Inside the Office of Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.): Carrie S. Kohns

Title: Chief of staff

Age: 42

Hometown: Huntington Beach, Calif., but grew up in D.C.

{mosads}Education: B.A., communications, California State University, Fullerton

Last job: Chief of staff, District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty (D)

Best thing about being chief of staff: I love being involved in all aspects of an operation so I can help guide the right outcome and keep the trains running on time. Some people may call that nosey. I like to think I’m a problem-solver!

Management style: I’d compare an organization to a play, with everyone bringing something important to the script. My role is to be the director, to help everyone play their part in the best possible way. And it doesn’t hurt to be surrounded by bright, smart people to bring the entire production together.

Most embarrassing moment on Capitol Hill: Waiting in a pretty long line to take a picture with Bruiser from “Legally Blonde 2” at Pet Night. (I’m pretty sure I’d do it again.)

Interests outside of work:  Traveling, trying new restaurants and the Redskins (RIP this season).

Carrie Kohns unknowingly got one of her biggest professional breaks as a high school student scooping ice cream at a shop in Cleveland Park. One of her co-workers was Adrian Fenty, future Washington mayor.

Once Fenty won his election, he tapped his former ice cream buddy to be his communications director. Two years into his administration, he appointed Kohns his chief of staff.

But between high school and the present day, Kohns went off to California, where she eschewed her heritage as the daughter of two Washington-based activists for the homeless to work in investor relations for a Fortune 100 company. It’s not that she didn’t want to follow in her parents’ footsteps; she just wanted to gain experience any way she could.

That outlook landed her in several unique jobs, from the municipal government of Anaheim, Calif., to the district office of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.).

When Sanchez asked Kohns to return to her hometown of Washington to run Sanchez’s Capitol Hill office, she agreed — reluctantly.

“I lived a block away from Laguna Beach,” she laments.

She joined the Fenty administration just as the Democrats were returning to power on Capitol Hill. And now, as Rep. Karen Bass’s (D-Calif.) chief of staff, she returned when they lost it.

“For me, it feels exactly the same,” Kohns says of her return to Congress. “I don’t know what I missed because I wasn’t here.”

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