Day 13 Reflection

Barry Lawrence

5-21-10

Day 13 Reflection

Today we heard from Kate Finnerty, Redlands alum class of ’99, and her co-worker Blair at Energetics Incorporated. After Kate graduated from Redlands, she knew she wanted to do something on the East Coast, so she went to grad school at George Washington University to get her Masters in International Affairs through the school’s night program. While attending nigh school she worked as a paid intern for the governor of Delaware at her Washington office. By making herself an asset to the functions of the office, Kate became the office director and got to work on many high profile issues that sometimes involved international travel. Despite her seemingly great job with the office of the governor, and being that no job in this city is by any means permanent, Kate eventually moved on to her current position at Energetics where she does planning and analysis for the Department of Homeland Security. Her duties include planning and writing strategic defense and crisis reactions for a number of companies that make up the eighteen subsections of our critical national infrastructure. Essentially, Kate could be referred to as a “ghost writer” for the Federal Government and DHS.

Blair had a slightly different approach to work in the government and how she got to Energetics. A native of New York, Blair went to work for the Internal Revenue Service office in New York. From there she went to work with the State Department through special security contracting as a consultant. After attempting several times, Blair now has a job with the DHS, finally reaching her goal of working for a Federal Agency, and will be starting in the next two weeks. She was able to get this job through a seemingly unlikely connection, further reinforcing the point both Kate and Blair made several times that we are to never burn bridges and keep as many and all options open in a field and town where connections are everything.