Lobbying World

• Barrett Kaiser has joined Hilltop Public Solutions as a principal and director of Western operations. He spent 11 years working for Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), most recently as his Montana chief of staff. Kaiser also worked as Baucus’s communications director and on his 2002 and 2008 reelection campaigns.

{mosads}• Dick Thompson has joined Patton Boggs as senior counsel in its Washington office. He was senior vice president for policy and government affairs at Bristol-Myers Squibb and was head of the company’s Washington office for 26 years. He also worked on Capitol Hill, spending three years as Republican staff director and chief counsel to what is now known as the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

• Steven Duffield is starting a new public-affairs firm, Endgame Strategies. He is a former policy director and counsel for Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). Duffield also was the executive director of the 2008 Republican platform committee and a corporate litigator at Mayer Brown.

• Peter S. Rashish has been named the new vice president for Europe and Eurasia for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Before coming to the Chamber, he worked as a senior adviser for Europe at McLarty Associates. Rashish has also worked as an executive vice president of the European Institute.

• Rosemary Becchi has been hired by Patton Boggs as a partner in the firm’s Washington office. She has worked for the IRS in its office of chief counsel and also once was counsel to the Senate Finance Committee. Before coming to the firm, Becchi founded and ran her own consulting firm.

• Valerie Carter has joined Ricochet Public Relations Inc. as vice president of its Washington public-affairs practice. She began her career at Merck & Co. Inc., where she helped manage the company’s grassroots programs, political action committee and congressional education and outreach initiatives. She also worked at the Project Management Institute.