She’s in Power’s Story

When Judy Dorsey, President of the sustainable engineering and planning firm Brendle Group in Fort Collins, Colorado, won the U.S. Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) program’s Women in Clean Energy award at the inaugural symposium in September 2012, she knew she needed to do something meaningful with the $10,000 award. Judy donated those funds to the Northern Colorado Clean Energy Cluster to help grow the mission of empowering women in clean energy.

In 2018, the Cluster received a City of Fort Collins Innovate grant to mentor women while providing them with hands-on work opportunities in clean energy. The She’s in Power program was launched in 2019. 

In 2021, the organization filed for a name change and became Colorado Clean Energy Cluster dba She’s in Power and invested in the growth of the She’s in Power program. 

In the fall of 2022, the She’s in Power Board of Directors, after running the program for several years as a volunteer organization hired its first Executive Director, Lucinda Kerschensteiner. She expanded the program by adding more cohorts, institutions, community colleges, employers and geographic locations. 

In early 2024 She’s in Power engaged in conversations with STEMblazers, a Denver-based nonprofit serving girls in STEM, to create a formal partnership and a continuum of services. On August 1, 2024, STEMblazers formally acquired She’s in Power and added the workforce program to its suite of STEM programs. This integration allows for STEMblazers to serve girls as they move into higher education and the workforce while make a bigger impact in closing the gender gap.