Fred Radewagen
GOVERNOR Arnold I. Palacios plans to increase the annual salary of his Washington, D.C.-based adviser, Fred Radewagen, from $30,000 to $50,000 to facilitate more engagements with the federal government.
In an interview Friday after the lighting ceremony for Santa’s “Sealand Christmas” on Capital Hill, Palacios said Radewagen has been his federal policy adviser since last year.
Radewagen is the husband of Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, the American Samoa Republican delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives.
According to the National Governors Association’s directory of governors’ state-federal affairs representatives, Radewagen’s official title is the “CNMI governor’s senior adviser for federal, regional, and international affairs.”
On his LinkedIn account, Radewagen stated: “The Mariana Islands have always held a special place in my heart. They were the first U.S. territories (Guam and the Northern Marianas) that I ever visited, I met and dated my future wife there, I have family in both places, and I am currently representing the governor of the Northern Marianas in Washington [D.C].”
The governor said Radewagen’s salary was $30,000 per annum. He said it’s “sort of a contract to look at policies and assist me in my efforts in Washington, D.C. Because I am going to have him do more engagements with federal agencies, I think I’m going to bump [his salary] up to $50,000.”
He said Radewagen, who is also a member of the Center for Australian, New Zealand & Pacific Studies board of directors, “has been in Washington, D.C. for a long time and has worked in different capacities. He used to work with the Department of the Interior and has … a wealth of experience and wealth of knowledge on how to get things done within [the] Washington, D.C. environment.”
