Frank Hill

 

Frank Hill has been in and out of politics and government for the past 35 years. He ran for Congress in 1984 at the age of 28 in NC-2 and became chief of staff to former US Congressman Alex McMillan of Charlotte, NC (R-NC-9) for a decade.

During that time, Frank was integrally involved with many Charlotte/Mecklenburg County transportation projects including the widening of Independence Boulevard and the very early stages of planning for the bus transitway that led to the eventual construction of the light-rail system now in operation from South Charlotte to uptown.

He worked with then-City Councilman Pat McCrory on such issues and then later when he went to serve as chief of staff to former US Senator Elizabeth Dole when Pat McCrory was Mayor of Charlotte.  Since Pat has become Governor of North Carolina, Frank has been in several meetings with him and members of his cabinet to discuss issues of importance to North Carolina such as Medicaid Reform which the Governor signed into law last month.

He was appointed Budget Associate on the House Budget Committee where he focused on Medicaid, Medicare and health-related issues. In 1994, he worked on the Entitlement and Tax Reform Commission set up by President Bill Clinton to address the coming tidal wave of entitlement spending.

After Congressman McMillan retired in 1995, Frank worked with The McMillan Group where he lobbied for North Carolina-based concerns such as Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.

In 2002, Frank was asked to help the US Senate campaign of Elizabeth Dole where he served as policy director and on the debate prep team for her debates with former President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, Erskine Bowles. After the campaign, he was asked to serve as her first chief of staff which he did until 2004.

In the US Senate office, Frank was involved with hundreds of special project requests, administrative interventions and grant applications across the state of North Carolina.  Successes ranged from the small such as reprogramming $1.5 million for 3 community colleges in western North Carolina in an omnibus appropriations bill that was passed in the first week of Senator Dole’s term to working on the tobacco quota buyout that was passed in 2004.

After leaving the Dole office, Frank joined the federal government relations team of Capstrat, headquartered in Raleigh where he lobbied for Lenovo, the North Carolina Defense Coalition, Raleigh-Durham Airport, Edenton/Chowan County Economic Development Commission and Tekelec, a major telecommunications switch manufacturer headquartered in the Research Triangle Park.

Tekelec had a $12 million contract for a switching system for the military communications system, DISA but were unable to procure a final invoice for several years for reasons that were unknown to them at the time. Post-9/11, all ‘non-essential’ purchases had been put on hold at the Pentagon and Tekelec’s contract had been placed in that category. Within 1 month, Frank had set up a meeting with the Assistant Secretary of Information Technology at DOD through Frank’s contacts with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s chief counsel where the Tekelec President and chief procurement officer made their case to the Assistant Secretary that their switch system, while serving as a backup to the first line of switches in the world communications wireless network administered by DISA, we ‘essential’ simply because of their sensitive nature and the fact that 1 billion communications per day were being transmitted on that network in the sky.

Tekelec received their purchase order the next week and closed the deal.

Since 2010, Frank has been the director of The Institute for the Public Trust in Raleigh, North Carolina which recruits and trains top-flight new candidates to run for public office. Over 520 people have been trained ranging from retired rear admirals and Air Force generals to CEOs/CFOs to leadership scholars such as Morehead-Cain and Robertson Scholars from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to Park Scholars at NC State University to honors and other leadership students on the campuses of Duke University, NC A&T University, Davidson College, Wake Forest University, East Carolina University, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a year-long seminar at The Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

He also is consulting with firms at the North Carolina General Assembly including Centene and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.