Capitol Faces: Brandi McBride Lowell

Position: Deputy chief of staff and legislative director to Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.)
Age: 29
Hometown: Franklin, Tenn.
Marital status/children: Married to Michael Lowell, who also works on Capitol Hill under House Administration Committee Chairman Robert Brady (D-Pa.)
Last job: Legislative director to Rep. Davis; recently promoted to deputy chief of staff
First job: Staff assistant to former Rep. Bob Clement (D-Tenn.); has been on the Hill since May 2001
Most unusual job: “Moonlighting at a local watering hole during my days as a poor staff assistant.”
Number of cups of coffee you drink per day: One to two
Religion: Presbyterian
Favorite political TV show or movie: “The Colbert Report”
Most inspirational figure: Former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia. “How any man who lost three limbs in a war fighting for his country can be accused of being ‘unpatriotic,’ watch his credibility and devotion to his country be falsely attacked, and yet still believe in the ‘system’ and continue to give of himself is extraordinary.”
Dream job (not including this one): “I’d love a job with the Travel Channel or Food Network, getting paid to roam the world and eat.”
College: University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Graduate school: Not yet, but would very much like to
Passion outside work: “Traveling and doing anything outdoors, especially running.”
Claim to fame: “Spent a night with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page [of Led Zeppelin] on Beale Street in Memphis after a show. Greatest night of my life.”

Brandi McBride Lowell learned the law of supply and demand in third grade. She remembers her parents, both of whom worked for Fortune 500 companies, lecturing her on it in the kitchen. In high school, she avidly watched the news, fascinated by the world outside of Franklin, Tenn., where she grew up.

“It was nerdy of me,” Lowell said of her news-watching, an early sign she was someday headed for the nation’s capital. Visiting the city as a college student, she says, sealed her fate.

“I thought, ‘This is it. This is the power center,’ ” she remembers. Lowell, a student at University of Tennessee at Knoxville, was attending a leadership exchange seminar with D.C.-area students at Georgetown University.

She connected with her boss, Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), when he visited the office of then-Rep. Bob Clement (D-Tenn.), her former boss. It was Davis’s fiscal policies that interested Lowell, since economics and finance were among her passions. Like the congressman, she supports balanced budgets and pay-go, a term used in Congress meaning the government must have the money before it spends.

For now, Lowell is working happily behind the scenes. She says running for office occasions too much public scrutiny.

When Lowell is not at work, she can be found running. She is training for the Marine Corps Marathon and hopes to maintain a race pace of nine minutes per mile.