After living with the debilitating dissociative effects of gender identity dysphoria for years... when I happened upon a boardwalk tee shirt that simply read "She needed a hero... so that's what she became". I realized that I had to take control of my life and began gender transition in 2011... without telling anyone. That was long before there were guides or advice about doing such things. At the time I was working in IT at a bank in Wilmington, and I was convinced I was being reasonably discreet about my trasition. About a year in, my work wife pulled me aside and kindly informed me that everyone had already figured out what was happening… and also, they'd really appreciate it if I started wearing a bra to work.

So I learned early that you can be invisible in your own mind and extremely visible to everyone else.

That part of my life was marked by simple interests: wake up authentically, collect my paycheck, avoid ridicule. Mission accomplished. What I didn't notice is that I was find safety at the cost of diminishment. A little less visible each day, a little less willing to take up space every month but it didn't feel like loss. It felt like relief.

One night in July 2016 I stood in my living room and watched Sarah McBride speak on national TV. Not cautiously, but powerfully and with pride. She is now Delaware's sole Congresswoman and the first openly transgender person elected to the U.S. Congress. But in that moment, to me, she was the first proof I'd seen that someone like me could actually live an authentic and impactful life.

A strangers act of courage showed me that true heroism calls upon you to be a hero for others.

The very next day I did what engineers do. I made a list. What skills and talents did I have that I could offer society and what was the largest problem I could practically apply them to.

That turned out to be climate change. Half of Americans can't conveniently own an electric vehicle because they can't charge an EV at home. So I bought an EV in 2019 because I'm in that cohort and I needed to understand the experience. My life then included two and a half hours a week charging my car in a parking lot across town. I'm a degreed electrical engineer who spent six months working in a Brazilian steel mill as a college student, so I knew there must be a better way to make EVs practical for everyone. So I started a company, OmniPotential, and built the way. The result is Curbstar: a utility-side EV charging solution that is practical and affordable to deploy anywhere the grid is present.

In 2019 I became aware that Sarah was not only a Delawarean (350:1 odds against), but lived just up the street from me (also incredibly unlikely), and was running to become my state Senator. I haven't missed one of her local events since then. I've knocked on around 15,000 doors for Sarah's various campaigns. But the important thing here is that my friendship with Sarah really demonstrated to me the power of public policy.

I discovered that outdated regulations blocked us from deploying Curbstar. So with no prior experience beyond YouTube tutorials and Law & Order reruns, I drafted legislation. Working with Sarah and other elected officials Delaware Senate Bill 187 was passed with a bipartisan supermajority in 2022. This experience showed me a simple, yet dramatic truth about American life.

The answers to technology problems are often in the policies that govern them. And the answers to policy problems are in the people that live under them.

So I became more involved in public policy while building my startup. That decision led to service on the New Castle County Board of Adjustment. Subsequently during a text conversation with Governor Meyer about sustainability after watching the little typing indicator for ten minutes, I was asked and agreed to serve on the then-forming Delaware State LGBTQ+ Commission and a week later to serve as chair. I've learned that good policy needs to be tempered with a drive to make people's lives better in ways that matter to them... and to consistently and compassionately enforce those policies. I've also learned that people are harmed not only by the absence of good policy but in the enforcement gap.

I have a knack for finding the human way of fixing things... technology... policy... governance. But I never imagined that fixing myself could have unlocked the opportunity to serve society. But life is full of these little surprises if you open yourself to the people, places and things around you.

You don't owe the world perfection. You don't owe the world an explanation. But you do owe the world you.

Cora is a mother, a 50-stater, and a traveler of three continents and shares her home with three cats and two ferrets all named "Friend" in a different language.