Brie recently became Deputy Director of Children’s Initiatives for Governor DeWine, an impressive promotion that her nominator found truly worthy of recognition, especially given Brie is still relatively early on in her career.
Brie Lushek
Hometown: Stillwater, Ohio (Tuscarawas County)
Place of Work: Governor’s Office of Children’s Initiatives
Tenure at Current Place of Work: 2 months
OWIG Involvement: member for 1.5 years, event attendee for 5 years
Growing up the daughter of a single mother in small-town Appalachia, Brie saw firsthand the debilitating cycle of poverty and its subsequent impact on children and communities. “I saw the opiate epidemic taking hold before I even knew the name for it,” she says. This experience was one of the reasons Brie was so motivated to begin working in public policy with the intention of helping to make people’s lives better. In 2013, she was accepted into the LSC Fellowship Program and then spent some time working for a member of the House. One day, her boss gave her a book about people moving up and out of poverty. The message resonated deeply with Brie and connected the dots for her on so many levels with respect to the initiatives she was working on in the Legislature at the time. She remembers this moment as a defining one for her, one that cemented her interest in working on child poverty issues.
After doing poverty research for a couple years at a nonprofit, Brie feels beyond blessed to have landed her dream job continuing what is more action-oriented work on the subject in the Governor’s office. DeWine’s shared passion for children’s issues has allowed her the opportunity to be “surrounded by some of the smartest people I have ever met, who care as much as me and want to make a difference in a way I believe in.” Brie adds: “I love feeling like I am making a difference in some small way in people’s lives.”
Despite her influential position in the state’s highest executive office, Brie has clearly decided she’s not going to settle for the impact she’s already making. She is currently enrolled in classes to earn a MBA, with plans to use the quantitative knowledge she’s gaining to maximize her work in the healthcare sphere. Outside of work and class, she prioritizes the outdoors, spending time camping, hiking, skiing, kayaking and rock climbing with her son Jude, husband Dan, and dog Charlie. Her whole family is incredibly proud of her, especially her mom, who remains an inspiration to Brie.