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Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, few things are harder in this job than when you have to say goodbye to a member of your team. With all of the time we spend together, it is impossible not to grow close to the men and women who make up that team. The team members become our colleagues, our friends, our families.

I am here on the floor today to recognize and bid farewell to a valued and integral member of my Senate family who, after more than 5 years, is leaving to start the next chapter of her career. She is my State communications director, Sara Hottman.

During her time on Team Merkley, Sara has not only helped communicate my message to the people back home in Oregon about the work I am doing on their behalf here in DC, but she has used her well-connected ear to the ground to help keep me in the loop on issues evolving back home.

I have come to depend on her to keep me on the right track. She never shies away from delivering hard truths when they are needed. She has used her vast experience in all different facets of the communications world--as a reporter, as the communications director for a municipality, as head of strategic communications for the Oregon Zoo-- to help deliver our message to the people of the State. It doesn't hurt that in her spare time, Sara is a prolific kickboxer. So when she tells me something, I listen. She has been a real leader in our team, including participation in our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Steering Committee.

She has done an amazing job time and time again putting together State events. We have traveled all across our sizable State for events that included press conferences to announce policies; press conferences to hear from stakeholders in our State--for example, roundtables with nurses and medical professionals who are on the frontlines fighting the pandemic. Our events included townhalls--a gathering with community leaders in every county every year, followed by a public townhall with people who will ask any question they want. Our events included tours of State disasters. She expertly organized every event, ensuring media exposure and successfully striving to bring together a wide variety of expert and local voices to ensure that I was always learning more insights and perspectives on the issues that face us.

At the end of the day, as we prepared to overnight somewhere around the State in preparation for another long day, she always knew the perfect local watering hole for the team to post up at to reminisce on how things had gone and to recover in preparation for the day that followed.

When something went off the rails unexpectedly, she found a way to turn it into an opportunity. When I was surveying damage to a town incinerated by the 2020 Labor Day fires, I became so immersed in examining the fire damage that the rest of the delegation went on to the next event, and suddenly I realized we were left behind. She didn't miss a beat. She used that time to gather more local community members who had been so impacted by the devastation of losing their homes. She managed to find a reporter who had also been left behind and arranged an impromptu one-on-one exclusive. So I utilized that opportunity to learn more and to communicate more when it could have just been a misstep. Well, that is what she does--turns missteps into opportunities.

Cool and calm under pressure, she has a way of making everyone feel important and seen. She connects with folks everywhere she goes.

I was thinking back to one townhall we did in early 2020 before the pandemic hit and shut things down. It was a small gathering in a classroom of a local school, but in that group was a young girl who was simply entranced by Sara. Throughout the townhall, she was following her around, imitating when Sara would take photos and asking questions of Sara even though the townhall was underway. Sara, being the person she is, kept answering those questions, kept letting the girl shadow her, still managing to get all of her work done while also inspiring this admirer. That is kind of just the charming ability to connect with folks and to stay calm in unexpected situations that have made traveling around the State long, busy travel days a real joy for the entire team.

When the pandemic turned our world upside down in March of last year, she used her leadership and organizing skills to help me and the entire team transition to the new virtual world we were suddenly thrown into. She turned our townhalls and our weekly sessions of local Oregon reporters and television stations into virtual events so I could continue to provide information and connect with constituents during this extraordinary national crisis. She led the charge in updating our website to provide a one-stop shop of resources for residents and local businesses for information on how to get the help they needed.

To say that Sara will leave a large hole in our team when she heads off to her new responsibilities would be an understatement. Every member of our office, whether in Washington, DC, or back home in Oregon, is going to miss her bright smile, her sharp wit, her infectious energy, and her brilliant mind--not to mention that we will also miss her border collie, Liz, who has been a therapy dog for all of us.

Sara, if you are watching, and I hope you are, know that we all, the extended Team Merkley family, wish you well in the next phase of your career. Thank you for all you have done these past 5-plus years, and thank you for all you will continue to do to help build a better world for the people of Oregon and the people of our Nation.

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