Jason Crow, the first Democrat to represent Colorado’s 6th Congressional District, on Friday announced that he’s hired Maytham Alshadood, an Iraqi immigrant who served as a military translator and combat interpreter, to be his district director.

Crow, an attorney and Army Ranger veteran who unseated five-term Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman in November, said his campaign manager, Colorado native Alex Ball, will be his chief of staff and Katrice Traylor will be his director of constituent services.

“As we work together to build a new generation of leadership in Washington, Alex and Maytham’s knowledge, talent, expertise and deep love of Colorado and its people put us in a position to succeed,” Crow said in a statement.

“I’m thrilled to welcome them onboard to lead our team and look forward to working with them to take on the most important issues in our community and country.”

Before he immigrated to the United States and settled in Arapahoe County, Alshadood worked with U.S. forces in Iraq as a translator during the formation of a new Iraqi army and the effort to rebuild the Iraqi government, including combat missions in northern Baghdad and military intelligence work, Crow’s office said.

Crow served three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although his military service overlapped with Alshadood’s work as a military translator in 2005 and 2006, they didn’t know each other until recently.

After arriving in Colorado, Alshadood founded the nonprofit DRIVE Project, an organizing and advocacy group that works with refugee and immigrant communities in Aurora.

He’s served on the Denver Immigrant and Refugees Commission and worked as a nurse with University of Colorado Hospital’s transplant unit.

“Colorado’s 6th District wouldn’t be the community that it is without the diversity within it,” Alshadood said in a statement. “As [an] immigrant, combat interpreter, and refugee advocate, I’m thrilled to join Jason’s team and see those experiences build and inform upon each other to create a better future for the families of 6th district.”

He became a U.S. citizen in August 2014.

“As soon as I was eligible, I submitted my naturalization application,” he added.

Alshadood will run Crow’s district office at 3300 S. Parker Road in Aurora.

Ball, who grew up in Littleton and is a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder, has managed congressional campaigns around the country.

In the last midterm election, she was finance director for U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois, who was recently named to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Traylor, who will work out of the district office in Aurora, has worked for the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado and is a member 0f the Arapahoe County Citizens Budget Committee.

Crow will be sworn in to the new 116th Congress on Jan. 3 in Washington, D.C.