Great Lake is a political engagement firm fighting to repair our system, restore pragmatism to politics, drive election reform, and defend our democracy. Our founder, Richie Alicea, is a nearly 20-year veteran of campaigns and elections. He has served in nearly every role on campaigns at every level, including Evan McMullin’s 2016 independent campaign for president and dozens of U.S. Senate, House, and gubernatorial races. In 2018, he led the digital advertising and engagement strategy for multiple independent efforts throughout the nation, including the U.S. Senate campaigns of Neal Simon (MD) and Craig O’Dear (MO), and multiple PACs and IEs including A Hopeful America (MA), Unite Alaska, Alaskans Opposing Dunleavy, and Alaskans.VOTE (AK), and Unite America. In 2020 he served as Digital Director for Joe Walsh's presidential primary campaign against Donald Trump and has also served at Stand Up Republic, a 501(c)(4) organization focused on mobilizing a national, cross-partisan constituency to defend and strengthen American democracy and GOOD PARTY, a public benefit corporation focused on empowering independent political campaigns by building free and open-source technology. Currently, Richie is also a Professor of Practice at The Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, where he teaches courses on campaign management, media, digital strategy, and data analytics and management. Richie holds a Master's Degree in Elections & Campaign Management from Fordham University as well as a Master of Urban Planning from Hunter College - City University of New York.