Suzanne Hammelman

With over 30 years of hands-on experience creating and managing research-based communications programs for candidates, campaigns, corporations, and associations, Ms. Hammelman works with clients to find creative, cost-effective solutions to their internal and external communications problems. She is a recognized expert at developing precisely targeted grassroots campaigns that identify and activate unexpected sources of support and utilize effective, non-traditional methods to change opinion and actions.

Hammelman manages successful programs for several of Hawthorn’s largest corporate and association clients. She created and managed a multi-million dollar national grassroots organization that successfully moved public opinion and positively impacted public policy decisions at the local, state and federal levels. Hammelman has created and implemented successful external communications programs for heavily regulated industries. She was recently involved in a stunning overturn victory in a ballot initiative campaign, and has managed a multi-year campaign on a product recycling issue that has resulted in 26 states to date passing model legislation or some alternative acceptable to the corporation.

As head of her own public affairs firm for seven years, Hammelman worked as a fundraising, marketing and grassroots consultant for trade associations, Political Action Committees (PACs), corporations and Democratic candidates.

Previously, she served as Director of Political Affairs for the National Association of Home Builders, where she developed their nationally recognized political action and grassroots programs and built their PAC into one of the largest corporate/association PACs in the country.

She later served as Vice President of The Keefe Company, a public affairs firm in Washington. She also established the government affairs office for the American Cancer Society and served as a Staff Assistant to Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana.

A native of southern Indiana, Hammelman spent two years at Hanover College in Indiana before graduating from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She and her husband Paul Bailey live in Falls Church, Virginia and also maintain a residence in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.