Tamara Hinton
Tamara Hinton, communications director and spokesperson for former House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla, has left the committee staff to open Comunicado, a public relations firm.

In her role on House Ag, Hinton handled the communications strategy for reauthorization of the 2014 farm bill, dealing with energy, nutrition, risk management, research, and trade, among other issues.

She managed all communications when the committee held the first hearing on the bankruptcy of MF Global and subpoenaed its CEO, Jon Corzine, to testify, the first time a former U.S. senator was compelled to testify before Congress in more than a 100 years.

Additionally, she led messaging campaigns to support committee and House efforts to reauthorize the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and exercise oversight of the Dodd-Frank Act and other regulatory measures.

Hinton joined the committee in 2008, working for Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., when he was the ranking member. She had worked for four years as a broadcast reporter for WVIR-NBC29 in Charlottesville, Va., and covered Goodlatte’s campaign.

As a broadcast reporter, Hinton covered a wide range of stories including the five-year anniversary of 9/11 in New York City, the midterm election in 2006, the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 and the business of the fashion industry during New York’s Fashion Week in 2006.

From 1999 to 2001, she served in the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan where she taught economics and worked with the United Nations Development Program on a micro-credit loan project.

A native of Staunton, Va., Hinton graduated from the University of Mary Washington with a degree in economics and history.

One part of her new firm's work is collaborating with North Bridge Communications, which has a number of agricultural clients, including the American Sugar Alliance and National Crop Insurance Services.

▪ Comunicado Public Relations