Archives for February 2022

David Morriss is a native of Elizabethton, Tennessee.  He is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Class of 1979, and spent the first five years of his Navy career as a surface warfare officer.  After serving as the Supporting Arms Coordinator for the U.S. Marines in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983 at the time of the Marine Barracks bombing, he was accepted to the University of Virginia School of Law under the Navy’s law education program.  He graduated in 1987 with a Juris Doctors degree and was assigned to Charleston, South Carolina, prosecuting and defending courts-martial and providing legal advice to Navy commanders.  In 1990, he was selected to become the Assistant Special Counsel to the Chief of Naval Operations in the Pentagon.  In 1992, Morriss was assigned to the Administrative Law Division in the Office of the Navy Judge Advocate General and in 1994 he was admitted to Harvard Law School to pursue a Masters in Law focusing on international and environmental law.  Following graduation in 1995, Morriss was assigned as the Fleet and Force Judge Advocate for the U.S. Fifth Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command headquartered in Manama, Bahrain.

In 1997, he returned to the United States to serve in the Navy’s Office of Legislative Affairs.  Morriss was selected for and assumed command of Naval Legal Services Office, North Central in Washington, DC in 2000.  In late 2001, he became the Legal and Legislative Counsel to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations and in 2003 he returned to the Navy’s Office of Legislative Affairs as the Director of Legislation.  Morriss retired from the Navy in 2005 as a Captain after 26 years of commissioned service and immediately joined the Senate Armed Services Committee staff under its Chairman John Warner.  In 2007, Morriss was selected to become the Minority General Counsel for Senator John McCain.  In 2011, Morriss became the Minority Staff Director.  In 2012, Morriss left the Senate for the private sector and joined General Dynamics.

Morriss joined the Boy Scouts in 1968.  He attended the 1969 National Boy Scout Jamboree, went to Philmont in 1972, and became an Eagle Scout that year.  He served as Senior Patrol Leader for his troop at the National Jamboree in 1973.  He is a member of the Order of the Arrow.  His son, Graham, is also an Eagle Scout.

Congratulations to David and his fellow 2022 NOESA Honorees! Please join us on March 23, 2022 at Army Navy Country Club for a celebration honoring the 2022 NOESA recipients. For more information visit, www.ncacbsa.org/noesa/.

Charles Allen is focused on building a Ward 6 with great schools at every level and a neighborhood you can always call home.

Charles Allen, his wife, Jordi Hutchinson, and their children, Cora Neal and Everett, live at 15th and D Streets, NE.

For over a decade, Charles has worked in Ward 6 neighborhoods, helping bring about school reforms, working with small businesses, and improving our community. His years of public service to Ward 6 mean he knows and understands our neighborhood issues like no one else.

What makes our neighborhoods so special is that people choose to make Ward 6 home, whether for five generations or just in the last five years – because our neighborhoods are an extension of our front steps. Ward 6 shares a vision of great schools we can walk to, thriving local businesses that know us by name, parks and playgrounds for our families, and safe streets for all. But we must ensure all our neighborhoods have these amenities, while protecting everyone’s ability to live, work, and raise a family in our community.

Charles began his career in the District as a graduate fellow with the federal Department of Health and Human Services, working on expanding community-based health options across the nation. Charles quickly understood that to make true change he needed to return to his roots working at the local and community level, so he began his service to the District as policy director for the DC Primary Care Association, where he helped bring about legislative, budget, and policy changes that expanded health care options for almost every DC resident. Two of his signature efforts – bringing physicians, dentists, nurses and other healthcare providers to medically underserved communities and creating a District-owned captive insurance company to provide free and low-cost medical malpractice insurance to non-profit providers – remain a vital part of the city’s health care safety net a decade after he helped create them.

At the same time, Charles helped found DC for Democracy and served as Chair of the organization to bring a needed voice for progressive priorities and social justice issues facing the city. These experiences led Charles to become an elected delegate for the District at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, elected President of the Ward 6 Democrats, and serve as Chief of Staff to then-Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells.

Charles graduated from Washington and Lee University and he holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. 

Congratulations to Charles and his fellow 2022 NOESA Honorees! Please join us on March 23, 2022 at Army Navy Country Club for a celebration honoring the 2022 NOESA recipients. For more information visit, www.ncacbsa.org/noesa/.