noesa

Matt Jones earned his Eagle in the National Capital Area Council in 1990 when he was a member of Troop 654 based in Mt. Vernon, VA.

Matt currently serves as an owner, and President and Chief Executive Officer of Leading Authorities, Inc. (“LAI”) a privately held company in Washington, DC that represents notable figures for speaking and literary representation, helps organizations design and produce events, and works with companies in need of creative video production. Jones joined the firm in 1997 and has overseen the firm’s growth to more than 10x its size in his tenure. Today, LAI is one of the top companies of its kind in the industry, employing almost 100 people and managing to succeed throughout the last few years despite the decline of in-person events.

Matt exemplifies the spirit and commitment of an Eagle Scout, not only as a successful businessperson, but as someone who supports and gives back to the community and assists those less fortunate and in need.

While enjoying success as a company, Matt and LAI have also supported the National Capital Area Council for over 10 years by helping to produce fundraising events, donating services, and producing videos highlighting scouting achievements in the region.

In addition to supporting the Boy Scouts of America, Matt and LAI have actively supported MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital, SOME – So Others Might Eat, the Alzheimer’s Association, Bright Beginnings, SEALKIDS, Little League Baseball and many other local charities through fundraising, event production, and video production.

Congratulations to Matt 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 Lewis is a professor of journalism at the American University School of Communication in Washington, D.C., and the founding executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop. He has been a Ferris Professor at Princeton University, a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

Lewis, a former ABC News and CBS News “60 Minutes” producer, founded two Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit news organizations, the award-winning, nonprofit Center for Public Integrity (1989) and its International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (1997), the first global network of premier investigative reporters to develop and publish online multimedia exposés across borders. The ICIJ published the Panama Papers — the largest collaboration in the history of journalism, involving a leaked cache of 11.5 million financial records, analyzed and reported by more than 370 journalists in 76 countries and published in over 100 newspapers around the world.

Lewis is the author of “935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity” (2014), and co-author of five Center books: “The Buying of the President” (1996), “The Buying of the Congress” (1998), “The Buying of the President” (2000), “The Cheating of America” (2001), and “The Buying of the President” (2004), a New York Times bestseller.

Lewis was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 1998, and in 2004, he was given the PEN USA First Amendment award “for expanding the reach of investigative journalism, for his courage in going after a story regardless of whose toes he steps on, and for boldly exercising his freedom of speech and freedom of the press.” In 2009, the Encyclopedia of Journalism called him “one of the 30 most notable investigative reporters in the U.S. since World War I.” In 2014, the Wall Street Journal observed, “With the founding of the Center for Public Integrity in the 1980s, Charles Lewis probably did more than anyone else to launch institutional nonprofit journalism in America.”

In 2018, he was awarded the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence.

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/.

Thomas W. Brooke protects intellectual property rights for a wide variety of clients located all over the world, ranging from large and small corporations, associations and trade groups to entrepreneurial individuals. His work ranges from initial counseling and trademark selection, copyright and trademark registration around the world, licensing and technology transfers to intellectual property litigation throughout the United States and in every major country. Related matters include drafting and interpreting agreements relating to ownership and use of names, images, photographs, software, trade secrets, music and other intellectual property. Martindale-Hubbell rates Mr. Brooke as an AV Preeminent Peer Reviewed lawyer. Other honors include yearly listings in Who’s Who Legal and Washington, D.C., Super Lawyers magazine.

Mr. Brooke ranks among the most prolific filers of U.S. trademark applications, and has strong relationships within the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In 2016, the International Trademark Association (INTA) asked him to serve a two-year stint as chair of the association’s U.S. Trademark Office Practices Committee, working directly with the U.S. Commissioner of Trademarks and other top-level staff at the USPTO. He previously served as chair of the INTA’s U.S. Legislation Committee, where he helped craft the Federal Anti-Cyber Piracy Act and the Federal Trademark Dilution statute. He currently serves on the INTA Internet Committee, focusing on data privacy issues. Other association and volunteer work include past service as chair of the Trademark Division of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Intellectual Property Law Section and as a member of the Section Counsel, membership on the INTA’s North American Advisory Council, Amicus Committee and Emerging Issues Committees, as well as leadership roles with the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) and the Intellectual Property Sections of the District of Columbia and Virginia Bars.

In addition to professional volunteer work, Mr. Brooke is Scoutmaster of Troop 128 in McLean, and previously served as Cubmaster of Pack 665.  He has also served on the Executive Board of the National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America.  Other volunteer service include tenure on the Vestry of his Church and involvement as member and officer of a number of civic groups in Fairfax and Arlington Counties.

Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Brooke worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., as a legislative assistant to the late Sen. John McCain and former Rep. Frank R. Wolf.

Congratulations to Thomas 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/.

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/.