San Diego, California

Over the past decade, Brace has worked for the Navy as a 911 dispatcher, for the Coast Guard cleaning up chemical and oil spills, and, until his firing in February 2025, for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration enforcing rules for e-cigarettes and the like – rules to prevent vaporizers from being marketed to children (in cans resembling grape soda, for example) or exploding in customers’ faces. “I loved working to protect the American people,” Brace told a reporter for Government Executive magazine. “I never thought that I would leave the government.”

The FDA has had trouble recruiting skilled professionals, who can generally earn more money in the private sector. Even so, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has targeted the agency for massive job cuts, promising to eliminate “entire departments.” Brace was one of thousands of probationary employees swept out in the first round of dismissals, because, according to a White House spokesperson, their jobs had been deemed “not mission critical.”

Getting rid of Brace will not actually save the government any money. That’s because his office – the Center for Tobacco Products — is entirely funded out of fees paid by the tobacco industry.

Date Posted: 3/10/25