Austin McKechnie

Interned in the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee (SVAC) office for ranking member Senator Jerry
Moran (KS) in the summer of 2024.
Got to see the day-to-day life in a Senate Committee office and perform duties such as answering
phones from individuals all over the United States, working on projects for staffers, and giving
Capitol tours.
Attended hearings with the Senator and staff, took notes,
Went to a Bridge Safety conference that stressed the threat of corrosion. With this conference I
wrote a memo over it and delivered it to a staffer who had interest in it.
Composed one pager on 50 page Office of Inspector General report over Veterans' Medical
Facilities.
Composed a one pager on 25 page Office of Inspector General report on Delays Occurred in Some
Veterans' Benefits Claims While Awaiting Decision.
Also Interned in Senator Moran's personal office, focused more on constituent work. Would
answer phones, update daily commodities across the state, and would work on projects for
staffers around the office.

Viking Navigation LLC. is a government relations consulting practice representing entrepreneurs
and local governments before the White House, federal departments and agencies, and the U.S.
Congress
Submitted CRISI (Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements) Grants to the DOT
Job consists of acquiring letters of support from members of the 118th Congress, excel work, and
setting up zoom/teams meetings with the staffers of the congressional member to brief the staffer
our project(s)
Excel work included, Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA) for our project, the BCA would show the financials
of our project and how much we needed for funding our projects. Would create spreadsheets
that would include different lists for what we were keeping track of, and would make the page.
Submitted Grant applications for our seven clients, resulted in awards of $230 million for clients.
Also consisted of emailing staffers of different members of Congress and would reach out to set
up a Zoom or a Microsoft Teams Meeting.
When staffers would contact us back, we would set up those meetings and join those meetings as
we explained our project to the staffers.
Gained proficiency in Adobe Acrobat while designing project pages for submission to the
Department of Transportation.
. Assisting in gathering Co Sponsors for H.R. 516

In the Summer of 2023 I interned in Washington D.C. for Congressman Jake Laturner (KS-02) I
served Kansas District 2 and did whatever I could do to best help the interest of Congressman
LaTurner around the office
Job consists of answering phone calls from constituents, giving tours of United States Capitol,
working on projects for staffers, and attend conferences
Projects that were worked on include: Research of different legislative bills every week, finding all
GOP House members for staffer, and transcripting hundreds of voicemails for our newsletter that
were left from our constituents