Former lawmaker from the Florida Keys has a new a job with an emergency response firm

A former state representative for the Florida Keys and part of Miami-Dade County has taken a job with a disaster recovery firm based in Deerfield Beach.

Holly Raschein, of Key Largo, who served eight years before becoming term-limited, started work on Dec. 1 as director of government relations at AshBritt Environmental. She will direct policy objectives at the local, state and federal levels.

Raschein, 39, said she will be advocating for the firm but as a former state representative is prohibited from registering as a lobbyist.

“What I will be doing is working with lobbyists for AshBritt, working on strategy and business development,” Raschein said.

“I’ll be directing traffic with all the moving parts that go into this,” she said. “I could be working with the governor, a city, a county.”

Raschein said she learned about the company when she was in the Legislature.

“I have long been a fan of the work AshBritt Environmental does in Florida and across the country,” Raschein said. “The company’s track record in environmental services and disaster recovery is unparalleled in the industry, and I look forward to working alongside this talented leadership team.”

AshBritt announced Raschein’s hiring on Dec. 1.

“Holly’s leadership, including during Hurricane Irma, commitment to community members and her passion for protecting and preserving the environment aligns with our company’s mission to help communities recover after a disaster,” said AshBritt CEO Brittany Perkins Castillo.

“With Holly’s knowledge and impressive government experience, tremendous opportunity lies ahead,” Perkins Castillo said.

During her tenure, she was chairwoman of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Appropriation Subcommittee and the House Natural Resources and Public Lands Subcommittee.

In 2017, Raschein worked on the state and local emergency response to Hurricane Irma, which made landfall in the Keys as a Category 4 storm.

Raschein, who was born in Anchorage, Alaska, moved to Florida in 1999. She has a bachelor of science in political science from Florida State University and a master’s of public administration from Florida International University.

This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 2:33 PM.

Gwen Filosa

Miami Herald

Gwen Filosa covers Key West and the Lower Florida Keys for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald and lives in Key West. She was part of the staff at the New Orleans Times-Picayune that in 2005 won two Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of Hurricane Katrina. She graduated from Indiana University.