Washington - Oct 24, 2011 - NAB Senior Vice President of Government Relations Kelly Cole has been promoted to executive vice president, where she will oversee all advocacy efforts of the department. In addition, Curtis LeGeyt, senior counsel to Sen. Patrick Leahy's Senate Judiciary Committee, will join the NAB on Nov. 1 as senior vice president and legislative counsel in the NAB's Government Relations department, where he will report to Cole.

Cole joined the NAB in 2006 after serving six years as telecommunications counsel to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where she was an advisor on legal and policy issues relating to communications and the Internet. During her tenure she was responsible for negotiating and drafting key communications laws, including digital television transition legislation. Prior to her work with the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Cole was an associate with the Washington, DC, law firm Preston Gates Ellis and Rouvelas Meeds, which is now K&L Gates.

Cole, who comes from Oregon and California, is a member of the state bars of the District of Columbia, Oregon and Washington state. She received her J.D. in 1996 from Willamette University College of Law, her B.A. from Mills College, and spent a year studying law at the London School of Economics.

LeGeyt joins the NAB after serving on the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee since 2009 as counsel to Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and then as senior counsel. In that capacity, he advised the committee on a wide range of topics that included intellectual property, antitrust, and First Amendment issues impacting high tech, telecommunications and the entertainment industry.

Prior to joining the Senate Judiciary Committee, LeGeyt was an antitrust/litigation associate with the Howrey firm in Washington, DC, from 2005-2009. He also served as a staff lawyer on the Obama for America campaign in 2008. He is a graduate of Cornell Law School and has a B.A. in Quantitative Economics from Providence College. LeGeyt is a member of the state bars of Washington, DC, and Massachusetts.