>> So, in undergrad, I was a Government major and knowing
that I enjoyed really mission-based programs and helping folks, I initially went to work
for The United Way in Houston, Texas, where we raised money for a huge amount
of social-service agencies and really made a difference
in the everyday lives of millions of people.
When I moved to Philadelphia in '95, I had the opportunity to work for The United Way here
but then move into the museum field as the head of Corporate
and Government Relations for the Franklin Institute.
And just a great organization again, a real belief that the importance of everybody
to understand the science and technology that is out there and how important that is,
but also how to educate more folks on it, how to do better teacher training and how to reach
as many people as we can so to take that and go out and get support from folks was there.
Really within a year of that, I became Director of Development for the Institute and,
but I was also going to law school at night here at Temple University.
When I graduated from law school at night, I went to work to work for Morgan Lewis, a,
a great law firm here in Philadelphia with an international presence
in their business and finance side.
It had the, the ability to work on mergers and acquisition, securities law, and also with a,
with a large group of entrepreneurs is they began companies in biotechnology
and information technology and, and that was a great experience, really working with folks
in their companies and helping them develop those companies and take them
to whatever stage along the way and, and that was a great experience.
I had the opportunity to come back to the Franklin Institute after being at Morgan Lewis
and came back in a role as a head of Development as well as general counsel, and really,
and again, enjoyed that opportunity, being able to mesh both my world of law and world
of fundraising together for a mission-based organization, and, and, you know,
have been back at the Franklin Institute since 2004, was able to really continue to grow kind
of the portfolio of what I work with, working with some of the science programming, as I said,
and then many of the operational functions of the Institute.