Congressman Don Beyer has chosen former Arlington School Board member Noah Simon as his District Office Director.
Simon was elected as an Arlington School Board member in 2012 but resigned in 2014 to focus on his children after the passing of his wife, Kedron, who battled intestinal cancer for 15 months.
Simon will be taking over for Susie Warner, who was district director for former Rep. Jim Moran (and then for Beyer) since 1990. Warner is retiring as of Wednesday, June 1.
“We really looked hard for someone who was deeply embedded in the community,” said Beyer. “It’s tough to bring in someone who doesn’t know too much about the community, so finding Noah was like a godsend.”
Simon says he resigned from the School Board to care for his two kids.
“My schedule wasn’t fair to my kids who were 8 and 10 at the time,” said Simon. With his children now a bit older, Simon decided it was time to re-enter the workforce and, given his continued community involvement, he found a natural fit with Beyer’s office.
“Everyone that I have talked to since the news has come out about how he is going to start as our District Office Director has been full of praise, so I am really looking forward to working with him,” said Beyer.
(In the intervening years, Simon remained active in the community. He is currently the PTA president at Swanson Middle School, vice chair of the Dream Project board and a board member of Doorways for Women and Families.)
A district director typically handles specific constituent requests, for help with Social Security, pensions, visas, immigration or other issues.
Simon will be busy: so far in 2016, Beyer’s office has opened 546 individual constituent service cases. For all of last year, the office handled 1,179 cases.
“Constituent service is most enjoyable for me.” Simon said. “I am very interested in conflict resolution, so my skills will transfer well. I am not coming in to fix broken things, because nothing is broken, I plan to keep things going.”