My name is Laura Edinger and I am excited to have joined the PULP team serving as a Senior Policy Analyst.
The intersection of education, training, personal and professional goals, and a passion for social justice brought me to this position.
I most recently served as the Regulatory Coordinator for the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) where I managed the regulatory development, review, and approval process. Each regulation I moved through this process required a comprehensive understanding of not only key stakeholders, but underlying statutes, and the social, economic, and environmental impacts of the regulation.
Prior to my work at DEP, I was an Executive Policy Specialist at the Public Utility Commission (PUC) serving with the Policy and Planning section of the Bureau of Technical Utility Services. In my position at the PUC, I worked in concert with colleagues in the Bureau of Consumer services to review low-income policy as applied to energy efficiency and conservation plans.
My undergraduate education included an Associate in Science from Corning Community College and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from SUNY Buffalo. Before pursuing graduate education, I worked for small and large businesses, for an arts center, a theatre company, a cancer hospital, and a university, all in varying capacities. This combined experience highlighted for me that I am called to the work of developing, establishing, and implementing public policy. I received my Master of Public Administration degree from Penn State Harrisburg in 2008, which helped launch my public policy career.
To enhance my professional capabilities, in 2017, I graduated as a member of the Commonwealth’s Leadership Development Institute (LDI) program. Through the LDI program, I developed my leadership philosophy which involves engaging others in an inclusive, positive, affirming, and meaningful way. It is empowering and trusting others, lifting them up, to help them develop their skills and talents. I believe great possibility exists with engaged, empowered people working to reach their full potential. I have endeavored to apply this philosophy in both my professional life and in volunteer leadership roles and look forward to continuing and honing this philosophy through my work at PULP.
The LDI program along with various other volunteer and professional leadership and ant-racism, anti-poverty training experiences underscored the need for inclusive policy and that vulnerable populations need to not only be included but prioritized. Profound existing inequities must be addressed, especially those among low-income communities of color.
In every facet of my personal and professional life, the most important and rewarding parts are, and have always been, building relationships and collaborating, discussing ideas and finding ways to make those ideas reality.
In my free time, I find meaning and joy spending time with my spouse and my two sweet, energetic cats, volunteering with the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg (my church home), serving as a board member/singer for the Central PA Womyn’s Chorus, singing with various other (mainly church) choirs in the Central PA area, and spending time with my chosen friend family.