I spent a long time at Hewlett Packard, and at a certain point, I decided it was time to do something else. I had the opportunity to work for Palo Alto School District, and that’s where the public service bug bit me. I was there for five years, and during that time, I was nominated for a position in the Obama administration. That’s how I wound up at the EPA. At the end of that administration, I took the opportunity to work at the local level as the CIO for the county of Santa Clara, Calif. When I got a call from President Biden’s transition team, it was hard to say no. When they say we want you to serve if you’re so inclined, you tend to do that.
In moving toward all these roles, it has been important to be open to the opportunities that show up. I thought I was going to be at HP for my entire career. HP was a great company and I did some great things there, but I’ve had a much more interesting career by being open to change and taking those chances. I came to the EPA halfway through the second term of the Obama administration, so I had a very short period of time to get things done. And I didn’t know what would happen when the administration ended. You have to take that leap of faith that says, ‘I’ll have another job when this is over. Something good will happen.’ Being willing to take those risks and try new things is part of what’s enabled me to make all these moves.
Q: When you go into a new role, how do you get started and how do you get comfortable with it?
Going into a new role can be a little daunting. When I start any new role, I go talk to lots of people. I listen to them, and I figure out what’s going on. It’s important to ensure that employees understand you want their input and care about what they think. Leaders often come in with their agenda and thinking ‘I know what needs to happen for this organization.’ It’s important to make sure that what you want to do is what the organization needs. Our goal with the administration as a whole, and certainly my goal at DOE, is to leave it in a better place than I found it.
Q: You’re a licensed professional engineer. What barriers keep women out of the STEM workforce and what should we be doing to attract more young women into technical fields?
My experience in K-12 education really enlightens my thoughts on this process. We see girls being socialized out of math and science at very young ages, and if they don’t study math and science, it’s very hard for them to go into STEM fields. Getting girls to stay interested in math and science through elementary school, middle school and high school is hugely important. To do that, educators today build maker spaces and labs and places where kids can go and play with technology and learn things. They make a concerted effort to ensure the girls are participating just like the boys. They also make sure there are good mentors, leaders and teachers who will keep girls engaged at every grade level. Once girls get to be adults, you have another problem. It’s really hard for women to stay in the workforce through their entire career without taking a break, so they often get derailed. If they take a break, they find themselves unable to get back in because their skills get rusty or people see them as someone who’s had a break. We need to be more supportive of women in the workforce to keep women in STEM careers. But first we’ve got to get them there, and we don’t get them there if we don’t keep them interested in math and science throughout their K-12 education.
Q: Who has been influential in your career and why were they important to you?
I have to start with my parents. My mother got her undergraduate and master’s degrees as a single parent. She was one of three women in her graduating class at Wharton in 1960. My father believed that his kids — he had four girls and one boy — could be successful at anything they wanted to do. So, I had good role models who showed me or told me I could go do whatever I wanted to do.
There have also been lots of great people throughout my career — whether they gave me one piece of advice, an act of friendship or simply the opportunity to watch them work. Stan Meiburg, who was the acting deputy administrator when I was at the EPA, is one of the best leaders I’ve ever worked for. I think I was a pretty good leader by the time I got to the EPA, but I learned a lot of really pragmatic things from Stan about how to lead in government because he had spent his entire career in government.
It has also been a tremendous opportunity to work for Secretary [Jennifer] Granholm, as I do now, and people like Gina McCarthy [first White House national climate adviser and former EPA administrator]. They’re not mentoring you, but seeing up close how those people work is incredibly enlightening to learn how to grow to that next level of political savvy and understanding of how things work and how to get things done.
Q: What advice would you give yourself if you were in the first few years of your career?
Don’t get too comfortable. I think I got way too comfortable at HP, and I stayed there too long. Not that it wasn’t a great company, but it had gotten too easy. It had stopped being as challenging as it could be in terms of my growth as a manager and a leader. That’s what led me to then take the risk of working for the Obama administration even though it was late in the administration. If you don’t get too comfortable with things, that can translate to taking some risks and trying something else. I’m very happy where I landed now, so maybe it all worked out for the best that I stayed so long at HP, but I definitely think people need to get out and take a risk.
