Megan Matson, Partner
Megan Matson is campaign director for Deepak Puri and Andrea Miller’s SeeSay2020 live map election incidents platform. She is doing so on a civic sabbatical from her project finance firm with business partner Peter Luchetti, Table Rock Infrastructure Partners.
GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING Megan last took a civic sabbatical to work in Texas on the Distributed Team as part of the extraordinary statewide Field campaign led by Zack Malitz for Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate race. In Texas, she also worked in the Election Protection unit at TDP on the preparations for challenge, should the margin be narrow enough to be affected by the Hart eSlate electronic voting machine’s known vote-flipping malfunction. Previously, Megan founded a national PAC called Mainstreet Moms, which sent 500,000 hand-written voter registration letters with absentee ballot applications to single moms in key precincts of the swing states, funded by sales of Megan’s rhinestone VOTE bracelets. She was a grassroots organizer on the successful Howard Dean for DNC campaign, and later helped organize a delegation to D.C. to challenge the seating of the Ohio electors based on evidence of heavy vote-flipping on the DREs, deeply unequal distribution of machines, and illegal counting practices behind doors in Warren County. This resulted in the historic stand of the late, great Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones together with Senator Barbara Boxer. She then organized and initiated litigation in California with plaintiff Dolores Huerta and VoterAction against the California Secretary of State and 22 County Election Registrars to block purchase of faulty Diebold touchscreens, resulting in 11 dropped purchasing plans on day 1 of the suit. Megan partnered with eon3 to write and produce the short organizing film Help America Vote ON PAPER, and convened election integrity conferences and lobbying delegations to back Representative Rush Holt’s paper ballot voting bill. Later, Megan with Mainstreet Moms designed the successful No Child Left Behind minors’ privacy against recruiters campaign with Becky Bond and Michael Kieschnick of CREDO resulting in changed school board policies nationally, and 4 state level bills. She then designed the Pollworkers for Democracy campaign in partnership with CREDO and VoteTrust, training 5000 pollworkers to create eyewitness reports by survey. This data collection produced a key witness pollworker to extensive vote-flipping on DREs in Volusia County, and successful litigation helping move Florida to paper ballots optically scanned. Megan with Mainstreet Moms began working on climate issues, and Megan was one of the lead organizers behind the launch of California’s first CCA local energy agency, Marin Clean Energy, now a model representing near 25% of California’s electricity load. She was also Field Director for the win against PG&E and their $55MM state-wide ballot initiative against CCAs, and then co-launched LEAN Energy US, a non-profit furthering the development of CCAs nationally.
PROJECT FINANCE/PRIVATE EQUITY Most recently, Megan has been leading a privately financed cogeneration microgrid installation project at a wastewater utility in Southern California to provide clean back-up power during Public Safety Power Shut-offs, and reduce the flaring of natural gas. She worked on the start up and first capital raise for the distributed intelligence microgrid model of Heila Technologies in a shared board seat. Megan was also instrumental in helping raise $172MM in buy-and-hold capital to close the nation’s first 30-year water-and-wastewater public-private partnership financing in Rialto, CA, where she continues to work closely with ULLICO, the Union Labor Life Insurance Co’s Infrastructure Fund as majority equity. She was lead organizer for the first Progressive Design Build wastewater plant construction project inside a concession, reaching successful completion this year under budget at $32 MM, and 3 months ahead of schedule. Megan was honored to be invited into the P3 and water tracks of President Obama’s Build America Investment Initiative, with recommendations into the Treasury’s report on same.
PREVIOUS Megan was one of three Creative Directors at a 75-person agency in NY, marketing director for the outdoor gear start-up Sweetwater, Inc, independent creative for clients Leave No Trace and Mountainsmith in CO, assistant to the Developer’s Rep on a $27MM town center construction project in Hawaii, a prep school history teacher, and a polo instructor in HI. Megan was formerly a Board member of the Bolinas Community Land Trust for Affordable Housing, and writes rants occasionally at medium.com@matzon16.
Matson has a B.A. from Yale University and lives in Bolinas, CA with her husband and three children, dad, Kevin the asylum seeker from Cameroon, goats, horses, dogs, cats, and one chicken named Louie.