Dawn

Dawn, 33, spent 15 years in corporate communications and operations management. Just before the tech burst, she was forced to lay off her entire staff-many of whom were her close friends. The pain of this experience, along with witnessing how many of her friends and neighbors were suffering from unemployment, led Dawn to quit her job and dedicate her life to activism. Now, she runs Rescue American Jobs out of her Mesa, Ariz., living room, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving the American middle class.

My Story
I spent nearly 15 years in corporate communications and operations management. At one company, I was tasked with re-organizing a department into mostly offshore teams. At another, I was asked to lay off my entire staff. In an economically devastated Silicon Valley, I watched as friends and colleagues were laid off with no job openings in sight. My husband and I opened a specialty engineering manufacturing business, only to find foreign competitors knocking off and undercutting our product designs.

It wasn't just at work that I saw people suffering. In my own community, more and more folks were having their homes foreclosed as a result of unemployment. In fact, when my husband and I purchased our home is Mesa, we just made it in time to prevent the previous owner from having it foreclosed.

I have always been politically active, but I knew I needed to do more. My husband and I founded the Rescue American Jobs Foundation to raise awareness about the state of the economy. Now I spend my days listening to tragic stories of life in a broken economy and helping people learn what they can do about it.

Politically speaking, I've come full circle since Bush began his term. I have been a Republican my entire life and even campaigned to get President Bush elected. Now, having lived for almost four years in Bush's America and witnessing first hand the devastation his economic policies have caused my fellow Arizonians and fellow Americans, I know it is time for a change.