Area of Focus
As Associate Director of Government Affairs, Nick works to expand the Western Resources Action Fund, WRA’s C4 arm, with a focus on Arizona. He partners with WRA policy experts to work collaboratively with advocacy partners while also maintaining strong relationships and WRA’s well-respected reputation with Arizona leaders ranging from utility board members to state legislators.
Background
Nick is a born and raised Arizonan who has spent the last decade building environmental political power in the Grand Canyon state. He began his advocacy career as an undergraduate organizer working to turn students out to participate in the Arizona Corporation Commission’s Value of Solar docket and the University of Arizona organizer of a Clean Power Dialog to hold state policymakers accountable to meeting Obama Clean Power Plan requirements. Through the latter efforts, he met and began working for former Arizona State Senator Kirsten Engel’s campaign. He later ran multiple state legislative campaigns in Tucson and served in various volunteer leadership roles in Tucson and statewide. While his initial intent was to work on the technical side of clean energy, these experiences exposed him to the critical need for political power and policymaker education to accelerate the clean energy transition.
After the 2020 cycle, Nick joined a national environmental advocacy organization as their Public Power Program Manager building a national database of municipal utilities to assess electoral and policy opportunities to retire municipally owned fossil fuels. He later helped create and fill the first State Director role for the organization, serving as a political strategist and lobbyist to continue his mission to build environmental political power in Arizona on issues covering climate change and clean energy. Nick has also lobbied for the Arizona Solar Energy Industries Association and been involved in efforts to elect Arizona’s first pro-climate public utility commission and state government. He continues to serve in volunteer environmental leadership positions and as a trusted partner to advocates, policymakers, and policy staff across Arizona.
Education
- Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering from the University of Arizona
- Master of Public Policy from the University of Arizona
Favorite Thing About the West
There is nothing more beautiful than a Sonoran Desert sunset.
