In case you missed it this week, The NC Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to the Co-Chairs of the Common Core Academic Standards Review Commission pushing for a Florida-like rebrand.

Co-Chair Tammy Covil replied, which prompted the NC Chamber’s Gary Salamido to play the game of trying to get the last word in by sending another letter. The second letter was a case study in condescending tunnel-vision.

Well, I took a look at the FOIA for the first letter again. It was not sent directly by Gary Salamido, but instead by a professional lobbyist name Andrew Meehan.

 The email came from an email account at “Meehan Strategy”, yet Meehan signed it at the bottom with the moniker, “Hire Standards, NC”.   “Hire Standards” is the coalition set up by the NC Chamber’s education foundation to push Common Core.

It looks like the NC Chamber is using a political/public relations strategy group to do their bidding.

Some Quick Facts About Mr. Meehan

He was a professional lobbyist for Captrat for a number of years. Records indicate he was terminated in 2014, which coincides with the formation of Meehan Strategy according to Meehan’s LinkedIn profile.
Clients included Common Core testing giant, Pearson and Bill Gates foundation backed NC New Schools. View Meehan’s Lobbyist Record with NC Secretary of State.

Meehan was paid well. The most recent “zero principal” filings in 2014 located at the NC Secretary of State showed that Meehan made $84,000 as a Pearson lobbyist via Capstrat, along with colleagues John Peterson and Anna Marshall Wilson.

Meehan and his ‘strategy’ company are also listed in BEST NC’s “2020 Vision Initiative” as a “Stakeholder participant”.  Read more about who is involved in BEST NC’s ‘initiative‘.