After graduating from college, I spent 17 years traveling the country working on political campaigns, helping to elect people up and down the ballot. I have managed congressional races, small and mid-sized city mayoral/council races, county-wide races, and state legislative races in Iowa, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Florida. I managed budgets ranging from $165,000 to $2.2 million. I worked with candidates, consultants, party/political organizations, staff, and volunteers on all these campaigns to build a professional campaign. I had to formulate and lead the execution of the campaign strategy. I was responsible for helping to fundraise, managing staff and volunteers, coordinating with the party and other political organizations, supervising and working with the consulting team to create our message and test it, and then working with them to create TV ads, direct mail, and digital ad’s; and the whole time making sure we keep everything we do within the set budget.Now, I am taking the skills I have learned on the campaign trail and putting them to work, helping a local Labor union reach its goals, politically and legislatively. I coordinate an endorsement process and campaign activities between seven independent local unions, maintain relationships with elected officials and their staff on behalf of the Union, and act as the in-house lobbyist at the state and local level, including working with state and county legislators on drafting and passing laws to help workers, coordinating internal election outreach to our members in support of endorsed candidates, and coordinating member volunteer activities with the campaigns.