Ex-Seneca Gaming exec adds D.C. work

Buffalo Business First
by James Fink

Barry Brandon, a former top ranking official with Seneca Gaming Corp., has landed a new firm that takes him back to Washington — but for work only.

Brandon has joined the staff of C2 Group, a Washington-based bipartisan government affairs consulting firm. The move comes not long after Brandon was named of counsel to the Buffalo law firm of Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman LLP and he still remains a private-sector consultant to the gaming industry.

Brandon and Galen Reser, a former Pepsi Co. vice president, joined the C2 staff as partners.

“We are excited to combine Barry’s policy expertise and Galen’s Washington know-how with our existing base,” said Tom Crawford, C2 Group co-founder.

Even with his appointment, Brandon said he is remaining a Clarence resident and keeping his seat as an Erie County Industrial Development Agency director.

“No, I’m not moving away from Buffalo and Clarence,” Brandon said. “What this does is give me an opportunity to do business with people I trust and have done business with for a long time.”

Brandon said his relationship with C2 will be similar to that he has with Lippes Mathias Wexler and Friedman.

“It is very much client-driven,” Brandon said. “I’ll be there (in Washington) as often as they need me. It could be a couple days a month. It might be more than that, it depends.”

For Brandon, the C2 position is a chance to work in the Washington market. A former partner with Washington’s Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld law firm, Brandon was recruited in 2004 to serve as Seneca Gaming’s senior vice president and general counsel. He left Seneca Gaming nearly three years ago.

At Akin Gump, among other things, Brandon helped with the legal process to create Seneca Gaming. Brandon had formed the firm’s American Indian Law and Policy Practice Group.

Brandon also served as general counsel and chief of staff at the National Indian Gaming Commission and was a senior trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice and an advisor in the Department of the Interior’s Secretary Office.

“This gives me a chance to re-connect with some of my Washington contacts,” Brandon said.

Brandon is an enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Indian nation and an adopted member of the Seneca Nation of Indians. He received his undergraduate degree in political science at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash. and his law degree from the University of Washington in Seattle.

To view original story http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2011/03/01/ecida-member-lives-here-works-in-dc.html