Google exec boosts GOP data effort

Michele Weslander Quaid, who serves as Google’s “Innovation Evangelist” and chief technology officer for its public-sector division, is joining the board of directors of Voter Gravity, a campaign technology company that serves GOP candidates and conservative groups.

It’s a bit of a political coming-out for Weslander Quaid, who joined Google in 2011 and had not previously been active in partisan politics. The move comes as Google, which had become known in Washington as a reliable source of campaign cash and technology talent to Democrats, is working to diversify its political footprint. Weslander Quaid is certainly among – if not the – highest-ranking employee to lend expertise to a Republican tech company. She worked for a decade in the private sector as an engineer and data scientist, but was recruited after the 2001 terrorist attacks by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, eventually working in senior technology roles for the Director of National Intelligence and the Defense Department during the administrations of both George W. Bush and Obama. Though she had been a registered Republican, Weslander Quaid switched her registration to independent around the time she entered government and has not donated to federal candidates of either party or openly affiliated with any political groups or companies until now.