STEVE WHITAKER
Dr. Whitaker is an international trade expert who specializes in the development and execution of intellectual property rights protection programs.  He has served as a professional staff member on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, advising Members of Congress on the operation of US trade laws, and serves on the Department of Commerce Industry Trade Advisory Committee (ITAC) on Information and Communications, Technologies, Services, and Electronic Commerce. 

Dr. Whitaker has also served in the private sector on international trade policy issues, especially anti-counterfeiting of emerging technologies.  Dr. Whitaker is also the Washington lobbyist for a major US bank on issues relating to Federal purchase and travel cards, electronic payments systems, and debt collection.

Prior to founding Whitaker Strategies, Dr. Whitaker served as Senior Policy Advisor to Thelen, Reid & Priest in Washington and San Francisco, and helped launch the federal lobbying practice for DCI Group.  He also served as Senior Vice President and co-founder of Global Trade Strategies, the international trade practice group at Cassidy & Associates in Washington, DC. 

Dr. Whitaker earned a Ph.D. from Emory University, an M.S.L. from Yale Law School, an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a B.Sc. from Bates College.  He earned a Fulbright Fellowship for research leading to the book, Anarchist-Individualism and the Origins of Italian Fascism, and has spent much of the past twenty years studying and working in Italy.

Dr. Whitaker currently teaches professional writing at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC and at the Orfalea Graduate School of Management at the California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, California.  He has also taught in the Graduate School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University and the Liberal Studies Department at Emory University.