Our experiences shape us. I am a veteran and a patriot. Watching the riots escalate during the January 6th insurrection, I knew that politics as usual was no longer an option. We don’t need politicians like Brian Fitzpatrick, who turn their head from their party’s violent rhetoric. We need new leadership. I know the struggles of working families in Bucks and Montgomery Counties firsthand. Lack of access to good-paying jobs, mental health services, substance abuse treatment, and affordable education has held our communities back. Something has to change, and Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick has simply failed to get the job done.
I’m a mother of three school-aged children. I’m a small business owner, an employer, and a trial attorney. For the last 20 years I’ve been advocating for people from all walks of life often during their darkest days, and for the past year I’ve been doing environmental litigation – advocating and fighting for the healthy environment we all deserve. I’ve also had the honor of serving as Supervisor in Tinicum Township since 2022.
A native of Western Pennsylvania and a life-long Democrat, I was born, raised, and currently live in a working class steel mill town on the outskirts of Allegheny County. I am the beneficiary of four generations of organized labor and relish the fact that my hometown still has an operational steel rolling mill. I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 1997 and Master of Science concentrating in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Chatham University (formerly Chatham College) in 2002.
I spent 15 years of my career as a substance abuse and mental health counselor and served as a program manager and director in treatment systems in multiple Western PA counties. In 2003, I began working at the Institute for Research, Education and Training in Addiction (IRETA) as their Process Improvement Manager. My work was dedicated to reducing the 10-year information gap between best-practice research and clinical integration throughout Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey.
During that time, I had the privilege to train under the direction of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, where I learned supply chain logistics and lean process improvement strategies to eliminate errors, increase effectiveness, reduce waste, and improve outcomes in large systems. While at IRETA, I served as an opiate addiction consultant on the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) 25 Cities Initiative.
In 2006, I designed, successfully state-licensed, and operated the first and only orthomolecular recovery program for addiction in Pennsylvania. This program raised nearly $2 million in venture capital funding and was featured twice in Industrial Engineer Magazine for using supply chain management principles and lean systems to improve effectiveness. Not willing to succumb to common claims of over-regulation in the substance abuse treatment system by some providers, I set a goal to achieve a perfect evaluation in the clinic’s annual state audit and achieved it.
In 2014 and 2016, I was the Democratic nominee for the United State Congress in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District serving Cambria, Somerset, Beaver, Westmoreland, Lawrence, and Allegheny Counties. Being on the ballot with Donald Trump and seeing first-hand the issues of rural and working-class voters ignored by my own party was an experience and a conscious awareness that I carry with me to this day.
In 2015 I began performing process improvement and policy work at the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS). My work includes redesigning the organization’s employee performance management system, developing a merit-based hiring process and policy, writing the employee medical marijuana policy, and identifying points of systemic-bias in the employee recruitment and retention processes. Every day I work to standardize employees’ work, eliminate systemic bias, and advocate for blame-free work-place principles that protect workers, improve morale, and decrease turn-over and other forms of systemic loss.
I have thoroughly enjoyed starting and operating a small business and working to improve government systems, processes, and policies while advocating for our public-sector workers. My experience has taught me, in any large complex adaptive system, it doesn’t matter how good your intentions are if you don’t have viable systemic answers to two fundamental questions: What problem are you trying to solve and what is the root cause of this problem? The devil lies completely in the details of the policy solutions you implement. And it’s time we elect a responsible, honest-broker to oversee the Commonwealth’s Treasury who is committed to rebuilding our state’s supply chain with transparency and integrity and managing our taxpayer’s coffers with diligence and accountability.
I’m running for Auditor General because it’s time for the underdog to be a watchdog for Pennsylvania’s working families. To ask the tough questions, to help reimagine and streamline government, and to help build the coalitions to fix what’s wrong. It’s what I’ve done as a State Representative for nearly five years, working to protect workers’ rights, enact common-sense gun safety policies, and root out government corruption and waste. I’ve had multiple legislative leadership roles: as a member of the powerful State Government Committee with oversight on state agencies and elections, minority Chair of the Subcommittee on Campaign Finance and Elections, minority Chair of Automation and Technology in the Committee on Commerce, and a member of the Finance Committee.
Just like any Pennsylvanian, Eugene doesn’t back down from a tough fight.
Whether it’s standing up for women’s reproductive freedoms, taking on police bureaucracy to reduce backlogs in untested rape kits, or holding polluters accountable for dirtying our air and water, Eugene has your back.
