Drajewicz will bring eye for detail to new post
Former Dodd aide joins Lamont as chief of staff
For eight years, Ryan Drajewicz was at the side of then-U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, handling everything and anything he needed.
But it wasn’t until a snowy morning in December 2009 that Drajewicz truly understood the depth of their relationship.
A year after Dodd’s failed presidential bid, for which the two men had moved to Iowa, they sat in the senator’s house along the Connecticut River in East Haddam. A month before he would announce it to the public, Dodd confided his plans to retire from the Senate.
“That was a defining moment for us. With those jobs you spend 24/7 together, but I think what resonated with me is I was the second person to know, besides his wife,” Drajewicz said Friday.
Dodd himself recalled the moment.
“There are those people that are like family to you, that you want to understand their value,” he said Friday. “That was Ryan to me.”
Drajewicz took a job at Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund, working under Chairman Ray Dalio after Dodd’s retirement. Though he had been Dodd’s go-to guy and, often, spokesman from 2002 to 2010, he stayed out of the inner circles of Connecticut politics.
Now Drajewicz, 39, is making his return, this time as the right-hand man and newly appointed chief of staff for Governor-elect Ned Lamont.
At his professional core, Drajewicz (pronounced DRAZ-ah-witz) is the behind-the-scenes manager, connector and generator. He has worked arm-in-arm with two of the most powerful men in America, becoming one of their most trusted confidant. As he enters the same role for a newly elected governor in a fiscal crisis, he will bring that same persona, with the aim to make a difference.
“This is the kind of person that I think we all hope goes into government,” said Brian Kreiter, the chief of staff to Dalio, who has worked with Drajewicz for four years. “He’s the kind of person that will bring other great people and great ideas and systems and standards.”
Right-hand man
Drajewicz was born in Middletown and grew up in Haddam. He had dreams of becoming a major league baseball player, attending Barry University, a small Catholic school in Miami Shores, Fla., where he played ball and studied history and political science.
Upon realizing his baseball skills would not take him as far as he’d hoped, Drajewicz returned to Connecticut, and at 23 years old, took on the job as Dodd’s special assistant.
For eight years, Drajewicz was part of a core group of employees who referred to themselves — then and now — as the Dodd Squad.
Lee Reynolds, a longtime time Dodd employee who now works as a Democratic consultant, said Drajewicz was everything to Dodd, describing him as “exactly the kind of person you want in that job.”
He is assertive, but kind and thoughtful — the type to follow-up any meeting with a personal thank-you note, she said.
A year ago, shortly after Drajewicz moved to Fairfield from North Haven with his wife, Kate, and 5-year-old son, Charlie, he reached out to Reynolds. They had lunch together and he told her he wanted to be more politically involved again.
“Sure enough, he is marrying his political experience and his experience at Bridgewater,” Reynolds said. “When he started in Dodd’s office, he was young. And through those eight years I watched him really mature into this person who Dodd relied on so heavily. Then going to Bridgewater and dealing with a pretty tough culture there, I think he continued to grow. I think he’s really well-positioned now for this.”
Dodd said he talked to Drajewicz at length about whether to take the job with Lamont, and encouraged him to do it. Lamont was so excited when Drajewicz accepted, he immediately called Dodd to let him know, Dodd said.
“There are a lot of competent people,” Dodd said. “But he brings a humanity to his competency. The hardest thing is telling someone ‘no,’ and the chief of staff has to say no more than he has to say yes. But when he says no, you get a sense from Ryan that he really cares about you as a person, and that will take him a long way. You can’t teach people qualities like that, and being only competent is not enough.”
Radical transparency
Asked if he minds being recorded during an interview, Drajewicz responded quickly, “I’m used to it.”
It’s part of the culture at Bridgewater — everything there is recorded, he said, whether it’s a one-on-one meeting or 100 people — and it’s known somewhat infamously as radical transparency. Coming from government, he said, it took some getting used to. But eventually, it clicked.
He understood the ideasbased meritocracy — where any proposal, no matter who it comes from, is listened to — and the reliance on analytics, data and metrics. He understands the culture of knowing exactly what people think of you, when you’re doing well and when you’re really not.
He will bring those qualities, delivered with his personal dose of empathy, to the governor’s office, he said. Already, rather than simply reading the transition memos prepared by the current commissioners and administrators under Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Drajewicz is sitting down with each chairman and commissioner, to understand their roles.
Several of the people who’ve met with him said he’s not afraid to admit when he doesn’t know something, asks thoughtful questions and seems to genuinely absorb the information. Though many had not met him prior to last month, they thought he truly cared.
A handful of his colleagues at Bridgewater described him as tough but fair, high-energy with high expectations, and results driven.
Marcella Rooney worked for Drajewicz as a project manager at Bridgewater for two years. She describes him as a mentor, someone who is practical, thoughtful and ambitious. And she could always tell when a new idea was on the way.
“Ryan keeps a baseball glove and a baseball in his office,” Rooney said. “He had it on the campaign trail and he would always tell us stories of playing catch with the senator on the side of the road. He said that’s when they got their best thinking done.
“So when I would see him in his office pacing back and forth with cups of black coffee on his desk, and the baseball glove in his hand, tossing the baseball, I knew it meant he’s in the zone, and it meant we are going to take on a new project, and it was going to be entirely all-in. I know he took that to Hartford with the governorelect.”