Projo Politics Blog

Senator-elect Sheldon Whitehouse has announced four top staffers as he prepares the transition to Washington in the coming weeks.

Whitehouse, who ousted the Republican incumbent Sen. Lincoln Chafee in November, will be sworn into office in early January.

His campaign manager, Mindy Myers, will serve as chief of staff. Myers, a Pennsylvania native, worked in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs under the Clinton administration and later worked with the Senate's top Democrat Tom Daschle.

Laura Petrou, who worked in Daschle's office for 20 years, will serve as Whitehouse's senior adviser. The North Carolina native most recently served as Daschle's chief of staff in his personal office.

Whitehouse today also named two people who will work primarily in his Rhode Island office. His state director will be George Carvalho, who most recently worked as deputy treasurer and chief of staff to Rhode Island Treasurer Paul Tavares.

Carvalho is a Pawtucket native who still sits on the Pawtucket Board of Appeals and on the board of the Pawtucket Boys’ and Girls’ Club. He graduated from Roger Williams University and holds a law degree from the Detroit College of Law.

Whitehouse's deputy campaign manager, Tony Simon, will serve as the deputy state director. A Johnston native, Simon most recently worked for John Kerry’s presidential bid holding various positions in Iowa, Michigan, and Florida. He attended the University of Rhode Island.

Whitehouse said today that he will temporarily use a downtown Providence office at 170 Westminster St., Suite 1100. If that sounds familiar, it should. That is the soon-to-be-former office of Chafee's Rhode Island staff.

-- projo.com staff writer Steve Peoples

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