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Fall 2006 Winter 2012
Jeremy Charlesworth could see the skepticism on his client’s face. She didn’t say it, but he knew what she was thinking: You’re wrong.
Alison Davis-Blake isn’t one for convention. Her quiet demeanor, questioning mind, and drive to excel have always set her apart. 
Signs mark the entrance: Production Area, Authorized Personnel Only. Inside, observers stand behind a line of caution tape, taking notes intently. In front of them a rumbling machine shuffles orange, green, and yellow balls along conveyor belts, through tubes, and down ramps.
It doesn’t take much to make you feel blue: gray clouds hanging low in the sky or buzzing fluorescent lights casting a cold, clinical pallor. Often the weeks after Christmas become the start of a bleak and seemingly endless winter. You’re pensive and it’s hard to function at work and at home.
In my career and my life I have found the key determinants to success include one’s ability to take on a challenge and adapt to change. Change comes in many forms: your responsibilities, your callings, and your addresses. 
It added a slice of humor to Cherie Jones’ day when a co-worker spilled an entire Big Gulp on her keyboard. “I was totally laughing,” she recalls. Her co-worker wasn’t. Jones, a 2001 MAcc graduate and business tax auditor for Loudon County, Virginia, says her colleague panicked as she searched for napkins to salvage the keyboard. Big Gulp or deli sandwich, Jones’ co-worker isn’t the only one whose workstation doubles as an eatery.
At all levels of government, we need more men and women who are willing to speak the truth, face the facts, take a long-term perspective, and prepare our country and its citizens. Many of these challenges are unprecedented in size, scope, complexity, and potential impact.