Growing up in Flint, Michigan, I had a thorough introduction to the intersecting systems that feed into inter-generational poverty, segregation, and institutional failure. I pursued an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering with the intent of learning about problem solving in those and similar complex systems – not to mention to have a solid bank of employable skills.
During my undergraduate career, I was employed through a co-operative education program at LMI, the Logistics Management Institute, which is a not-for-profit logistics government contractor. There, I mostly worked with the Department of Defense and the General Services Administration on various projects related to efficiency and updating processes. I learned a lot about the federal government, the Department of Defense, databases, and how contracting works (I have opinions on this, bring it up sometime).
After my degree, I sought out less socially destructive employment and landed at Epic, a health records software company outside of Madison, WI. There I expanded my technical skills and was knee deep in some of the weeds of the Meaningful Use provisions of the Affordable Care Act (I have yet more opinions, to be honest).
For the last five years I have worked as as a data and information specialist at the University of Wisconsin’s undergraduate Office of Admissions and Recruitment. While this has been a good and solid job, I have been looking to get back into dealing with larger social issues.
I have been an active volunteer for a number of organizations over the years, from Planned Parenthood while I was in High School, building and maintaining contact databases for a few different organizations, and most recently and most involved – the Democratic Party of Dane county. In the Dane Dems, I have been leading a charge to engage and grow our membership in ways that nourish the community at large, rather than purely trying to grow the membership dues. It has been… interesting. (Once again – opinions!)