Faculty Bio
Terry Campo
Terry T. Campo is an attorney in private practice in Washington, D.C., concentrated in the area of energy, environment and transportation regulations, as well as in ethics and political law areas. He has been admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, the District of Columbia and of the State of Illinois
Campo serves as President of the YR Alumni Network, Inc., a 501(c)(3) charitable and educational foundation uniting more than 100,000 former members of Young Republican to fund leadership training scholarships honoring its deceased leaders. He is also a founder and Director of the Mid-Atlantic Freedom and Education Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to preserving and maintaining the papers and historically significant buildings on Whittaker Chambers’ beloved Pipe Creek Farm as a National Historic Landmark. In addition, Campo has been a Member of the Board of Directors of the Illinois Policy Institute since its founding in 2002, and previously served as its Treasurer and Vice Chairman.
Campo held several positions in the Reagan Administration and in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush Presidential Transition Team and Campaigns. He completed government service as the General Counsel and Director of Legislative Affairs for the independent federal agency, ACTION, as well as being its White House Liaison and Representative to the President's Council on Private Sector Initiatives.
Prior to becoming General Counsel of the independent agency, Campo served as the Special Assistant and chief of staff for the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Energy during President Reagan’s second term, where he was involved in all matters of law and public policy concerning energy. From 1983 to 1985, Campo served as a Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, where his principal client was Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-IA), whom he advised on all matters related to anti-trust, Constitutional law, Civil Rights, as well as National Security and Terrorism. Campo later served as the General Counsel to the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure, prior to joining the Reagan Administration.
Campo resigned from the Reagan Administration in 1988 to become Deputy Director of Election Day Activities for the Republican National Committee, where he organized ballot security operations nationwide prior to assuming day-to-day management of operations in Illinois, Louisiana and all states West of the Mississippi River. Following George H. W. Bush’s election in 1988, Campo joined the President’s Transition Team as a Deputy Director in the Office of Presidential Personnel. Campo chose not to join the Bush (41) Administration, and entered the private practice of law.
While in the private practice of law, Campo was unanimously elected National Chairman of the Young Republicans in 1989. Campo had previously served as the organization’s General Counsel and earlier as well as National Committeeman for Illinois, as well as holding other state and local offices in Young Republicans from his hometown of Sangamon County, Illinois. Campo began his involvement in GOP youth politics following President Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign, when he founded and chaired his local TAR Club. In 1973 he was elected the Illinois TARs Treasurer and in 1974 its Downstate Vice Chairman. In 1975 he founded a College Republican club at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. In 1977 he was elected Treasurer of the Illinois CRs and was named Executive Director for the Midwest CRs in 1978.
Campo served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Young Republican National Federation from 1989 to 1991, where he led the organization into training of young political leaders from the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe and Latin America. At the end of his term as Young Republican Chairman, Campo organized a White House Conference founding the youth division of the International Young Democrat(ic) Union, to expand the training of young political leaders, and served as its founding Treasurer. In 1991, Campo left Washington to return to his hometown of Springfield, Illinois to practice law, and seek election to the U.S. House of Representatives in the newly-redrawn 20th Congressional District. Campo ran again in 1994, winning the endorsements of not only Shimkus, but also the St. Louis POST-DISPATCH, Chicago TRIBUNE.
After the 1994 campaign, Campo practiced law in Springfield full-time, Campo represented clients in litigation before the Illinois EPA, the Sangamon County (Illinois) Circuit Court and the Illinois Court of Appeals. While practicing law in Illinois, Campo remained politically active through his consulting business, The Campo Group, Ltd., through which he represented pharmaceutical and defense contractors, in addition to advising GOP candidates. Campo directed the Steve Forbes Presidential Campaign in downstate Illinois in 1995-96.
Beginning in 1994, Campo was recruited to conduct political training in advance of the first free elections for the Russian Federation’s Parliament in 1995. He authored the Election Procedures Manual for the Russian Federation under sponsorship of the Kriebel Foundation, and subsequently began advising former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar’s 1996 campaign for President. Campo made frequent trips to Russia and its former Soviet Republics conducting training in politics and economics, including how to establish Agricultural Commodity Markets in the Village of Marx.
In 1998, he brought his substantive energy background together with an understanding of domestic and international political influences in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union to develop projects restructuring the energy sectors of the former Soviet Republics of Georgia and Moldova. He resided in the former Soviet Union from 1998 to 2003, and has consulted on energy and infrastructure projects in Central Asia and the Middle East since.
