Connecting to the grid: Julia’s journey toward purpose in policy (no MPP required)

Who: Julia

What: Director of Policy and Strategy, Chief Operating Officer, Grid Strategies, LLC; Executive Director, WATT Coalition 

Where: Washington, D.C.

Industry: Energy policy

For some, working in public policy is a lifelong calling. For others, it takes time to find a way in. A physics major with intense intellectual curiosity, Julia initially worried that purpose-driven work might not be stimulating enough to keep her going, so she actually “shied away from it early on” in her work experience. After a few years of career exploration, which took her from Portland to Santa Cruz to Washington, D.C., Julia found her niche geeking out on grid-enhancing technologies and other aspects of electricity transmission. Here’s more on how she got to where she is today, and insight into whether energy might be a career for you.

The spark

After completing an internship at a public relations agency while in college (disclosure: we worked together there), Julia moved on to doing PR for tech companies after graduating, then worked on government agency projects at a local PR agency in Santa Cruz. Timing can be everything: she had the opportunity to work with this agency on launching a community choice aggregator (CCA), Monterey Bay Community Power (now Central Coast Community Energy) that gave local residents the opportunity to purchase cleaner energy for less. (The extent to which CCAs succeed may vary, but the idea is a way to give consumers more control over the cost and source of the energy they use.)

Working on that clean energy project got Julia interested in electricity policy and the potential it has to make a real difference for communities: the CCA launch ended up enabling a huge investment in mitigation and adaptation, promising to deliver $50 million annually for local spending. The experience showed her how “communities have power and can make a difference in ways I hadn’t been empowered to think were possible,” and provided a spark for further exploration.

Do you need a degree?

Recognizing the power (pun not intended) of policy, Julia started a career transition. Her first experiences were unpaid: volunteering with the Citizens Climate Lobby, and interning with her Congressional representative in D.C. Though hearing it can get old, networking truly matters, and getting out in the community can really help you find the topic that resonates with your interests. “When I started [in D.C.], I was going not just to electricity policy events, I was going to housing events, foreign policy events, and other events. Eventually I kept going to electricity policy events until I heard people repeating themselves,” Julia says, at which point a lot of what she needed to know to work in energy policy had really sunk in (degree or not), and she made connections for two future jobs through free public events.

Julia was able to hear from the two leaders of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at the time, at a free event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Though the ability to work odd jobs while interning is not available to everyone, being “creatively employed” while interning can be an alternative to going into debt for a law or policy degree that may not actually be required for policy work. Policy degrees are frequently listed on job requirements, but the lack of one hasn’t stopped Julia, and she’s also seen people with MPP degrees apply for jobs where they may not have the opportunity to use the skills they developed in their program. 

Julia talks to Congressman Paul Tonko, a long-time member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, at a 2020 event.

How do you like to work?

When evaluating a career pathway, it helps to consider not just what area you want to work in, but how you prefer to work. “It took me a long time to realize how different my working style was than everyone else’s,” Julia comments. As she considered her strengths, Julia “came to terms with the fact that I love novelty and that can be a strength. I want to move fast and do something I’ve never done before. I want to start with a blank page, and that’s not everybody.” She says consulting can be a good fit for people who like that blank page – the chance to start something new.

Along with working style, certain types of knowledge can be beneficial to policy careers – but are not necessarily required. As an undergraduate physics major, Julia has a basic sense of how electricity works, but she still doesn’t have an in-depth power engineering background: “It’s useful to know what a capacitor does, but I still Google things,” she says. While the climate jobs that can be done with deep training in economics and engineering are incredibly important, especially in public service roles, there are still plenty of jobs for people with other types of backgrounds and interests across the energy sector.

Who are you working for?

“Transmission is for everyone,” Julia says of her role in advancing transmission, which essentially gets electricity from where it’s generated to where it’s used. She’s particularly interested in “how customers can be more empowered” when it comes to energy policy, pointing to CCAs as a way to “give everyone a choice” and a way to do something for their neighbors in addition to themselves. While powerful, utility rate design is also complicated and will require new approaches to advance  equity and electrification. One active area of work that interests Julia is demand flexibility, which allows end-customers to be compensated for timing their energy use to serve the system’s needs. It’s exciting that it gives us tools to advance equity, but “Everyone will solve [the issues] in a different way because different places have different problems,” Julia says, acknowledging that different communities have different energy realities.

Julia sits behind her boss while he testifies at a Congressional hearing. 

The utility industry has a reputation of being a bit old-fashioned, but the electricity world is undergoing a transition that requires new ideas and a bigger workforce. Historically, electricity has been a male-dominated field, with the term DOUG (for “Dumb Old Utility Guy”) still a running joke at conferences. Julia’s first long-term role was at a trade association staffed only by women – a rarity in the sector. She had to be patient on her path to transition out of communications and administration work into policy, taking on roles that mixed her experience with her aspirations. 

“The closer you get to these [climate] issues, the more you see progress.”

- Julia

How do you stay hopeful?

“The closer you get to these [climate] issues, the more you see progress,” Julia comments. At the large scale, like an IPCC climate report, it may look like things aren’t improving, “But if you’re looking at it from a utility plan perspective, they’re getting better.” At the same time, even the most dire climate predictions are just part of a range of possibility: “You hear a number [like a projection of a future mean summer temperature] and you think that’s what will happen, but that’s part of a big curve of possibility — something five times worse or better is all in the realm of possibility.” It’s important to keep that in perspective.

Although climate is important to Julia, she also recognizes the emotional toll it can take: “I have to not think about climate every day to have it be a sustainable job.” Julia’s encouraged by the fact that her firm works with a lot of major technology companies with 100% clean energy goals, which are seeing that “it would be much better if the whole grid went zero emissions to achieve their energy goals,” and she’s glad to see these large organizations ”put their money where their mouth is” and invest in the more technical elements of the clean energy transition, beyond procuring renewable energy credits.

What should I do?

It sounds simple, but sometimes it’s as easy as talking to people. “A lot of people in climate, utilities or clean energy are very generous with their time in terms of talking to people getting into the industry,” Julia says. “If you are ambitious and driven and you will act on the advice you’re given and you really want to start a career, call people up, send emails. People will talk and help you understand your options.”

Key insights from Julia

• Find your work style: consulting can be great for people who like a “blank page”–starting with something new.

• You might not need a policy degree, and if you have one, you might not use what you learned.

• Don’t stress the big climate picture every day – find a way to focus on the present.

• If you’re curious about working in energy, ask! People are glad to share their stories.