12:00pm Civic Entrepreneurs and Today’s Politics- To Change the Rules We Must Play the Game

Civic Entrepreneurs and Today’s Politics- To Change the Rules We Must Play the Game

Andy Cook
Our community is full of enthusiastic, eager people with great ideas to improve our community. Many of us are fed up with partisan politics and an inability in St. Paul and in Washington to craft meaningful public policy solutions. We have the ideas, the energy and the desire! But how do we take that from idea to reality? How do we overcome politics and make progress?

Andy Cook, 24, has a long-standing interest in public policy, politics and civic engagement. Andy grew up in and around Minnesota politics, tagging along with his mom Judy to the Capitol and following her work as a lobbyist.

After studying political science and government at Colby College (class of 2009), Andy spent the last two years working for the House Republican Caucus, developing first-hand experience with the intricacies and inner-workings of state government. This exposure also spurred Andy to get further involved with like-minded individuals, and to engage the process as a citizen to get real things done for Minnesota’s future.

This fall Andy started as an Annual Giving Officer with the Regions Hospital Foundation, working to benefit the care, research and programming Regions provides to our community. In his free time Andy races triathlons and enjoys a good book.

You can follow Andy on twitter @amcook87, connect on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/amcook87, and check out his blog: http://squarespace.andycook.com.