No small task

By Noah Garcia, M.A. ’15 (Public Policy)

I hopped off a cozy rush hour “L” train and walked into the office at the city’s Civic Opera Building for the first time. Any hazy ideas I had about the work quickly came into sharp focus: Drafting written comments and reports. Liaising with other environmental organizations and utilities. And reading way too much email.

When I accepted my fellowship with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in Chicago, I was excited and anxious about the fellowship’s broad clean energy scope. I felt that the classes I had taken in college had prepared me, at a high level, for work that lay ahead. But so much learning took place on the job.

Moving the needle on clean energy development in the Midwest is no small task. I feel proud to have worked on NRDC teams that drove bold renewable energy and energy efficiency legislation in Illinois. I feel proud to have helped spur electric vehicle adoption in Ohio through multi-party agreements to fund critical infrastructure. And I am in awe of what I have seen my colleagues accomplish. Through it all, Stanford has been the supportive platform I have used to explore these areas of interest in the environmental sphere.

Noah was a 2015 Schneider Fellow. Schneider Fellows work at leading U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to tackle sustainable energy challenges.