30 Minutes On... from American magazine 30 Minutes On... from American magazine

Mitchell Kannry, a 2005 graduate of the School of Public Affairs, is constantly “beating the drum of fire safety,” he says. It’s part of his team’s job—along with fire investigations, fire inspections, code changes, and policy. Since late 2020, he’s been the DC fire marshal, the latest and highest position in a DC Fire career that began 18 years ago, while he was still an undergraduate student at AU. In September, Kannry joined 30 Minutes On… to discuss his career with DC Fire from firehouses to fire inspection, his last couple years as DC’s fire marshal, and how you and your family can make a fire plan this winter.

Karen Leetzow’s, WCL/JD ’91, three-decade legal career was jumpstarted by her talented work in trademark and intellectual property law. It has grown thanks to her ability to nimbly jump between legal topics—from antitrust to labor to sponsorship—at a moment’s notice. But underneath that success is a foundation forged through relationships. In summer 2020, she joined the United States Soccer Federation as its chief legal officer and was tasked with mending an important one with US Women’s National Team players; an opportunity to head US Soccer’s legal department “really spoke to me in terms of how fractured the relationships were.” Over the next two years, she and her legal team helped pick up the pieces. In February, they settled a gender discrimination lawsuit with members of the women’s national team, and in May, they finalized collective bargaining agreements with the men’s and women’s national team players associations that secured equal pay, a first in international soccer. In June, Leetzow joined the 30 Minutes On podcast to discuss the recent legal breakthrough and the lessons she’s learned in law. 

View a full transcript of the episode on our website: https://www.american.edu/magazine/

From the archives (originally published March 2020): Saif Shahin, SOC professor and Internet Governance Lab faculty fellow, researches the links that bind and build online communities, including those founded on hateful beliefs. In a recent paper, “White Twitter: Tracing the Evolution of the Alt-Right in Retweets,” Shahin dug into nine years’ worth of retweets to understand the transformation of White Nationalism on social media ahead of the 2016 election. Shahin sat down with American as the inaugural guest on the 30 Minutes On podcast to recap his research and expand on the past, present, and future of social media dynamics.

In 2017, School of Public Affairs alumnus Jeff Perkins joined ParkMobile, first as its chief marketing officer. He was then named CEO of the Atlanta-based company in July. Since, it’s been all park and little recreation for Perkins and the nation’s leading mobile parking technology provider. ParkMobile continues to add to its 558 locations across 42 states and DC. It eclipsed the 30 million customer threshold in December, and it adds another million customers every 30 days. And in September, Perkins published his first book, How Not to Suck at Marketing.

Perkins joined the podcast in December and reflected on his path in marketing and his company’s efforts to manage present day growth while contemplating the future of transportation. ParkMobile continues to think outside the lines while we just try to stay within them.

In fall 2019, Darianne De Leon, WCL/JD ’20, took a full slate of 3L classes, worked in the pro bono department of a DC law firm, and—if that wasn’t enough—waited on pins and needles for what she hoped would be a timely resolution to her immigration case.

With the help of the Defending the AU Dream Initiative—a WCL immigration law clinic that provides free legal services to members of the AU community—she eventually got her day in immigration court. And she won.

De Leon joined the 30 Minutes On… podcast in August to reflect on her time working with AU Dream—an immigration law clinic by and for Eagles—and what we can all take away from her monthslong ordeal.

A wide-ranging career in environmental protection has prepared Ramón Cruz, SIS/BA '98, for his latest challenge: president of the Sierra Club, a role he assumed in May 2020. Over the last year, the 128-year-old, grassroots environmental organization’s first Latino president has been tasked with virtually preserving the spirit and mission of a Sierra Club that often does its best work in the great outdoors.

Cruz joined the 30 Minutes On . . . podcast in late December to walk us through the Sierra Club’s 2020, his career in environmental policy, and the parallels between environmental and racial injustice.