Thune names staff members

| Friday, November 19, 2004

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WASHINGTON — Sen.-elect John Thune, R-S.D., on Thursday named three members who will lead the transition to his Senate offices in Washington and in South Dakota. 

Thune appointed Matt Zabel, originally from Selby, as his chief of staff; Ryan Nelson, originally from Gettysburg, as his state director; and Summer Pitlick, an Onida native, as his administrative director.

"I am pleased to announce that these three South Dakota natives have agreed to work toward the goals we laid out during the campaign," Thune said in a news release. "The tough work has only just begun, and these three individuals will lead a team that will make things happen."

Zabel currently serves as deputy associate attorney general and chief of staff to the associate attorney general with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. From 1997 to 2002, Zabel served as a trial attorney at the Justice Department before returning to South Dakota to work as an organizer for the Republican Party during the 2002 election. Since 1998, Zabel has also been an adjunct professor at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Va.

After graduating from Selby High School in 1986 and the University of South Dakota in 1990, Zabel worked as a legislative assistant for then-Sen. Larry Pressler, R-S.D., in his Washington office. He then attended the University of Bristol, England, where he received a master's degree in international relations. After graduating in 1996 from Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, where he served as editor in chief of the Northwestern University Law Review, he was a federal judicial law clerk for the U.S. District Court in Sioux Falls.

After graduating from Gettysburg High School in 1991 and Tabor College in 1995, Nelson served as a campaign aide to Thune during his 1996 election to the U.S. House. From 1997-1998, he worked as a legislative aide to Thune in Washington. From 1998 to 2002 and again in 2004, Nelson served as Thune's political director in South Dakota. Nelson lives in Sioux Falls with his wife, Carmen, and two sons.

Pitlick, a 1995 graduate of Sully Buttes High School and a 1999 graduate of the University of Minnesota, worked for Rep. Thune in 1999 as a staff assistant and as his executive assistant from 1999-2002.