About Us

Click on our team members below to read their bios

Michael L. Carpenter
Richard Frisch
J. Michael Hawkins
David Laufer
Michele Mitola
Jeffrey R. Sievers
Jeff Sindone
Sarah Takahama

Michael L. Carpenter
Mr. Carpenter has served in a variety of corporate public and government affairs capacities, and specializes in developing and implementing integrated plans and strategies to achieve legislative and corporate reputation objectives. He has directed state and local government affairs for major consumer products companies in California and other Western states, managing complex and often controversial legislative and regulatory issues on behalf of beer, food and tobacco companies. In addition to state legislative and executive branch lobbying, he oversaw his clients’ ballot initiative and candidate election activities.

Mr. Carpenter also led a nationwide public affairs department, overseeing corporate public and external affairs activities throughout the United States. He has been a lobbyist and political director for a statewide California trade association, where he analyzed legislation and testified before the state legislature. He raised the most money in the PAC’s history and established the organization’s first election program, targeting candidate races, drafting election mailers and providing creative input on radio spots.

Mr. Carpenter is a lawyer and a member of the State Bar of California. He was a litigation attorney with a large San Francisco law firm, representing clients in complex litigation, product liability, medical malpractice and securities litigation.

Richard Frisch
Richard Frisch is a 25 year strategic communications consultant specializing in crisis communications, corporate communications, litigation communications and regulatory communications. Mr. Frisch began his media career at CBS News Special Events, and left to create and develop a corporate television division for Reuters in 1987.

Mr. Frisch became President of Reuter’s Television Division in New York, and later founded CTV, Corporate Television Group, Inc. in 1995, a video communications and strategic consulting firm. In 1998, when CTV merged with Medialink Worldwide, Mr. Frisch became President of Medialink Strategic Communications.

Over the years, he has worked with many of the world’s largest corporations: Philip Morris and its parent company Altria, Daimler-Chrysler, General Motors, Pfizer , Microsoft and Diageo to name a few.

Mr. Frisch and his organizations have won awards, including awards for corporate image films from the U.S. Industrial Film and Video Festival, long form awards from the New York Video Festival and Association of Visual Communicators, a Telly Award, a PRSA Anvil Award, and the New York /ABC Ace Award for Communications Excellence.

J. Michael Hawkins
Mr. Hawkins is a veteran Sacramento government affairs professional with 20 years of state capitol lobbying experience. Mr. Hawkins has served on staff of former Majority Floor Leader Thomas Hannigan in the State Assembly. As senior counsel and lead lobbyist before the state legislature and state agencies for Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest managed health care plans in the United States, he compiled a virtually unblemished record of legislative accomplishment in an often hostile political environment on controversial managed care and other issues.

Mr. Hawkins has been responsible for creating and serving in countless legislative coalitions and is an expert at developing proactive and defensive political strategies on public policy issues, and has spearheaded the passage of numerous major health care laws. In addition to managed care, he has expertise on a variety of issues, including arbitration, auto insurance, clinical laboratories, confidentiality and privacy, environmental regulation, health facilities, seismic standards, tort liability, MediCal, legal and medical malpractice, medical peer review, mental health, optometry and pharmaceutical issues.

Mr. Hawkins is a lawyer and a member of the State Bar of California. In addition, he has been an Adjunct Professor at the McGeorge School of Law Center for Public Advocacy, where he taught courses on Legislative Advocacy and Political Law.

David Laufer
David Laufer is a management consultant with over 25 years business experience in Government Affairs, Communications and Issues Management. Mr. Laufer has extensive experience with controversial issues in numerous corporate affairs disciplines: direct lobbying, coalition development, issue analysis and opinion research, communications, community outreach and philanthropy, grass roots advocacy, ballot issues campaign management and crisis management.

As Vice President of State Government Affairs for the Philip Morris companies (Kraft Foods, Miller Brewing and Philip Morris USA) he led a nationwide department of over 40 government affairs professionals and 200 lobbyists and public affairs firms, and he served as a member of the senior leadership team for the global Corporate Affairs function of Philip Morris Companies.

Mr. Laufer worked as an analyst for Control Risks, Ltd., in London, and was an Assignment Editor and Night News Manager at CBS News in New York. He has been a speaker at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, The Public Affairs Council, Business for Social Responsibility, and at the Conference Board.

Michele Mitola
Michele Mitola is a public affairs and communications professional with over 20 years of experience working on issue advocacy campaigns at the federal, state and local levels.

Mrs. Mitola began her career in the New York State Senate in Albany and went on to spend over ten years working in Washington, DC for the U.S. Department of Labor, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and at Citizens for a Sound Economy, a leading grassroots advocacy organization, where she led successful issue advocacy campaigns on health care, tax, telecommunications and other economic policy and regulatory issues. Mrs. Mitola has lobbied and testified on policy issues, as well as submitted legal briefs and regulatory comments, before the courts, regulatory agencies, and on Capitol Hill, as well as in state capitals and before local town bodies across the nation. She also is an attorney and has been admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Mrs. Mitola served as a senior manager for issues management and public affairs at Philip Morris USA, where she was responsible for managing a network of public affairs professionals in all fifty states and for working with the company's senior management and government affairs professionals to develop policy positions and strategies for impacting the public policy issues facing the company.

Jeffrey R. Sievers
Mr. Sievers is an experienced lobbyist and political campaign consultant. He specializes in managing ballot initiative campaigns, legislative issues, political and issue advocacy campaigns, grassroots advocacy, and strategic communications.

Mr. Sievers previously served as Vice President of the Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC), where he was responsible for implementing CJAC’s ambitious legislative strategy, executing the organization’s political programs, developing statewide ballot initiatives, and expanding fundraising efforts. He directed the organization’s political action committee and independent expenditure committees, helping to transform CJAC from a relatively unknown organization into one of the most politically savvy, broad-based trade associations in California.

In the 2006 election cycle, Mr. Sievers dramatically expanded CJAC’s political efforts to finance and execute an ambitious independent expenditure program. Partnering with many of CJAC’s corporate and other members, as well as like-minded organizations, he directed the organization’s successful election efforts. The program helped elect and defeat candidates to the California Senate and Assembly.

Before becoming a legislative and political consultant, Mr. Sievers managed small to medium sized businesses, focusing primarily on medical and dental professional corporations.

Jeff Sindone
With 15 years of experience working with major corporations to help them solve their corporate reputation and public policy issues, Jeff Sindone brings a unique perspective on how new media and traditional broadcast techniques can help companies address their communication needs. Jeff is charged with planning and executing multimedia strategies using cutting-edge media concepts and new media tools, to help clients solve their mission-critical communications challenges.

Previously, Jeff was with Medialink Worldwide. He joined in 1993 to refine the company’s station relations and media monitoring capabilities. During his time there, Jeff capitalized on his media relations and production experience to launch award-winning crisis video, on-line and multimedia projects, as well as multi-point video conferences and telecasts for multinational corporations. His clients included Altria, Anheuser-Busch, ExxonMobil, General Mills, General Motors and Philips Electronics North America.

Jeff began his career in TV News operations with the Fox News organization in Washington, D.C., where he held numerous editorial positions from field production, to working on the assignment desk.

Sarah Takahama
Government Affairs professional with legislative staff, trade association, state capitol lobbying and PAC experience. Sarah was an aide to the speaker of the CA State Assembly, and managed state legislation for the CA Assn of Physician Groups (CAPG).