NAFUSA welcomed four new members in September, all of whom served during the Biden
Administration, bringing the total number of NAFUSA members from that administration to
51. We look forward to welcoming them at NAFUSA’s 2025 Annual Conference in D.C. this
month.

Kenneth “Ken” Parker, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio (SDOH) from
2021 to 2025, joined NAFUSA in September. Ken served as a judicial law clerk for Federal
District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel for two years following graduation from the Indiana
University Maurer School of Law in 1997. From 1999 to 2021, he served as an Assistant
United States Attorney (AUSA) in the SDOH until nominated by President Biden in September 2021 to be the U.S. Attorney and subsequently Senate confirmed. Ken joined the Taft Law Firm as a partner in its Cincinnati office in September 2025.

Also joining in September was Nikolas “Kolo” Kerest, who served as the U.S. Attorney for
the District of Vermont from 2021 to January 2025. Following graduation from Cornell Law
School in 2000, Kolo clerked for Judge Fred Parker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit. He worked in private practice at Ropes & Gray in Boston for three years and
then at Pierce Atwood LLP in Portland, Maine before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office as an
AUSA in December 2021. After his resignation as U.S. Attorney in 2025, he joined the law firm Stris & Maher LLP as a partner.

We are also happy to welcome new lifetime member, Roger Handberg. Roger served as
U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida (MDFL) from December 2021 to February
2025, after having served as an AUSA in that district since 2002. Following graduation from
Harvard Law School in 1994, he worked as an associate at King & Spalding in Atlanta for
five years before leaving to join the Florida Attorney General’s Office in 1999. Roger is
currently a shareholder at Gray Robinson in Orlando, Florida.

Tessa Gorman, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington (WDWA), also
joined NAFUSA in September. Tessa began her career with the DOJ in the Honors Program
in 1998 after serving as law clerk to Federal District Judge Douglas Woodlock in
Massachusetts following graduation from law school at the University of California,
Berkeley. She became an AUSA for the WDWA in 2001 rising to the level of First Assistant
and served as “Acting” U.S. Attorney twice before being appointed U.S. Attorney by
Attorney General Garland and later by the district court judges in her district.