Michelle Mrdeza

hen the Appropriations committees reshuffled the jurisdictions of their 13 subcommittees last year to create a panel to fund the Homeland Security Department, leaders knew they were in for a difficult year.

So House Appropriations Committee Majority Staff Director James Dyer gave careful thought to filling the post of Homeland Security clerk (the equivalent of staff director). Dyer said he chose Michelle Mrdeza, who had been clerk of the Treasury-Postal Subcommittee since 1995, because "she has all of the assets you would want in a person" who is heading an important new subcommittee. Mrdeza is well-known on the Hill and in the administration as an intense, hard-working, and no-nonsense staffer.

And a year later, Dyer said, it's clear he made the right choice. "The proof is in the pudding," he declared. "They produced legislation over there. They did it early; they did it right-and they kept all of the pork and earmarks out of it. We gave them a little extra money [in the subcommittee spending allocation], and they spent it well. I thought they did a great job."

Spearheading that effort behind the scenes was the 46-year-old Mrdeza. A native of Brussels, Mrdeza graduated from the University of Virginia and earned a master's degree in public administration from George Washington University. She worked for the Office of Management and Budget before joining the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee in 1985 as an education specialist.

In 1992 she went to work for the House Appropriations Committee, and became one of three women to serve as clerk of an Appropriations subcommittee after Republicans took the House majority in 1995. On the Homeland Security Subcommittee, she works for Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the panel.