President Ryan Mulvey
Ryan Mulvey is Policy Counsel at Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization committed to educating Americans to be advocates for freedom and real change. In that role, Ryan works on various legal policy issues, especially government transparency at the federal and state levels. He also volunteers as Counsel at Cause of Action Institute, where he has specialized in FOIA practice since 2013. As an attorney, Ryan has extensive experience with FOIA litigation and amicus work at the district court, appellate, and Supreme Court levels; as a policy expert, he has advised congressional staff about FOIA reform and researches cutting-edge FOIA issues. In his personal time, Ryan helps run FOIAadvisor.com, a free, online resource on all things FOIA. He is a graduate of the University of San Diego (BA) and Boston University (JD/MA).
Ryan has been a member of ASAP since 2018. In that time, he has contributed to ASAP as a faculty member at both the National Training Conference and the regional FOIA-Privacy Act Training Worship. Additionally, Ryan has served as a presenter for ASAP’s “Food for Thought” seminar series. This past year, Ryan was a member of the 2020 Virtual NTC Planning Committee. He especially appreciates ASAP’s work to bring together FOIA professionals and the requesting community. Ryan intends to use his position as a director-at-large both to provide a positive requester perspective and, more importantly, to further ASAP’s commitment to dialogue and the importance of communication for an ideal FOIA process. He would also like to help ASAP maintain its reputation for an excellent training opportunity and start to adapt these various programs to the new virtual “normal.”
Vice President Jeremy Lewis
Jeremy Lewis has served as a professor of political science for forty years and has published a number of scholarly articles on the theory and history of freedom of information, the global official transparency movement, and e-governance. He holds two degrees from Oxford University and two from The Johns Hopkins University in American politics and international relations.
He began by writing an MA thesis on the British freedom of information bills of the 1970s and his PhD dissertation on the US FOIA of 1974. He was one of the first scholars to interview FOIA staff and political staff in the US and UK, and to mine official reports for FOIA legislative and administrative trends. In 1986-96, he returned the favor by training FOIA staff at the US FDA.
His articles have appeared in such familiar journals for ASAP members as Government Information Quarterly (1995), and Access Reports; and four of his chapters in different editions of The Handbook of Public Information Systems (2000-2010). From more than fifty conference presentations and keynotes across North America and Europe, he has been cited in Latin America and North America, and two chapters on the open e-governance of public policy have been published in Russian translation (2015, 2019).
Jeremy has served non-profits for many years, notably chairing the global research committee on administrative culture of IPSA, and as Vice President of ALWAC (world affairs council). He has received a national teaching award; helped found an MPP program in public policy; and advised many of his students who proceeded to law careers (sorry) or master’s degrees, and a number of them to PhDs. His numerous television appearances have included several for NBC nightly news and for Canadian CTV news. He is also the father of two public policy experts in Washington DC’s think tanks, and in 2020 moved to northern Virginia to be closer to them.
Secretary Nate Jones
Nate Jones is the award-winning FOIA director for The Washington Post, where he works with reporters to target documents to request, appeal and sue for. He works with reporters to obtain local, state and federal records and to think strategically about public records in all formats. He gives FOIA training sessions and advises reporters on how to write, refine and track requests, navigate delays and overredactions, and overcome other bureaucratic resistance. He is also author of the "Revealing Records" column which describes The Post's battles for public records. He has served two terms on the Federal FOIA Advisory Committee and holds a JD from the University of the District of Columbia. He previously was the director of the FOIA Project for the National Security Archive, where he used FOIA to write a book on the 1983 Able Archer nuclear war scare. Education: Lewis and Clark College, BA in history; George Washington University, MA in history: University of the District of Columbia, JD Honors and Awards: member of the team which won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting 2024: Investigative Reporters and Editors Freedom of Information Award, 2023: News Leader Association First Amendment Award, 2023; National Press Club Michael A. Dornheim Award, 2023: member of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, 2022. Professional Affiliations: fellow at the National Security Archive; currently serving as secretary for the American Society of Access Professionals, and a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors.
Treasurer Christopher Carr
Chris Carr is the records manager and technical advisor on rotational assignment for a United States Department of Defense component’s revitalization and implementation of its Freedom of Information Act, Privacy Act, Records Management, and Mandatory Declassification Review programs. Prior to his work as a Freedom of Information Act Officer, Chris played a major role in the formation of recommendations for an agency deliberative engagement process and training for workforce external engagement. Before joining DoD in 2011, his experiences include work in medical libraries, university archives, and the Smithsonian Institution. In addition to providing quarterly FOIA training for new agency personnel, he’s graciously accepted invitations to speak at a number of Records and Information Management conferences and speaker series. He holds a MLIS from Simmons University School of Library and Information Science and a B.S. in History from Coppin State University.
Chris’ contributions to the profession include the formation of DoD Agency component level FOIA & Records Management training forums. He’s fostered engagement from across government and academia on an array of FOIA and Records Management related topic for training and development. Recognizing the difficulties and obstacles in working with FOIA even within the same agency, Chris pursued a seven-month, part-time assignment in the agency’s archives where he conducted research for a number of FOIA cases and attained a deeper understanding of the housed content. Each FOIA case was used as a learning tool in conveying the level of effort required in conducting archival research to the FOIA officers. Upon the end of his assignment, he conducted formal archival research training to the FOIA officers and managed their expectations by explaining the differences between library and archival research. As a result, FOIA officers now reach out to the agency archives for reference assistance rather than research tasking. This improved process has lessened the workload of archivists, shortened response time of FOIA cases requesting archived records, and ensured the reasonable nature of archival searches as FOIA officers now have greater influence in the way these searches are conducted.
Director Camille Aponte-Rossini
Camille Aponte-Rossini is the FOIA Manager and FOIA Public Liaison for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). In her current role, Camille manages the FOIA team, provides final quality assurance review of responses to FOIA and Privacy Act (PA) requests, and develops and monitors FOIA/PA program policies and procedures. Previously, she was a leader at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Information Affairs (OIA), which is responsible for the development of FOIA policies, training, and agency-wide compliance. Prior to her career as a FOIA professional, Camille was a practicing attorney. She is licensed in Maryland and the District of Columbia. She earned her J.D. at The George Washington University Law School and her B.A. at The University of Tampa. Camille served as Director-At-Large for the 2022-2023 ASAP Board of Directors and was the Board’s liaison to the ASAP Education Committee. Camille is a current member of ASAP’s Education Committee and has taught at ASAP’s National Training Conference and FOIA/Privacy Act Training Workshop.
Director Stephanie Carr
Stephanie Carr is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Officer for the Office of Secretary of Defense and Joint Staff, responsible for FOIA processing for over 40 field offices. She has served as the Policy Team Lead and Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) Liaison for the Defense Freedom of Information and Policy Office where she provided FOIA policy guidance to the DoD FOIA community and served as the DoD Liaison for matters involving OGIS. With over 35 years of FOIA experience, she has processed FOIA requests, managed FOIA and FOIA/Privacy programs, worked with the Alternative Dispute Resolution community in developing a DoD Conflict Resolution/Customer Service (CRCS) course for the DoD, managed FOIA/Privacy Act Training Workshops, and taught at the Department of the Navy, DoD, and the American Society of Access Professionals. She also served as a member of the 2016 to 2018 FOIA Federal Advisory Committee and is currently a member of the American Society of Access Professionals Job Analysis Task Force. In 1996, she received a Navy Meritorious Civilian Award for her part in the development of the first FOIA Handbook in the federal government.
Director Toni Fuentes
Toni Fuentes is the Director of Freedom of Information within the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Privacy, Civil Liberties, and Transparency at the Department of Defense. She has previously served in various FOIA positions for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoDIG), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, currently serves on the Board of Directors for the American Society of Access Professionals (ASAP) and participates on the ASAP Education Committee.
Director Michael Heise
Michael Heise grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, went to college and law school in St. Paul, Minnesota (Macalester and Hamline respectively), and was licensed for a time in both Minnesota and Michigan (the latter where he lived for three years while his wife attended the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, MI). Michael has extensive document review experience and began his career in FOIA as a federal contractor with the Department of Energy in Washington, DC.
Michael lives in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, DC. Currently he is an attorney advisor with the EEOC. He began work here in April 2020. Michael processes requests, especially those of potential interest to the Commission, as well as complicated requests with voluminous records that contain material deemed potentially sensitive. He monitors the processing productively agency wide concerning FOIA processing (our field offices process about 90% of EEOC requests) and reports his findings to the Chief FOIA Office on a bi-weekly and monthly basis which he also memorializes in detailed spreadsheets he has created.
Director Marianne Manheim
Marianne Manheim has spent the last eight years as Chief of the FOIA Branch at NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in Bethesda, MD. She oversees an amazing staff of FOIA professionals that process requests for 22 institutes, centers, and offices at NIH. In addition, her office provides privacy and records management oversight for NHLBI. Prior to joining NHLBI, she spent six years as the FOIA Program Manager at the Department of State, where she was responsible for developing and implementing FOIA policies, training, reporting, for continuously evaluating the State Department's FOIA process to make improvements and reduce backlog, and she served as the agency's FOIA Public Liaison. Prior to serving at the Department of State, she worked at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission where she was responsible for privacy, data breach policy, and controlled unclassified information. She first began working with the FOIA at the Peace Corps’ headquarters, where she served as the agency’s FOIA and Privacy Act Officer. Marianne holds a J.D. from Valparaiso University School of Law, a B.A. from the University of Idaho, a pastry arts certification from the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cote d'Ivoire. She’s originally from the New York City area and is always searching for the best bagels. She loves FOIA and working with the public and is always excited to work with ASAP on new initiatives.
Director Ethan Watson
Ethan Watson, I have worked in the City Clerk’s Office for six years now, four years as City Clerk and two years previously as the Deputy City Clerk. Prior to that I worked as an attorney in private practice for seven years representing state entities, counties, and school districts in an array of civil litigation.
Past, Present and Future Contributions/Expertise: It has been a time of immense change in the area of public records requests in New Mexico. When I started in the City Clerk’s Office in 2018, the volume of requests the City was receiving had tripled in three years. In the six years since then, volume has increased by 10 to thirty percent each year. We were receiving six thousand requests per year in 2018, we are on track to receive 16,000 requests this year.
This dramatic change in volume has created many challenges from how to staff this volume, to how to handle increasingly complex requests, to how to address new, novel issues in litigation, to how to manage this challenging area of public policy. In my role, I have been constantly searching for new and better ways to process and manage requests for public records requests specifically and manage public records programs globally. I have engaged with other programs locally and engaged with other state and local programs nationally and implemented many changes to the City’s public records program as a result. My efforts have been recognized locally by the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (NMFOG) with their Dixon Award
and nationally by the International Institute of Municipal Clerk’s with their Program Excellence in Governance (PEGA) award. As I have engaged with other programs, I have found it extremely useful for all to work to create communities of interest and also created a regular quarterly zoom among local records custodians to engage on issues of concern or challenges regarding the processing of requests.
During all this time, I have found the work of the American Society of Access Professionals (ASAP) extremely helpful and inspirational. The organization has a unique focus on the actual processing of requests and the law of FOIA that is unlike any other entity I have found. I would look forward to serving on the board of the organization to facilitate and further engagement with state and local public records and freedom of information programs. ASAP has much to offer these programs.
Director Tammy Wray
Tammy Wray serves as the training director for the Department of Veterans Affairs newly created position as of May 2023. Prior to this role, she served as VASHNS’ Supervisor role to Privacy/FOIA Officer, Records Manger, and Release of Information section supervisor.
Ms. Wray is actively involved in all aspects of FOIA Training to include program strategic planning, organizational assessment, and professional development, she is responsible for over 600 FOIA professionals across the VA enterprise to include our component departments the VHA, NCA, and VBA. Before joining the VA In 2015, Ms. Wray taught Aerospace Science and Leadership after retiring from the United States Air Force where she served as a supervisor and manager in numerous roles from Protocol, Aerospace Science, Occupational Health, and Education and Training.
In 2018 Ms. Wray graduated from Columbia Southern University with a master’s in healthcare administration. In 2014, she completed master’s in emergency management and in 2011, she completed her bachelor’s in criminal justice. She is also a graduate of the 2022 VA Leadership Development Institute and the 2015 Supervisory Course. Ms. Wray also holds certifications in Professional Management, Inspector General’s Course, and the National Society of Leadership and Success.
