Team Category: International and Trade

Fred Turner serves as a Principal in BGR’s International Practice where he brings perspective from a long and distinguished career on both sides of Capitol Hill and as Chief of Staff to the U.S. Helsinki Commission. He also provides valuable insights and support to clients in the Commerce and Financial Services practices. Fred was named a 2022 and 2023 Top Lobbyist by The Hill newspaper.

Prior to joining BGR, Fred served as Chief of Staff to the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In this role, Fred served as the top policy and political advisor. Prior to that role, Fred served as Chief of Staff at the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, frequently known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission. He was jointly appointed to that position by Democratic leaders in the Senate and House and served for seven years. While there, he advised Commissioners on foreign policy matters and organized and participated in more than two dozen Congressional delegations abroad throughout Europe, Eurasia, the Middle East, and the Maghreb.

Fred also served for more than twelve years on the staff of a senior congressman from Florida, the last seven as Chief of Staff. He also served as an Associate Staff Member of the U.S. House of Representatives Rules Committee, Democratic Staff Director of the Rules Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process, and Democratic Staff Director of the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Subcommittee on Europe. He also served as Legislative Director for a congresswoman from the Midwest.

Fred is an honors graduate of American University, where he earned his B.A. and M.A. in political science. He also served as an Adjunct Professor of Government at American University’s School of Public Affairs. He is the author of The Participation of Members of the U.S. Congress in NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Assemblies (co-authored with Zlatko Sabic). In 2018, the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute honored Fred with the Vermillion Award in recognition of his work to advance the Hispanic Community in the United States.

Hunter Strupp serves as a Vice President with BGR’s International and Trade Practice where he consults with foreign governments and advises on Congressional relations.  

Prior to joining BGR, Hunter served as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, chaired by Representative Ted Yoho (R-FL-3). During that time, he served as lead staff of 23 Congressional hearings and traveled extensively throughout Asia with Members of Congress, Committee staff and foreign officials. 

Hunter also served as Asia Policy Advisor for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA-39), where he focused on India, Bangladesh, the Korean peninsula and Southeast Asia, in particular. He has assisted in drafting several legislative initiatives that have been enacted into law, including sweeping sanctions bills H.R.757, the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act and H.R.1644, the KIMs Act. He has also assisted in drafting op-eds and letters to the editor that have been published by the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Diplomat, The National Interest, Foreign Affairs, Orange County Register, Foreign Affairs and Washington Times, among others. 

Prior to his work on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Hunter served on the staff of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, and as Legislative Aide to Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), where his work focused on foreign policy, defense, trade and energy. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Literature from Colgate University in May 2005.

Mark Tavlarides is a Principal in the firm’s International Practice.  He is a lifelong Washingtonian who started his career as an intern on Capitol Hill and has accumulated over four decades of experience working in Congress, the Executive Branch and as a lobbyist.  He is bipartisan in his approach to problem solving and achieving a client’s goals.

Mark joined BGR after years of advocating on behalf of nonprofits, sovereign governments and corporations. Mark takes a comprehensive approach to client management but always puts the well-being of clients above politics. He obtained funding for a major malaria program that saved thousands of lives on behalf of a public private partnership and successfully removed language from national security legislation that would have prohibited funding to a strategic partner of the United States.

Prior to joining the private sector, Mark served as director of Legislative Affairs for the National Security Council, where President Bill Clinton tapped Mark’s expertise in leading efforts to generate congressional support for the president’s national security strategy.

Mark joined the White House from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he served in the Legislative Affairs Bureau as the Senior Special Assistant for International Security Affairs. He previously spent 10 years serving on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations. As the subcommittee’s staff director, he worked to improve and strengthen U.S. relations with the United Nations and advanced foreign aid measures. Among his key accomplishments was participating in the enactment of legislation that established the Child Survival Fund, which provides life-saving interventions for children in impoverished areas of the world. Work has taken Mark all over the world, from Central America, Asia to Africa and Europe, travel that has honed Mark’s evolving worldview.

A true D.C. native, Mark was born and raised in the District and attended Washington public schools. He dreamt of being the next Willie Mays, but unfortunately couldn’t hit the curve ball. A lover of music (Earth, Wind and Fire, Rolling Stones) and travel, Mark is also devoted to his church and community. Mark received his Bachelor of Science from Towson State University.

Tom Locke joined BGR Government Affairs as Managing Director in January 2008. He utilizes his extensive experience and worldwide network of law enforcement professionals to assist BGR clients by providing expert advice and advocacy in dealings with the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, the Treasury Department and other U.S. and international law enforcement and intelligence agencies. He is also uniquely qualified to help navigate the bureaucracies associated with law enforcement proceedings, investigations, civil actions and other inquiries, and to perform corporate background checks, risk analysis and due diligence on individuals and organizations.  He has assisted clients in visa-related matters, those unjustifiably named to Global “Watch Lists,” and those falsely accused of criminal wrongdoing by corrupt government officials on the international stage.

Tom has decades of industry experience forged from a long and distinguished career with the FBI. Early in his career with the Bureau, Tom served as the supervisor of the first Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in New York City. He also conducted the Bureau’s first extra-territorial terrorism investigation in 1983 after the American Embassy was bombed in Beirut, Lebanon.

In 1985, he was temporarily assigned to the Drug Enforcement Administration, where he participated in Operation Blast Furnace, a joint effort among the U.S. Army, DEA and the Bolivian government to eradicate cocaine laboratories in the Amazon jungle. He has been the on-the-scene commander in numerous terrorism, kidnapping, drug and other complex crisis management situations and investigations.

As the events of Sept. 11, 2001, unfolded, he was called upon to staff, direct and oversee the FBI’s worldwide investigation of the tragedy that happened on that day. Tom served his last year with the Bureau as Acting Assistant Director of the FBI’s Inspection Division before retiring in 2002. Since his retirement, he has operated his own global security consulting and investigative firm, servicing prestigious clients such as Northrop Grumman and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, as well as major law firms in Washington, New York and London. He continues as an active voice in the security industry.

Tom attended the Catholic University of America, where he received a bachelor’s degree in European Studies. Tom lives in Maryland with his wife, Theresa.

Adriana Larsen is a Director for BGR Group’s Defense & Critical Technologies and International & Trade Practices. In this role, she provides research and analysis for international and domestic clients on foreign policy, national security, space, emerging technologies, and defense authorization and appropriations. She is also part of BGR’s foreign assistance practice, which provides advisory and government relations services to companies, advocacy groups, and non-governmental organizations in the international aid policy area.

Previously, Adriana additionally managed the BGR Clerk program and helped write, direct, and edit firm-wide products, including co-writing the BGR Foreign Assistance Brief and BGR Coronavirus Report, editing the BGR China Brief, and contributing to other ad hoc analysis memos.

Before joining BGR in 2018, Adriana was a staff assistant in the U.S. Senate and also spent time with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Prior to working in the Senate, Adriana worked as a seasonal hire for U.S. Embassies overseas. She was the Public Affairs Assistant for U.S. Embassy Astana in Kazakhstan and the Consular Assistant for U.S. Embassy Tashkent in Uzbekistan.

In 2022, Adriana participated in the U.S. Army War College’s 67th Annual National Security Seminar, during which AWC students and guests from a wide range of occupations spent a week examining national security issues.

Adriana has a bachelor’s in Interdisciplinary Studies in Political Science, Public Relations, and Management from Auburn University and a master’s in International and European Politics from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.