By JAMES FINK
jfink@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1611

Barry Brandon, a former top-ranking official at Seneca Gaming Corp., has landed at a consulting firm in Washington, D.C.

He joined the staff of C2 Group, a bipartisan government affairs consulting firm. He also was named named of counsel to Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman LLP, Buffalo, and is a gaming industry consultant.

Brandon and Galen Reser, a former Pepsi Co. vice president, joined C2 Group as partners.

"We are excited to combine Barry's policy expertise and Galen's Washington know-how with our existing base," said Tom Crawford, co-founder of the firm.

Brandon said he will remain a Clarence resident and keep his seat as a director of the Erie County Industrial Development Agency.

"No, I'm not moving away from Buffalo and Clarence," he said. "What this does is give me an opportunity to do business with people I trust and have done business with for a long time."

He said his relationship with C2 will be similar to the one he has with Lippes Mathias.

"It is very much client-driven," he said. "I'll be there (in Washington) as often as they need me. It could be a couple days a month, it might be more than that; it depends."

For Brandon, the job offered a chance to return to the D.C. market. A former partner with Washington's Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, he was recruited in 2004 to serve as Seneca Gaming's senior vice president and general counsel. He left Seneca nearly three years ago.

At Akin Gump, among other things, he helped with the legal process to create Seneca Gaming. He had formed the firm's American Indian Law and Policy Practice Group.

Brandon also served as general counsel and chief of staff at the National Indian Gaming Commission and is a former senior trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.

"This gives me a chance to re-connect with some of my Washington contacts," he said.

He is an enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Indian Nation and an adopted member of the Seneca Nation of Indians. He has an undergraduate degree in political science from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., and a law degree from the University of Washington in Seattle.