Melanie Lehnhardt

Melanie Lehnhardt is an Arizona girl at heart. She keeps a cactus in her office and only waters it the handful of days each year that it rains in her home state.

Lehnhardt, who works on policy for GOP Sen. Jeff Flake, came straight to Flake’s office last year after graduating from Arizona State University.

“It’s the cliché ‘dry heat,’ ” she says. “I didn’t even know that I had curly hair until I moved here, because it’s never humid in Arizona.”

Lehnhardt is still getting used to parts of D.C., such as its standards for dark, professional clothing and absence of a Cardinals fan bar.

On the plus side, she says, her background gives her a unique perspective on Arizona’s public lands.

“I grew up hiking the Grand Canyon, and now I get to work on the policy issues affecting whether it gets a national monument.”

— Timothy Cama