In this episode of Parents at Work, Lori Mihalich-Levin and Jason Levin interview Jewelyn Cosgrove, a government affairs professional in Washington D.C. Jewelyn currently serves Melwood, a 501(c)(3) organization serving people with disabilities, as the Vice President of government relations, bringing with her 15 years of experience in public policy, lobbying, and advocacy. Outside of work, Jewelyn is passionate about elevating the needs of mothers and families and serves as the treasurer of Raising Our Future Political Action Committee, a PAC that’s aimed at electing congressional candidates that prioritize the needs of families.
Jewelyn’s work has been focused on promoting and empowering parents to negotiate and advocate for their needs. She lives in Asheville, Virginia with her husband Greg, two children, and their two amazing cats. She is an alumna of the Mindful Return program and continues to serve the program as a coach to new mums. Jewelyn shares how Lori’s program, Mindful Return, helped her with her career and motherhood and highlights the fact that being a working mom, especially with more than one kid, means more work and a bigger family that you'll want to keep happy and strong.
Organizational skills become more important than ever when you mix in growing your career, and Jewelyn has learned to manage “balancing” her time on a weekly basis, instead of getting obsessed about day-to-day work-life balance. You’ll want to join this lively conversation to learn more about life as a parent who works on Capitol Hill, the challenges of working in government affairs and parenting at the same time, navigating challenging conversations with your kids, and most importantly, how to figure out your own effective way of successfully parenting your kids while growing your career.
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In this episode of Parents at Work, Lori Mihalich-Levin and Jason Levin interview two working dads who work in government relations: Clif Porter and Jeff McNichols.
Clif is the Senior Vice President of government relations at the American Healthcare Association (AHCA) and the National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL), which represents more than 14,000 for-and not-for-profit nursing homes, assisted living residences, and facilities for the care of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
He has been married for 31 years and has three children (Chanel, 28, Christian, 25, and Clifton, 22). He has served in various leadership positions within his local church and has been actively involved in several professional and community organizations.
Jeff is the Director of the Alliance for Congress at the Partnership for Public Service, a new program committed to strengthening the institution of congress to better serve the American public. His career in government affairs began in 2004 when he left the Navy to work as a congressional staffer. Subsequent opportunities took him to the Department of Defence and the Boston Consulting Group. Jeff has been married for eight years and has two children (ages 5 and 3)
The four of us dug into the life cycle of a government relations career, what it’s like to work as a congressional staffer, the adjustments to make when one has to constantly travel for work to ensure that they still stay engaged as a parent, creating a work environment where parents feel that their family life is considered, thriving at raising kids while building a successful career, and so much more. Cliff and Jeff’s candor on their experience as working parents in the government relations space was not just incredibly insightful but inspirational. Stay tuned for more.
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In this episode of Parents at Work, Lori Mihalich-Levin and Jason Levin interview Nedra Pickler. Nedra is a partner at the global public affairs firm, Finsbury Glover Hering, where she advises clients on communications strategy, including crisis communications, reputation management, thought leadership, and brand awareness. She brings deep perspective from inside the media after 17 years at The Associated Press and as a commentator on television and radio. Nedra covered the George W. Bush and Barack Obama presidencies, and the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns.
Nedra is a single mother to two amazing young boys and has successfully managed to thrive in her career despite the numerous challenges and bumps in the road that come with juggling the two. From constantly travelling on the campaign trail as a journalist covering presidential politics to dealing with different working parent challenges in the different roles she’s held throughout her career, Nedra has always found ways to make sure that she strikes some kind of balance between work and parenting her boys.
In this conversation, she talks about the advantages of working in public relations as a working parent and expresses her concerns about the issue of paid leave in America. At the end of this episode, you’ll have learned so much about how you can make it work as a working parent in a way that suits you and your kids, so don’t miss out.
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In this episode of Parents at Work, Lori welcomes to the podcast her husband and new co-host, Jason Levin, MBA. Jason is the founder of Ready Set Launch, LLC where he helps organizations, professional associations, executives and lawyers with career transition and business development needs through outplacement, individual coaching, training and webinars. Jason comes on as a guest to share his own experience with parenting (during a pandemic!) while also holding down a job and working for himself in his own business.
Jason shares some empowering and actionable tips on everything from how to thrive at working from home with kids in the house, to how you can get your employer to be more accommodating of your needs as a working parent, and so much more. Tune in for a jam-packed 20-minute episode.
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