Top homeland security adviser to exit post

Mark Holman, who has been a close, long-time aide to White House Homeland Security Adviser Tom Ridge, is leaving his post as deputy assistant for Homeland Security at the end of the year, Influence Online reported.

Holman is returning to the Washington office of Blank Rome Consulting, a lobbying unit of Philadelphia law firm Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley.

Holman worked for Ridge for almost two decades, as chief of staff for then-Rep. Ridge, R-Pa., from 1983 to 1991, and then as chief of staff for Ridge when he was governor of Pennsylvania.

Holman was at Blank Rome for less than a year when he decided to join Ridge's White House staff after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Carl Buchholz, who is special assistant to the president in the White House's Homeland Security Office, also plans to rejoin Blank Rome on Jan. 1, in the firm's Philadelphia headquarters, as an executive partner, the online publication reported.