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- Kirk Fordham serves as Senior Director of Member and Board Relations for the National Association of Manufacturers. Fordham spent 18 years working on Capitol Hill and later worked for several philanthropists on a range of conservation, civil rights, and gun violence prevention public affairs campaigns. Among them, he served as the Executive Director of Gill Action, a Denver-based political and advocacy organization leading efforts to ensure equality for LGBT individuals and their families. Fordham led efforts to fund state-based campaigns to legalize same-sex marriage in the United States, cultivating and expanding a network of major donors organized at Gill Action's invitation-only, Political OutGiving conferences. Previously, Fordham served as CEO of the Miami-based Everglades Foundation. A wide range of prominent businesspeople serve on the Board of Directors of the Foundation, including hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones, recording artist Jimmy Buffett, golfer Jack Nicklaus, and retailer-newspaper publisher Marshall Field. At the Everglades Foundation, Fordham has overseen the organization's efforts to advance a wide range of massive restoration projects to protect the greater Everglades ecosystem and the water supply for most of South Florida.[1]. Fordham has led lobbying efforts in Tallahassee and Washington, DC to secure funding for the multi-decade restoration initiative that is important to the Florida business community, including large tourism, boating and recreational and fishing industries. Everglades restoration has broad public support in Florida among both political parties, according to a number of public opinion surveys. Fordham, working with a number of conservation and business groups, played a prominent role advocating for the acquisition of over 26,000 acres of sugar cane fields from U.S. Sugar Corporation after Governor Charlie Crist proposed a complete buyout of the corporation. The land will be used to treat pollution-laden water that flows from the agricultural fields into the Everglades, according to Fordham and other state officials. [2] [3] In recent years, a number of large restoration projects have broken ground after being funded by both the Army Corps of Engineers and the state of Florida. [4] Prior to his work at the Everglades Foundation, he served on the staff of various U.S. Republican Party politicians. Fordham was largely unknown outside of Florida and Washington until he was confronted with the fallout from the Mark Foley scandal. Fordham had worked for Foley, as his chief of staff and campaign manager from 1995 to 2004. Later, he served as chief of staff to U.S. Representative Thomas M. Reynolds (R-NY), who, in 2006, was also the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. (en)
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