Meet John Breyault – National Consumers League

by John Breyault, NCL VP, Public Policy Telecommunications and Fraud

Hello to you all, fellow Savvy Consumer Blog readers! I’m the “new guy” here at the National Consumers League. At NCL, I’ll be coordinating the League’s policy activities and managing the National Consumers League’s Fraud Center and the Alliance Against Fraud coalition in my position as Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications, and Fraud.

While I’m new to the position, I have been a fan of NCL for many years through my work as Research Director of the non-profit Telecommunications Research and Action Center (TRAC). In my five years at TRAC, I educated and advocated on behalf of residential and small business consumers of communications services. As such, I became well-versed in all things related to telecom and broadband policy, where I developed an intense love-hate relationship with the minutiae of tariff sheets, ex parte filings, and – yes – even EULA’s.

Concurrent with my role at TRAC, I was also Director, Research at Amplify Public Affairs where I helped launch one of the public affairs industry’s first blogger relations practices (which should serve me well with this blog!). I also designed and implemented issue campaigns using online social networks such as MySpace and Facebook and even virtual worlds like Second Life.

I’m very excited to be joining the League at this important moment in its history. With a new Administration set to take office, the next few months will be a critical time to help shape the future of consumer-friendly policies in Washington. The old saying “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” holds true in policy work as well. Relationships with the new occupants of the White House will be forged. New Members of Congress and agency officials will need to be educated to make sure that the 111th Congress keeps the interests of consumers in mind. In short, the next few months are full of possibilities for the League and I’m proud to have this opportunity be a part of it.

Going forward, I’m looking forward to keeping up a regular posting schedule to keep everyone up to date on the League’s policy activities here in Washington. I’ll also be discussing some of the important consumer news that never seems to make it into the newspapers and evening news. Please do feel free to post comments or drop me a line directly at johnb@nclnet.org.