With a background in nursing and experience in public policy as director of field services and programs for the National Student Nurses Association, California native Shelia Burke first came to Washington, D.C., in 1977 as a health policy specialist for Republican senator Bob Dole. Burke soon moved to the Senate Finance Committee where she worked by day as Dole’s top staffer and by night at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government earning a master’s degree in public administration. When Dole became Senate Republican leader in 1985, Burke became his deputy chief of staff and then moved into the chief of staff position in 1986. In 1995, while still serving as chief of staff, Burke agreed to serve as secretary of the Senate until Dole could find a permanent replacement. Her short term as secretary was punctuated by the debut of www.senate.gov, the Senate’s first website. Burke left the Senate in 1996 and became deputy secretary and chief operating officer of the Smithsonian Institution.
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