Application for Legislative Commission for Jesse Ray Greaves-Smith

Past Political Activity

I have not been involved with parties or politics apart from voting and going to the 2016 Democratic primaries.

List of Political and Civic Organizations belonged to

I have been on different committees for Young Nonprofit Professionals Network during all of that time. I also served on a Jeffco healthy schools committee around 2015-2016.

Organization and Advocacy Experience

In both my political science major and in my work in the non-profit sector there has been a focus on using data to identify interest groups and find ways to fairly represent them. My experience as a teacher was essentially group management and consensus building with people of diverse backgrounds and opinions, practice 6 hours a day for 4 years.

Statement

Gerrymandering has been an area of concern for me since studying the phenomenon in college. Having an opportunity to directly work on the difficult task of making districts that give everyone a fair sense of representation individually and within a larger legislative body is appealing. The work of analytical problem solving, and serving the community while doing it, is something I would like to do.

Statement on Working with Consensus

I tend to be logical and data driven, while also being able to take into account the emotional drives of the people I work with. With a classroom of at-risk students t was necessary to bot always have the primary goals of the group held as paramount, while also valuing each person's thoughts and individual traits. I am able to steer people away from illogical thoughts without insulting them in the process. I believe that I could help a group of commissioners stay on task and deliver effective results.

Relevant Analytic Skills for Commission

As an instructional designer my job is taking complex technical subjects from industries that are often new to me, analyzing research about the subjects, synthesizing commonalities between the research, and then turning the synthesis into an easy to understand training that will be used by thousands. As a teacher my role was taking hundreds of individual concepts and breaking them down in numerous ways to help students understand in whatever way made the most sense. Both elements of my profession have required me to take large data sets, define requirements for an ideal outcome, and then work calmly and logically towards an implementable solution that met as many of the ideal solution traits as possible. These skills will be useful in commission work as well.

Applicant identifies with the following gender

Male