Norman Reef and daughter Grace

Note: Grace Reef, the first girl in the world to play in a sanctioned Little League program, and her father Norman circa 1974. Grace Reef grew up in Portland, Maine, with her father, Norman Reef, an attorney, and her mother, Patricia Reef. In 1974, as a twelve-year-old, she was the first female Little League baseball player, having sued to integrate girls into the program. She attended Colby College, graduating in 1983 with a degree in public policy. During college she interned in George Mitchell’s Senate office in Washington, D.C.; she worked as a legislative correspondent, eventually becoming one of Mitchell’s senior advisors on children and poverty issues and economic development. She worked for minority leader Tom Daschle after Mitchell retired in 1994, continuing to work on issues of welfare reform and child care. She also worked for Senator Chris Dodd as the minority staff director of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families. She has served as director of intergovernmental affairs for the Children’s Defense Fund, and was chief of policy and evaluation for the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA). She is Founder & Director at Early Learning Policy Group in DC.