What are your primary job responsibilities?

Program management of a statewide market transformation initiative, strategic planning, team management, stakeholder outreach, executing demonstrations and field studies, budgetary planning and responsibility for the initiative. 

What is a typical work day-in-your-life like?

The primary goal is to win over and work with stakeholder champions that can help us with our market transformation efforts. Highly relational (compared to previous roles that were very much more technical, report, and R&D focused).

Due to the relational nature of market transformation, we have a lot of Teams calls, perhaps 25-50% of my time each week, with a few weeks occasionally more like 75%. We use Asana and Salesforce to track relationships and make sure we get back in touch with key stakeholders in a timely manner.

Outside of meetings, it is a mix of email, in person meetings, strategic planning, and administrative tasks like budget planning. 

How did you find your first job?

While at the U of M, I did a UROP paid internship with my ochem professor (thanks, Prof. Kass!!) Bysimply asking if I could after lecture one day. After that, I applied to many internship positions (100-200?) Before getting one at 3M as a technical aide.

After I graduated, I worked another 1.5 years as a contract worker, keeping my resume and LinkedIn updated before getting a recruiter call to move to a full time salaried position. 
What level of education (Bachelor's, Masters, PhD, etc.) is required to do your job? 
As a first line manager, B.S. with some years of experience or M.S. is probably required. The job description called for a Bachelors with 2-3 years of relevant industry experience.

What is your work schedule like? Do you ever work weekends or nights?

I deliberately limit my time outside of core hours. Occasionally (1-3 times a quarter?) I may work on a few timeline sensitive items outside of work hours, but do not expect or prefer my direct reports to do this.

Travel to conferences, etc. Can happen outside of core hours several times a year. 

Do you travel for work? If so, in what capacity, and how often?

Yes, typically for conferences about once a quarter, for several days at a time. Often this is due to presenting at these conferences.

What is your work environment like? Do you work mostly with a team or mostly independently? Do you stand, sit, or move most of the day?

Clean energy nonprofit, market transformation team is *Highly* collaborative. Nonprofit work is values and mission driven. I tend to sit most of the day, but we have sit/stand desks when in the office.

I work 4 days remote and 1 day in office, with the option to do more time in the office if desired.

What do you like most about your job?

I love that I've found a place where my values align with the organization's values. You can train people on what they need to know, but you can't really change what their values are.

I have found a place that both pays a physical/financial paycheck, but ALSO a values/emotional paycheck. This is important to me, and was something I was specifically  looking for.

What are some tools or skills that you can't live without? These can be technologies, soft skills, hardware, or anything else you can think of.

An above average aptitude for using Excel has served me VERY well. If you can do some basic excel macros, or better yet, some basic VBA (or at least a fundamental grasp on the basic ideas of coding), you will seem like a wizard to many of your co-workers and bosses.

Find ways to automate the tasks that you have to repeat many times. I have found a ton of value I'm using Autohotkey to create custom shortcuts and scripts to do my daily tasks quicker. This frees up time to pursue things that interest you and build your skillsets.

Broadly speaking, I also feel that a basic grasp of CRMs, and in particular Salesforce, is quite helpful.

Learn new things!! Try to advocate for 5-15% of your time working on "Blue Sky" tasks that excite you. You will learn so much more if you're curious or excited about the topic. 

What skills, traits, talents do you have that you think make you a good fit for your job?

Friendly and personable to my team. I genuinely want my coworkers and those above and below my to be sucessful and i try to find ways to make the workplace better for all of us. 10 times out of 10 I would rather work with someone who does well on a team even if their technical chops are not as good, rather than work with someone who is technically very strong, but is an abrasive team member.

In other words, teamwork us more important than one person's technical chops; don't be a jerk!

What's your best productivity trick?

Mark Forseter's "Autofocus" system was literally transformational to my work, without  hyperbole.

In this system, you keep a big running list of all that you need to do. When you're ready to work, put a dot next to the oldest task then scan the list asking for each item below "do I want to this more than the first dotted task?"

When the answer is yes, put another dot next to the new item and continue scanning asking if there's anything you want to do more than the NEW dotted task.

Once you get to the end of the list, take all the dotted tasks and work on the latest dotted task for 5-10 minutes (or until you feel done with it - this allows you to get on a roll). If you finish it, cross it off the running list. If it's not done yet cross off the old entry and add it to the bottom of the list. Once you have spent at least 5 minutes on each of your dotted tasks, go back and start over with this process on the oldest task on the list.

This method was transformational for me. It is the best method I've ever found to tackle procrastination and get unstuck. It naturally circulates the old tasks to the new part of the list, and kills procrastination by pitting your tasks against each other.

Do you have any habits that are essential to your professional success that you wish you started earlier?

I keep personal and work notes in Obsidian.md . This is like a personal Wikipedia that you build over time for your knowledge-base. I have it synced to all my devices and it serves as my second brain. This is where I capture details that I'd otherwise forget and makes a Large and searchable knowledgebase as you build it up.

It may not be a fit for everyone's way of thinking, but if it works for you, it is a fantastic tool.

Also for memorization of anything at all, Anki is my go-to tool.

What's the best career advice you've ever received? What career advice would you give to someone starting out in your field?

Dont be afraid to give something a try and don't be afraid to ask for help and support in trying something a little out of your comfort zone. Be kind and help others and its likely they'll be willing to help you, too.

It's likely that you can do a lot more than you think you can if you're willing to try, fail, learn, and try again.

How do you build community in your career field? Are you part of any professional organizations?

Mostly on LinkedIn with people in my industry. I have had limited experience with professional organizations, and have done most of my networking "the old fashioned way".

Particularly while in college, I wish I would have been involved more with my peers. I was fairly isolated and stubbornly wanted to do all my work on my own (i felt if I couldn't figure it out on my own without a study group, then I didn't sufficiently understand it yet).

Do your own work (don't cheat or copy because the learning is the goal, not the grade), but build your own study groups as well. Rely on your peers to help you understand better and help them to understand better when you can. 

Do you have a favorite memory from your time at the University of Minnesota?

I personally loved to wander around campus buildings and find public places where I didn't feel like I was completely supposed to be (PUBLIC spaces like study areas from other majors, not into other peoples labs or rooms or anything). By wandering through the buildings id never been before, I found some really delightful and quiet study spots that I would return to again and again.

That and the cheap day old half dozen bagels from Brueggers :)