ENTREPRENEURIAL
Co Founder, Partner & Processor||Hi-Zor Farm Industrial Hemp Processing
December 2016 – Present
Enabling and accelerating Industrial Hemp market opportunities and research in New York State through New York State’s Industrial Hemp Agricultural Research Pilot Program and in partnership with the Department of Agriculture and Markets and Cornell Universities College of Agriculture and Life Science.
Introducing mobile hemp processing through a portable decortication system, developing an unfair advantage for acquiring strategic partnerships by offering more cost effective, environmentally conscious, processing.
Delivered 10+ speeches, wrote 5+ papers, and completed 3+ architectural design projects on industrial hemp.
Strengthened relationships and gained support with Hobart and William Smith Colleges Finger Lakes Institute, Centennial Center for Leadership, Fribolin Farm, Alumni Associations Office, Alumnus, Geneva community members and former President, Mark Gearan.
Designed and integrated 3D printed hemp filament cylinders apart of Hobart and William Smith Colleges RockSat-C teams aerospace research payload competition that was used to detect radiation shielding properties in space to conduct product and market research for hemp products.
Co-manage resources and operations.
Produce business, grants, and partnership proposals.
Drafted and developed operations strategy, market strategy, timeline, and research proposals.
Initiated business relationships with farmers, processors, and product manufacturers to advance research, economic development, and market opportunities.
Advocated and communicated support to New York State Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo and Senator Thomas O’mara for the 2017 Hemp Bill revision at the first-ever Industrial Hemp Summit in New York State as a representative for Hi-Zor Farm.
Received one of the first Industrial Hemp Processing Licenses in New York State.
Ideated, designed, and integrated 3D printed hemp filament as a radiation sheilding property to explore the possibilities for products of hemp in space apart of the Hobart and William Smith Colleges RockSat-C Aerospace research competition.
Founder||Foster Youth College Tour Program - Hobart and William Smith Colleges
December 2016 – May 2017
Created, organized, and led four college tours and one on one mentoring sessions with 40 foster youth between the ages of 13-17 in New York State, in collaboration with Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the organization Youth In Progress, and sponsored by the Intercultural Affairs Department.
Coordinated facilitated workshops by eight departments on campus, educating youth on financial aid, scholarships, and opportunities available for foster youth and the opportunities college offers.
Enabled youths understanding of college opportunities and the financial assistance provided for foster youth in New York State, resulting in 95% of attendees to want to college opportunities after college.
Removing artificial limits that college and success as a foster youth in not a possibility.
Encouraging and educating foster youth on how to maximize their foster care experience.
Resulted in three publications and state recognition.
Developing a state and national model for colleges and universities to replicate for foster youth in their communities to establish a national and state standard for foster youth access to college.
link to blog writing about kid who was interested in the mechanics program.
Pitch Participant||Hobart and William Smith Colleges - The Pitch Entrepreneurial Leadership Competition
December 2016
Produced a business plan proposal to implement an industrial hemp research pilot program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges Fribolin Farm to further the Colleges mission and highly interactive applied sustainability opportunities for students, the Geneva community, and New York States agricultural market.
Winning Proposal||Hobart and William Smith Colleges - IdeaLab Six-Week Start-Up Accelerator Program
May 17, 2013
Successfully selected as one of seven student awarded funding by the Centennial Center for Leadership’s (CCL) “start-up” accelerator program, the HWS IdeaLab, for my business idea.
Participated in the six-week accelerator program to help develop and refine my business plan and ideas through workshops with faculty, staff and alums.
Developed a business proposal that included Proposal Description, Value and Social Responsibility, Viability Research, Competitors, Customer Segment, Cost Structure, Implementation Timeline, and Leadership Role.
Learned a broad range of entrepreneurial concepts and collaboration techniques.
GSat-1 Outreach Program Founder||
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
RockSat-C Aerospace Research Competition
December 2016 – Current
Established a Geneva Middle School Outreach Program, now in its third year, for students to have hands on experience with STEM and NASA aerospace research, through an application process, in partnership with Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the Colorado Space Grant Consortium’s RockSat-C Program.
Oversaw the assembling, testing, and integration of four Geiger Counter Radiation Sensor Kits that were attached to HWS’s RockSat-C teams research payload that was launched into space out of NASA Wallops Flight Facility.
Led workshops, over nine weeks, two times a week, and a full campus tour for 26 students, generating electronics, programming, 3D-printing, machining, payload design, shop work, and drone skills, resume experience, and a model for future years, showing that they built part of a rocket payload that was launched into space.
Organized and led workshops on soldering with two practice kits and than our Radiation Sensors, which were attached on our final payload.
Tested their Radiation Sensor by flying it on a Drone.
GSat-1 stands for Geneva-Satellite Iteration-1. The decision for the name is stemmed fromour team wanting to represent the programs location, while mimicking the Satellite portion of the RockSat-C name. Than we included the number one because our team wanted to emphasize that there will be other opportunities in the following years. if HWS competes in the following years, resulting in a Geneva-Satellite Iteration 2 program and Geneva-Satellite Iteration 3 program.
Colorado Space Grant Consortium RockSat-C Program - Outreach and Radiation Subsystem||Hobart and William Smith Colleges
September 2016 – September 2017
Designed and built a sounding rocket research module (payload) that was selected for flight as one of eight colleges with the most advance and abled research rocket payload to be constructed, attached to a Terrier-Orion rocket and launched into space out of NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops, Virginia.
Produced aerospace research detecting Muon particles at high altitudes. spectral images of different layers of earths atmosphere as the rocket ascended and descended, and radiation shielding properties of various plastics.
Ideated, designed, and integrated 3D printed hemp filament as a radiation sheilding property to explore the possibilities of hemp in space.
Participated with a team of eight students and two faculty members.
Conducted multiple teleconferences with with the RockSat-C Program Manager, a liaison for Wallops Flight Facility.
Presented and succesfully completed the Conceptual Design Review (CDR), Preliminary Design Review (PDR), and the Critical Design Review (CDR) with the RockSat-C Program Manager for Wallops Flight Facility.
Presented and succesfully completed the integration and four interim reviews; Subsystem Testing Review (STR), Intergrated Subsystem Testing Review (ISTR), Full Mission Subsystem Review (FMSR), and Launch Readiness Review (LRR).
Developed a Preliminary Report and Final Results documents to be included in a scientific journal at the end of the year.
Conducted final presentation to NASA Offcials, directors, and participant, along with my team members.
Assisted with grant and fundraising proposals for up to $20,000-$30,000. Applying for grant funding from Hobart Student Government, NY Space Grant Consortium, HWS Presidents Office, KETEK Corp, and Alcoa.
C2C Fellow||Bard College Center for Environmental Policy
December 2016 – December 2016
Graduate of the Bard Center for Environmental Policy Northeast Regional C2C Fellows Workshop, a national program for undergraduates and recent graduates aspiring to leadership positions in sustainable policy, politics and business.
Produced three persuasive pitch's and delivered three speeche's identifying Industrial Hemp production and processing as a business solution for a sustainable future world.
Succesfully completed intensive weekend leadership training exploring skills and experiences needed to become people of power with the ability to affect the future and start green businesses and workshops covering network development, value-pitching, blog writing, communication, entrepreneurship, environmental and climate science, media, and raising capital.
Particiapate in an ongoing National C2C Fellows Network whose vision is to change the world, with access to continuing educational and professional opportunities and an ongoing network to lead change through updates and web-based events.
C2C stands for Campus to Congress, to Capitol, to City Hall, and also for Campus to Corporation. C2C stands for young people gaining control of their future.
Sole Practitioner Financial Advisor Trainee||Merrill Lynch
June 2017 - March 2018
Sole Practitioner: Business Development, Planning, Investments & Financing, Relationship Management, Business Management.
Practice Management Development Program.
Studied and participated in development activities in areas including but not limited to Merrill Lynch Strategy, products & services, wealth management process, desktop technology, marketing consultative sales skills, and investment financial planning knowledge.
Acquired investment, businesses development, business management and technology platform training and development.
Completed mandated training, assessments, and continuing education requirements.
Used relevant knowledge and content to educate other financial advisors on strategies.
Built and maintained a clear process for client acquisition.
Successfully completed eight-week client acquisition workshop.
Improved critical skills and knowledge necessary for building a successful wealth management business – acquiring clients, enhancing relationships, providing tailored strategies, and more.
Balanced client acquisition, prospect building, administrative compliance, and personal growth and development according to a day-to-day and longer-term plan.
Maintained a robust knowledge of the firm’s latest planning tools, techniques and strategies, ML online capabilities, and industry rules and relevant regulations, including future standards that may be mandated.
Sought out the expertise of specialists, where appropriate, to identify planning and studying strategies for my business.
Established and maintained relationships with management team and informed management of any circumstances that required supervisory attention/review/approval, as per compliance guidelines and policies.
Focused on client’s personal goals – Finances, family, health, home, leisure, work, and giving.
Successfully completed online LinkedIn training to build a wealth management focused LinkedIn page.
Received advice from over 20 senior Financial Advisors on client acquisition and client engagement.
Cohort Guide||Alia Innovation
February 2019 - Current
Influencing the future of the child welfare system by operationalizing the UnSystem, a new child welfare system, with 30+ child welfare innovators across 5 jurisdictions and 14 counties.
Guiding change, grounding innovation, creating the process, and challenging agency leaders to do more and become bolder and more courageous through rapid prototyping, experimentation and rapid cycle innovation to maximize impact.
Ideating, designing, testing, failing, and retrying transformative, radical, ideas.
Scaling and delivering evidence based research and proof of concept to be highlighted by Jerry Milner, Commissioner for the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, in Congress as the national model for child welfare.
Establishing Alia as the answer to child welfare reform in America.
Developing methods to measure our impact through evaluation maps, consolidation, mining our evaluation maps, all-group report-outs, change frameworks, presentations, worksheets, and in-depth peer-to-peer, all-group consultations.
Identifying and evaluating how can we do more, bigger, faster?
Shifting judicial landscape with judges and attorneys to inform a trauma-responsive approach judicial processes.
Organizing events, webinars, and in person talks with legal and financial officials to develop strong partnerships.
Identifying and encouraging the highest potential agencies and counties to adopt the UnSystem model and join the Innovation cohort.
Developing public awareness campaign
Informing five publications, two case studies on process, learning, and outcomes and three research briefs on the economic cost of child welfare.
Learning how to write effective Op Ed’s to maximize impact and reach.
Ten of Ten Innovator||Alia Innovations
May, 2017 - October, 2017
Ideated, prototyped, designed, and reimagined a new child welfare system, developing 30 prototypes, thousands of ideas, and hundreds of evaluations, over 3.5 days of design and subsequent months of national listening and design sessions, with design pioneers, IDEO, and 100+ leaders at all levels in child welfare, innovators from diverse industries, child development experts, achievement and innovation fellows, child welfare founders, and child welfare-affected individuals.
Built the UnSystem to preserve and strengthen family connections.
Board Member||FosterClub
August 2018 - Present
Ensuring FosterClub is the number one go-to resource for every youth in and out of foster care by strengthening and guiding the one and five year strategic plan of the organization,
Identified two strategic partnerships, one with New York State’s Office of Children and Family Services Foster Care Awareness Month Media Campaign and the second with Alia Innovations UnSystem Cohort, resulting in an increase in 1,000’s of youth views on multiple social media platforms.
Provide thought leadership and strategic direction for the organization.
Discuss strategic partnerships, financials, and FosterClub organizational strategy.
Raising visibility of FosterClub’s mission.
Ensuring FosterClub achieves it’s mission in that young people in and from foster care are connected, educated, represented, and inspired.