Alan Estevez was sitting at his dining room table wearing a t-shirt when Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo called on Zoom to ask if he wanted to be the Biden administration’s top export control official. “You’re going to have to sell me on this,” Estevez recalls telling her. It was 2021, and the outspoken New Jersey native thought he had finally left public service behind. After more than three decades at the Pentagon, he had left and taken a job in consulting. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to go back. Could he be tempted by the opportunity to...