43 year old Maju Varghese, the son of immigrant parents from Thiruvalla in Kerala, who previously served as a key member of the Joe Biden for President campaign and the inaugural committee, was March 9 formally appointed as director of the White House Military Office. Varghese, is the first Indian-origin person to hold the post of director, White House Military Office, and is among at least 20 Indian-Americans in the Biden administration.
Reacting to his latest elevation, Varghese tweeted on 10 March, “The son of immigrants from Kerala, India, Varghese was born in New York City and raised in Elmont, New York.” Indeed and proud of it. It’s official. Honored”.
Born in New York, Varghese is the son of Saroja and Mathew, a Malayali couple who immigrated to the US from Kerala in the 1970s. Saroja, a nurse who was trained at Kugler Nursing School in Andhra Pradesh, came to the US first followed by her husband and their elder daughter Manju. Varghese has a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Saroja worked as a nurse at Columbia University Presbyterian Hospital and Long Island Jewish Hospital when she first came to the US. Mathew, meanwhile, worked as a cab driver and a security guard in New York during the family’s early years of immigration.
As the COO of the Biden-Harris campaign, he ran the logistics for the nationwide, multi-million-dollar effort, mobilizing tens of thousands of staff and volunteers.Varghese successfully steered the inauguration through two difficult problems: the coronavirus pandemic and the threat of attacks after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
While leading the Biden election campaign, Varghese had tweeted, “Forty-eight years ago today, my mom stepped foot in this country for the first time. With hope and hard work, a young nurse from a small town in south India changed the fortunes of generations to follow ”.
This will be his second stint at the White House, the Indian American lawyer was former President Barack Obama’s special assistant and the deputy director of advance, a position in which he worked on organizing his travel in the U.S. and abroad. One of those assignments was organizing Obama’s 2015 historic trip to India for the Republic Day celebrations. Varghese later became assistant to the president for administration and management overseeing the White House complex in the Obama administration.
The White House Military Office (WHMO) is a department within the White House Office that provides military support for White House functions, including food service, presidential transportation, medical support, emergency medical services and hospitality services.