Ducks fly high at Veterans Affairs for those who served
Alums Cassandra Law and Jennifer Esparza team up to serve vets on hurricane response and other needs
As one might imagine, leadership meetings at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs are serious stuff. After all, the VA is charged with helping more than 9 million veterans get health care and other services.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t time for a little good-natured ribbing before turning to the agenda — ribbing that includes a couple of Ducks.
Cassandra Law, a 1988 graduate in leisure studies and services, and Jennifer Esparza, a 2017 grad in international studies, are at the leadership level of the VA. During football season, there can be teasing of winners and losers around the conference table following each Saturday’s results — and Law and Esparza can be counted on to go all in for the green-and-yellow.
“Cassie and I hold it down for the Ducks,” Esparza said, laughing, during a recent interview. “During football season, if there’s a big loss, you’ll hear about it. Some folks who join the meetings online change their backgrounds to rep their school colors. Cassie and I have done that — and we’ll hear about it.”
In January, Law was appointed assistant secretary for human resources and other areas, and in 2023 Esparza was named senior adviser to Deputy Secretary Tanya Bradsher, the department’s second-highest official. The two Ducks now help lead the federal government’s second-largest department — a profound responsibility, they’ll tell you, and one they’re honored to shoulder, often working together.
Law is a lifelong athlete who enrolled at the UO after a visit to TrackTown USA and Hayward Field as a high schooler convinced her to become a Duck. She was a javelin thrower for the women’s team in 1982, but it was an emerging sport, women’s rugby, that became her claim to fame. Law introduced women to the sport at the UO, coached the women’s club team and played for a national team that in 1991 won the inaugural Women’s Rugby World Cup in Wales.
As she helped her college peers be their best on the pitch, Law was developing people skills that enabled her to succeed off it. Said Law, “I learned to appreciate the importance of being able to recognize, empower and value the insight, knowledge and contributions of everyone around me and on my team.”
It has served her well at the VA, where Law is assistant secretary for human resources and administration/operations, security and preparedness.
If that sounds like a lot, it is. Law leads development and oversight of human capital for more than 460,000 employees. She heads divisions providing federal response to concerns as disparate as cybersecurity and natural disasters.
“Her job is absolutely massive,” Bradsher said in an interview. “When we have natural disasters, we have VA buildings and veterans that are in the path of those storms (and need services or support). It’s a really daunting task, but she is so dynamic; she is just knocking it out of the park at a time when our VA employees need to see stability.”
Esparza, meanwhile, is Bradsher’s right hand and a dynamic contributor to the VA in her own right.
She served in the Marines Corps for 11 years, earning the rank of staff sergeant and a half-dozen awards, including two Navy and Marine Corps commendation medals. Esparza enrolled at the UO in 2014, went to law school at Georgetown University and worked for the Biden-Harris administration as a White House liaison for the VA before joining Bradsher’s team.
Esparza paid a high price for her military service, experiencing sexual harassment by senior leadership. It left deep emotional scars but inspired a determination in Esparza to help women in the military avoid what she endured. In 2023 she chaired VA’s I~STAND Sub-Council, which increases awareness of sexual harassment and sexual assault, promotes prevention and intervention strategies, and improves avenues for reporting throughout the department.
With Law at the helm of numerous divisions at the VA and Esparza at the elbow of the deputy secretary, it’s routine for the two Ducks to team up on important issues.
When hurricanes Helene and Milton hit the East Coast recently, they threatened VA medical centers and outpatient clinics and triggered the department’s disaster relief support for thousands of veterans and employees in the storms’ paths. Law’s oversight of operations, security and preparedness and Bradsher’s role as point person for the crisis prompted Law and Esparza to collaborate on the department’s response. That included such things as real-time information sharing about the hurricanes and the damaged caused.
“I’ve been working alongside Cassie — ‘Hey, this report came out, it doesn’t match what we’re hearing on this side,’” Esparza said. “As we’re navigating the preparedness efforts and relief efforts she and I are working very closely.”
Bradsher, who visited the UO’s Eugene campus with Esparza in May to meet with student veterans, said Esparza has a kind of “Spidey sense.” Like the web-slinging superhero, she has an intuitive ability to read a room and sense which veteran might need encouragement to speak up about their concerns.
For Law and Esparza, being at the administrative level of the department means they’re now able to help that individual veteran and tens of thousands of others who might be experiencing a similar concern.
“It’s an incredible experience at this level because I am able to be a thought partner with leaders who are making big decisions for the entire department, and that shapes the way we support veterans, their survivors, families and caregivers,” Esparza said. “It is very humbling.”