Most organizations pursuing federal funding have the mission. They have the team. What they're missing is someone who knows how the money actually moves.

I spent 18 years at the U.S. Department of Energy - most recently as deputy director of the federal interagency working group on coal and powerplant community revitalization, coordinating across more than 11 federal agencies. I was on the inside, helping shape solicitations and deciding which projects got funded.

I founded Keystone Ascent to put that perspective to work for you.

For economic development organizations and universities, that means seeing your technologies, projects, and regions the way federal program officers see it — identifying the opportunities you're positioned to win, building strategies that compete, identifying sources of cost share, and structuring the partnerships that make projects attractive for selection.

For CDFIs, regional foundations, and sustainable-finance institutions, it means understanding how to layer public funding, philanthropic capital, and private investment into structures that actually close. Federal programs rarely move alone. The projects that succeed know how to make them the foundation of something larger.

My work is grounded in Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania - a region I know deeply - and extends through Appalachia and Washington, D.C., where I spent years building the relationships that make the federal system work.

If you're ready to stop navigating the funding maze alone, I'd like to help.