📍 Summit of Mount Saint Helens, 2022 — my second date with my husband, climbed on a whim, like most of my best decisions.
The Heart Behind the Work
“My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.”
—Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The Story Behind the Drive
In 2019, I packed up my car and drove across the country by myself. I was 22, had just left engineering school, and knew deep down that staying in Kentucky wasn’t going to lead me toward the life I wanted.
I didn’t have a job or a clear plan, just a strong pull toward the mountains, the water, and a place that felt more in sync with who I was becoming.
That move reshaped everything. I had to grow up quickly. I learned how to rely on myself, how to build community from the ground up, and how to stay steady even when nothing felt certain. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I started to figure out what kind of impact I wanted to make.
That version of me, resourceful, driven, and unwilling to settle, is still the one behind every project I take on today.
From Systems to Sustainability
I spent years managing vendor contracts, building systems, and leading enterprise-wide IT rollouts. I knew how to make things work at scale, and I was good at it. However, I eventually began asking more challenging questions.
Who benefits from this work? What kind of impact do I want to have? And could I use the same skills to build something more meaningful?
That reflection is what pulled me into the climate space. I didn’t need to start over. I just needed to point my experience in a better direction.
The final puzzle piece was my graduate capstone project, which involved developing an enterprise architecture framework to enhance the management of renewable energy companies’ wind assets. It gave me the clarity (and proof) that this is precisely where I’m supposed to be. Now, I bring the same systems mindset to projects that align with my values: clean energy, equity, and resilience.
The Path That Shaped Me
I grew up between salt air and farmland. Some of my earliest memories are of working on my grandpa’s orange groves on the Gulf Coast and my dad quietly picking up trash on the beach, not because anyone told him to, just because he cared about the place. Later, we moved to a hay farm in Kentucky, where I learned to work hard, respect the land, and stay grounded in my identity.
When I was in middle school, my siblings and I spent a month sailing through Alaska and Asia on one of my dad’s container ships. He was a chief engineer for Maersk, spending most of his career with the company. We got to see port cities come alive at 2 AM and learned just how much coordination it takes to keep the world running. I also learned how to duck out of the way in a 140-degree engine room and fall asleep to the hum of massive machinery below deck. That trip made the world feel big and connected in a way I’ve never forgotten.
That kind of upbringing shaped how I move through life. I crave quiet grit, big skies, and a deeper purpose behind the work I do. I met my husband, Danny, in Washington State, and we got married in an elephant sanctuary in the mountains of Thailand, surrounded by our families and a few strangers who quickly became lifelong friends.
Now we’re putting down roots in Vermont, close to the forests I’ve always loved. Sustainability isn’t just what I work on; it’s how I live. It shows up in how I cook, plan, and care for people. That thread’s been running through me all along, even before I had the words for it.
A Life Lived Outside the Lines
I’ve never been one to color inside the lines, something my fashion choices (like turning 3D movie glasses into everyday sunglasses) have made painfully obvious.
My life’s been stitched together with a mix of grit, heart, and spontaneous detours. I’ve swam with dolphins, sharks, manta rays, and seals (until one made it clear I was not part of the pod), cleaned boilers on my dad’s Maersk ship somewhere off the coast of Asia, and had my full “Jeff Probst” moment riding a motorcycle to my wedding when the car bailed last minute, no straight lines. No script. Just a lot of figuring it out as I go.
But it’s the smaller things that shaped me just as much, like my grandpa calling me “Scary Mary” after I stole the show in a church play, or hiking Whiteface Mountain and spelunking Florida caves with my mom. These are the moments that raised me. The ones that taught me how to find steadiness in chaos, laugh at the mess, and always keep showing up.
This page is just a glimpse of the unfiltered reel. A little wild, a little weird, and 100% me.
