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Politics and Parenting The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Julius Genachowski and his arts advocate wife Rachel Goslins are the ultimate Washington couple BY CHUCK CONCONI
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here’s an accomplished, dynamic, and well-connected husband-and-wife team in every administration – a couple you need to know to play the Washington game. In the Age of Obama, that would be Julius Genachowski and Rachel Goslins. Interviewed in their light and airy Cleveland Park bungalow, they don’t shy away from discussing their flurry of social invitations due to their new titles. “We could be out every night in uncomfortable shoes,” Goslins says with a wry smile. They fit a new “FOB” – Friends of Barack – category. fit a new “FOB” – Friends of Barack – category. Genachowski and President Obama were classmates at Harvard Law School and worked together on the Harvard Law Review. As Genachowski explains, “I witnessed his first campaign in 1990 when he ran for president of the law review and won.” And, he adds, “Even then I knew he would do great things.” They also attended each other’s weddings (Genachowski’s first, that ended in divorce) and the future president’s, to Michelle Obama. Genachowski is chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). His wife, Rachel Goslins, a documentary filmmaker, is executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. She produced and directed the acclaimed independent film, Bama Girl, about a young African American woman at the University of Alabama who runs for homecoming queen while combating
WA S H I N G T O N L I F E
Rachel Goslins and JuliusGenachowski at home with their children Lilah and Aaron. (Photo By Tony Powell)
“The Machine,” a secret association of white fraternities that controlled campus politics. Their house is comfortable, unpretentious, and neat. Their children, Lilah, 5, and Aaron, 3, are curious, but well behaved. They get a little squirmy as a photographer attempts to pose them for a family picture. Genachowski gets them to settle down and smile for the camera by telling them to say “pizza” while their mother promises a chance to watch a “SpongeBob SquarePants” video. Genachowski also has a son, Jacob, 18, from his first marriage. He boasts that Jacob was a star quarterback for the Maret School’s
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Fighting Frogs this year. It was a great season for the Frogs, he says, explaining that they beat their rivals, The Potomac School and Sidwell Friends. Genachowski and Goslins are no strangers to Washington. “I’ve been here since 1985 and Rachel has been here for 15 years. We have “deep ties,” they explain, completing each other’s sentences. They met on a blind date at Ruperts, a restaurant that was near the Convention Center, and then, in an only-inWashington scenario, ended up at the Lincoln Memorial. Goslins said they went looking for the typo on the wall that exists in Lincoln’s
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