Danielle Crutchfield
White House Director of Scheduling and advance (since January 2011)
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Crutchfield has always enjoyed planning out her time. But it wasn't until she first became a scheduler for Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) shortly out of college that she fell in love with the job of planning other people's lives.
Just seven years after finishing college, Crutchfield began working for President Barack Obama as his director of scheduling. She coordinated with dozens of other offices both inside and outside the White House to keep Obama's movement perfectly choreographed throughout the day.
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Crutchfield grew up in Seattle, Wash., and moved to the East Coast to attend Hampton University in Virginia. She graduated with a B.A. in sociology in 2003 and knew she wanted to get a job in politics. The political bug had bitten her during high school when she worked a summer as a legislative intern for King County Council Member Larry Gossett (D).
In January 2004, she got a job as a staff assistant to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash). Three months later, Cantwell's deputy scheduler resigned and Crutchfield was promoted to that job. Crutchfield says she has loved scheduling ever since. She worked in Cantwell's office for another year before getting a job as executive assistant to Democratic strategist Paul Begala, a job that Crutchfield says involved similar work. Crutchfield helped book Begala's travel, land him TV appearances and schedule promotions for his books.
The president's scheduling and advance office is staffed by essentially the same faces that aided Obama in his 2008 bid.
Crutchfield said her job is pretty much the same in the first term Obama White House as it was on the 2008 campaign. "Of course, because he is now the president, we have much more logistical support," she said.
Before becoming director of scheduling and advance in January 2011, Crutchfield worked directly for Alyssa Mastromonaco, and alongside Emmett Beliveau, who was director of the advance team and then become Bill Daley's chief of staff. Crutchfield's deputy is Jessica Wright, and she has three associate directors of scheduling: Lizzie Nelson, Greg Lorjuste and Chase Cusman.
Mastromonaco asked Crutchfield to join Obama's presidential campaign because of a recommendation from Terry Krinvic, who was Crutchfield's boss in Sen. Maria Cantwell's (D-Wash.) office and is now the scheduler for President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Foundation. Krinvic and Mastromonaco worked together on Sen. John F. Kerry's (D-Mass.) 2004 presidential campaign.
- Biographical and career data from questionnaire returned by Danielle Crutchfield on Feb. 17, 2009, and an interview with Danielle Crutchfield on March 10, 2009
- Bendery, Jennifer, Roll Call, "Daley Announces Wave of White House Satff Changes," January 27, 2011
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