Experience

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  Office of state representative helen giddings

  Feb 1997 - Sept 2000

  Chief of staff

  • Played a key role in fostering Representative’s legislative and program initiatives.• Collaborated with legislators, committee members, and community representatives to maximize success for local, state, and federal programs supported by Representative Giddings. • Led negotiations with Appropriations committees and developed funding and grant proposals. Coordinated day-to-day activities for staff; analyzed strategies to support program goals.Key Achievements:• Authored, presented, and advocated 15 bills achieving an 80% success rate.• Established support and awareness for Read to Succeed, a K-3 literacy program, by conducting a license plate design competition involving participation from more than 12,000 students across 238 Texas cities; marketed the specialty plate to achieve the third highest sales in Texas.• Negotiated and secured $4.2 million in funding for the Higher Education Center at The University of North Texas, in addition to $700,000 for The Universities Center at Dallas and $5 million for teacher library centers throughout the Texas Association of Developing Colleges. Show less

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  Office of state representative dawnna dukes

  Sept 2000 - Nov 2002

  Chief of staff

  • Promoted Representative's legislative and public relations objectives, leveraging a wide range of negotiation, media management, and campaign methods. • Liaised extensively with state and legislative branches, serving as the primary negotiator for the appropriations process. Partnered with Representative’s staff to ensure activities, communication, campaigns, and negotiations aligned with image and legislative goals. Promoted constituent participation in community events and secured support.• Managed, supervised, and trained full-time staff, part-time staff, paid interns, and unpaid interns.Key Achievements:• Conceived and developed an amendment revising the “ten percent automatic admission policy,” expanding guaranteed admission to incorporate two tiers among students in magnet programs and host institutions and increasing the opportunity for neighborhood students from highly competitive schools to attend college.• Spearheaded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard Cleanup, collaborating with Keep Austin Beautiful, City of Austin Parks & Recreation, City of Austin Resource Recovery, Austin Police Department, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Texas, Boy Scouts of America – Capitol Area, Girl Scouts of Central Texas, and HEB Grocery.• Organized Second Annual African American Cultural Heritage Festival, increasing constituent attendance by more than 50% and achieving a 30% increase in contributions raised for youth activities and needs-based college scholarships. Show less

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  American cancer society

  Nov 2002 - Aug 2009

  Director of government

  • Delivered and supported the evidence-based policy and legislative solutions to eliminate cancer as a major public health problem by offering leadership and direction for legislative and grassroots initiatives throughout Texas and building strategic partnerships and diverse volunteer groups.• Executed comprehensive advocacy and government relations leadership program in the state, serving as an ambassador for the Society and leading the planning, implementation, and measurement of issue campaigns.• Ensured compliance with organizational policies and guidelines, as well as lobbying-related regulations.Key Achievements:• Led the largest smoke-free ballot referendum campaign in Texas, including a volunteer and paid signature collection process generating more than 40K signatures within 90 days.• Recruited and led a coalition of 15 community organizations, including American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Texas Council of PTAs, and Travis County Medical Society to support smoke-free ballot initiative and secured majority vote on the ballot initiative to eliminate smoking from public places in Austin.• Served as spokesperson, conducting 57 interviews with local and national television, radio, and print outlets. Show less

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  Keep austin beautiful

  Feb 2010 - now

  Chief executive officer

  • Prepares, presents, and monitors budgets, negotiates contracts and agreements with government, foundation, and corporate entities, develops short and long-range plans across departments, and reports on the organization’s program impact and return on investment.• Builds, trains, develops, and leads a high-performing and diverse team while fostering a collaborative culture and encouraging innovation, and promoting personal and organizational learning and improvement.• Serves as the organization’s public face working closely with civic organizations, keeping the Board President and Board of Directors advised of all pertinent issues affecting the strategic indicators of the organization.Key Achievements: • Spearheaded donor recruitment, cultivation, and retention and built strategic partnerships with corporations in Central Texas to secure over $9.4M in income over an eight-year period.• Secured multi-year contracts totaling $4M from City of Austin Resource Recovery, City of Austin Watershed Protection, and Travis County to execute youth and adult education and volunteer programming.• Oversaw the education of over 99,000 K-12 students and the engagement of 227,829 volunteers contributing 685,297 hours of service, removing 1.39M pounds of litter, and collecting 150,933 pounds of recycling. Show less