As GRACE’s managing director of public policy, Andrew brings more than a decade of effective legislative, administrative, and budgetary advocacy in California and at the federal level. Andrew oversees all of GRACE & End Child Poverty CA’s advocacy and public policy strategy, and supports ECPCA’s organizational development.
Previously, Andrew was SNAP Deputy Director for the Food Research & Action Center, the country’s leading advocacy organization committed to ending poverty-related hunger, in which he provided technical assistance to the national network of state anti-hunger advocates and helped develop and execute federal advocacy to strengthen SNAP in the Farm Bill. Previously, Andrew served from 2014-2021 as the Director of Government Affairs for the California Association of Food Banks (CAFB), where he oversaw state and federal policy agenda to address hunger and poverty, playing key roles in the several major anti-poverty policy victories. These include the historic expansion of CalFresh to more than 600,000 Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries, the reversal of Great Recession cuts to state SSI grants that had pushed more than 100,000 children with disabilities below the federal poverty level, California’s first in the nation enactmentac of Healthy School Meals for All, and the establishment of Pandemic EBT. He has led or engaged in several coalitions in support of a united effort to fight poverty across the health and human services sectors, including as an ECPCA Steering Committee member. Throughout this work Andrew partnered with a wide array of stakeholders, and expanded the capacity of front-line community organizations and centered people with lived experience of poverty in policy development and advocacy campaigns.
Andrew holds a Candidate in Philosophy and master’s degree in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego, and graduated cum laude with a BA in American Studies from Northwestern University.