Trey Williams is getting ready to head into his second stint working at the Capitol. Williams served as deputy press secretary for former Gov. Mike Foster, and he will be the communications director for Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal. Williams, who was part of Jindal’s Congressional staff, was one of the first hires made by the new governor.
“You always hear stories about what transitions are like,” he says. “One day you are working on a political campaign, the next day you’re helping put government together.”
Williams has worked in the media for nearly 14 years. He got his start in January 1994, not long after he graduated from Louisiana Tech. “I enjoyed politics and I had been to Washington a few times to visit. Someone told me the best way to find a job in Washington was to move there.”
Williams arrived in Washington just in time for a major winter storm. He thought about moving back to Louisiana, but a few weeks later, he got a job with Space News, a weekly newspaper that covered the politics and business of the space industry. That was quite a coup for Williams, who wanted to be an astronaut when he was a boy.
He left Space News to take a job with U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery. But Williams got tired of the partisanship in Washington and decided to head to Baton Rouge in the mid-1990s to work on a master’s in communications at LSU. About a month after moving back, he became an intern in Foster’s press office.
Williams says the biggest change since his time in the governor’s office is the speed at with the press cycle operates. “It’s an instantaneous thing nowadays,” he says. “To control the message as well as the rumors and false information that’s spreading is a unique challenge.”
What was your first job?
“At Minden Athletic Supply, a small business that my father owned. I would go there every day after school and put names on the backs of shirts and P.E. uniforms and put trophies together.”
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