Benjamin Hayes

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Biography

My mother, Ann Drennan (then Hayes) left my father to take a job in another state, and then discovered she was pregnant with me. She decided not to continue the marriage, and so my parents were divorced when I was still a baby.

My mother remarried Henry Thomas Drennan in April of 1974, and we moved to live with him at his home on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC (138 E St., SE). I attended Brent Elementary, and then St. Peter's elementary, as we attended St. Peter's church (although neither my mother or I were catholics and never took communion). I attended Holy Trinity in Georgetown for sixth grade, and the next summer we moved to Craftsbury, Vermont.

Craftsbury was hard for me as a small-for-my-age city kid in a decidedly rural, remote setting. After three unhappy years of shool there, I persuaded my parents to send me away for the remainder of High School. I selected St. Johnsbury Academy over Deerfield (the other school where I was accepted), much to my parents' consternation.

St. Johnsbury was a very good experience for me, although I was often in trouble with the school. Nonetheless, I was a favorite of several teachers, made many friends, and received a better education than my grades might have suggested. I won a gold medal on the National Latin Exam, and during my senior year was captain of the "Scholar's Bowl" (trivia) team, which narrowly lost the state championship that year.

After high school I spent a summer working as a busboy and waiter at the Mt. Washington Hotel.

I attended the Unversity of Vermont (UVM) 1988-1990 and 1991-1992. In 1990-1991 I attended the University of Kent, Canterbury UK as a UVM Buckham Scholar. I served one year on the SA Senate, and another year on the Parking Board of Appeals. Having been a parking scofflaw for a period as a freshman, I worked hard and eventually succeeded as a senior in reducing the fines levied for parking violations at UVM, as well as greatly expanding bike racks on Main Campus. I graduated UVM with a BA in English Literature, and a minor in Cultural Anthropology. Along the way I had two failed minors in Philosophy and French.

After college I lived in Burlington for a couple of years working as first a painter and later in newspaper advertising, but mainly concentrating on developing a music (guitar) career. In 1995 I left Burlington for Columbus, OH in pursuit of a girlfriend and feeling a general need to get out and see more of the world. for a year I worked for a newspaper (The Columbus Guardian) and played lead guitar in a band called the Immaculate Contraption. In 1996, sizing up my prospects for a successful music career as an already-26-year-old, I applied and was accepted to Law School at Ohio State University.

I excelled at law school, earning a 3.8 GPA the first year and getting an automatic spot on the Law Journal staff. In the summer of 1997 I studied European Community law at St. Anne's College, Oxford University. My second summer I spent the majority as a summer associate at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart in Pittsburgh, PA, and several weeks studying more EC law at the University of Amsterdam law school. I graduated OSU in 1999 with honors.

I started work with K&L in Pittsburgh in 1999, and then transferred to their Washington DC office in the spring of 2000. I went back to Amsterdam for New Year's Eve, 1999 -- what a party!

Due to a fortuitous relationship with Peter Swire, and OSU law professor and influential privacy policy-maker in the Clinton Administration I was able to launch a niche practice in international privacy law immediately out of law school. in 2006 I left K&L to go in-house with consulting firm Accenture as a subject matter expert in privacy law. In 2011 I became the first person (globally) to obtain every professional certification in the field of privacy law, a distinction I have maintained as new certifications have been developed since then.

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Benjamin Hayes at registration.