White House, a story she described in one of her books. When she first began at the White House, many of the women were postmenopausal, she said. So, the younger women began to leave tampons in the bathroom for one another.

Mastromonaco eventually asked Katy Kale, who was assistant to the president for management and administration and member of the Council on Women and Girls at the time, if there was a reason there was not a tampon dispenser in the bathroom. After offering to personally pay for its installment, she was told that there were funds to cover it.

“Every morning, I had two meetings before 9 a.m.,” she said. “I never had delighted as much as I did the day I went in, in a room where there was like 60:40 men. And I was like, one announcement: we now have tampons in the West Wing.”

Mastromonaco learned throughout her career that people end up where they are supposed to be, she said. It was never her goal to work in the White House, and if it was, then she would never have interned for Obama, she said.

It takes effort to be successful and have a fulfilling experience in any field, including politics, Mastromonaco said.

“The group of people I work with and the experience I had would be replicated by anybody who was really just there doing what they believed in with people who had good souls,” she said.

Published on May 4, 2021 at 10:57 pm

Contact Kailey: kmnorusi@syr.edu