I went from a working-class family in northeast Philadelphia to running the biggest environmental advocacy non-profit in Pennsylvania.I graduate college as a meteorologist, the first in my family to get a bachelor’s. I got to do some cool things—worked at NASA and the National Academies of Science. Chased a tornado. Joined an amazing community of weather nerds.But my mentors (and Al Gore) gave me the public policy bug, so I switched gears to being an analyst in Washington D.C., which is how I became a national expert in clean energy and climate change policy. I got bills passed in Congress, spoke around the country (and world) and advanced national investments in clean tech innovation, but I came to a fork in the road—raise a family or live the 24/7 work cycle of D.C. I chose family.That’s not to say I gave up my passions. I came upon a growing non-profit in Pennsylvania called PennFuture that needed a lobbyist in the state capital, and I dove in headfirst. I came back home right about when Pennsylvania’s state legislature started to really try turning the screws on protecting the environment (they drank the fracking cool aide), so I got to be at the center of defeating hundreds of anti-environmental bills.Later, on the first day back from paternity leave, my boss called me and asked if I wanted to dive deeper and become the organizations Chief of Staff and Executive Vice President. I said yes and have loved it. Not only am I still at the center of Pennsylvania’s major policy fights, but I’ve gotten to build a team, programs, and an organization to do even more.Since then, I’ve raised millions of dollars to run legal and policy campaigns across the Commonwealth, hired and developed a powerhouse team of experts, as well as been a part of passing historic state policies ($1 billion for clean water and green space? Check. Join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative? Check).And I feel like I’m just getting started.