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Full Transcript:

A Plethora of Pivots with Lucy Chang Evans

Note: This is an original transcript–edited for sense, length, and clarity.  If you have any questions or concerns, please email our host, Doria Lavagnino, at doria@sheventurespodcast.com.

Season 4, Episode 5

00:00.00   Doria: She was raised in the U.S. to a first-generation Taiwanese family, lost her mother to breast cancer, as a child; she and her siblings helped raise her young brother in a household where money was tight. She attended the University of Southern California, and graduated with a degree in civil engineering. She landed her first job as a civil engineer, then post 9/11 pivoted to become a Secret Service agent to fulfill her sense of civic duty. Chang Evans is earning her master’s in business administration and recently felt a calling to running for local elected positions. Other life pivots include being a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, unexpected divorce, hustling to rekindle her career, and remarriage. She’s here to talk about her journey: triumphs and struggles. Lucy Chang Evans, welcome to SheVentures.

02:47.79   Lucy:   Thank you! It’s so nice to be here.

02:51.34   Doria: I read your story initially on LinkedIn and what drew me to you was the honesty in which you speak about your life. Can you tell listeners about your early life and some of the memories that shaped you?

03:06.47   Lucy:   Yeah I grew up in Portland, Oregon, at a time when there were very few Asians. Basically my siblings and I and one other family were the only Asians at my elementary school. That shaped me  —   feeling like an outsider —   I was accepted by my friends but not so much by the community. I always felt like I had to prove myself in school and in everything else in life. When I transitioned into college, I wanted to make sure that I chose a major that gave me a good living. I wanted a good job in a respected profession. So I chose civil engineering, and it was great. It was a great career, but after a while I became bored. I wanted something a little more exciting, and I still had a strong sense of civic duty. So that’s when I started looking into different careers. The first one I looked at was with the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] where I applied. The process took about three years and I still didn’t get my first interview until three years later and by that time… 

04:21.00   Doria: Wow, That’s a long backlog, but I can imagine.

04:21.92   Lucy:  Yeah, it’s a long, difficult process, so in the meantime I applied for the Secret Service and I got hired within a year. It was a very similar application process but it was sped up.

04:40.20   Doria: Makes a lot of sense and we’ll get to that because I want to hear about it. One of the things that I know about engineering and STEM in general, civil engineering. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that only 18 percent of engineers are women —   when you graduated likely even fewer. Did you feel like you were in a male -dominated field?

05:08.40   Lucy:   I felt like I was in a male-dominated field when I first started civil engineering. The early classes included a handful of other women with me. By the time I graduated —  those upper level classes —   I was usually the only female. I don’t know if there was attrition or you know, maybe just the way the classes shook out, but it did seem very male dominated, but it didn’t bother me. I did not feel any kind of disadvantage. It seemed most women didn’t choose engineering as a career field.

05:49.42   Doria: Right? Which is definitely true. Would you say that your ethnicity played a role because there’s always the stereotype I often hear of Asians [stereotypically] being very good at math and science. Is that something you’ve ever had to contend with?

06:10.34   Lucy:  Yeah, it was true in my experience. I loved math. When I was in elementary school, I loved math and science, and both my parents were civil engineers. For undergrad, my father was a civil engineer, and he got a master’s in chemistry. He was a chemist by profession, and my mother was a civil engineer and she actually got a master’s in civil engineering from Purdue.

06:46.29   Doria: Wow.

06:48.78   Lucy:  She didn’t actually work in the profession. She stayed home with us four children, which was a full-time job.  

06:53.70   Doria: Right? A big job. It’s probably harder than building a bridge. Attracting more women to STEM fields is a hot issue. You said that you felt supported academically. Did you feel supported in your first job?

07:11.38   Lucy:  Yes I did. Fortunately, at my first job my boss was female and there were two of us who just graduated. We both started at the same time and my other coworker was a woman and she was much smarter than me. We’re still great friends to this day. Her name is Eva. She and I were great working together. We were two young engineers working under a female boss. So I don’t think that is typical of female engineers. — or engineers in general, so I was fortunate.

07:53.12   Doria: Can you walk listeners through graduating from college, working as an engineer, and deciding, “I want to consider a job as a Secret Service agent.” Tell listeners how one would go about that. What are my chances of being selected?

08:19.87   Lucy:  Well, the chances are low. It’s a very competitive application process and application pool. So the thing I would say is most Secret Service agents —   at least in my experience —   came from a law enforcement background. It was mostly law enforcement officers from local municipalities, attorneys, and a few engineers like me. There were other miscellaneous people from different backgrounds, but it was mostly law enforcement or lawyers. For any Federal law enforcement, a lot of people want to be FBI agents, and a lot of people want to be Secret Service agents. The best advice that we give them is, “Don’t plan on it.” Choose a profession that’s gonna pay you well, because the odds are you will not get hired. It’s a sad reality but the odds are not in people’s favor. So do what you’re gonna do.

09:22.99   Doria: Right.

09:32.10   Lucy:  Learn how to work hard in any profession, and if you do get hired, you will bring so much to the table. That’s what they are looking for —   they’re looking for ready-made people.

09:39.13   Doria: Yes, so that would be the icing on the cake. I always hear about  —  well, more on Netflix — but Secret Service agents go through intense mental and psychological testing. Is that all still part and parcel of what you went through in addition to the physical…

10:03.15   Lucy:  Um, there is no psychological testing. It’s more about: Can you survive the training?There’s a lot of peer pressure. Honestly, with Secret Service agents, you will never find so many type A people in a room. I loved it because I can’t stand when people are late. I can’t stand it when people aren’t prepared. Agents will never let you down. You know you can depend on your fellow Secret Service agents.

10:46.78   Doria: That is a nice feeling. You protected some big names I read on your profile: Barbara Bush, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Jimmy Carter. Can you tell us if you had a favorite?

11:00.53   Lucy:  I never had an actual detail, which is basically after 10 years as a Secret Service agent you’re assigned to one protectee. When I was working, you just kind of went wherever a protectee was going.

11:14.65   Doria: Got it. You’re told. Yeah.

11:20.16   Lucy:  Yeah, so that’s why I protected so many different people. You get assigned to a different detail or a different protection assignment. My favorite  —   it was hands-down George W. Bush because  he’s the only one that I had an awkward face-to-face moment with. He was gracious about it. I’d never been face-to-face with the President since then, so it was a great experience. 

11:51.60   Doria: What was awkward about it?

11:59.20   Lucy:  This is my favorite story to tell my children. I was posted standing in front of his hotel door while he was giving a speech. He was helping someone campaign, so he was giving a speech. So I stood in front of his hotel door waiting for him to return from his speech. My only job was to stand in front of that door and as soon as he came back to his hotel room…

12:25.26   Doria: Right.

12:36.20   Lucy:  …all I had to do was move out of the way, and all he had to do was walk inside the door. So you have your little Secret Service earpiece and I could hear that he was on his way. I was excited to see him for the first time in person. He walks up to the door and I move out of the way, and he moves over toward me. He didn’t go into the room and I was a new agent at the time, and I thought, “Am I going to get in trouble if I say anything to him?”

I feel like I should say hi and I tried but nothing came out. I mouthed the word “Hi” to him. But no sound came out. He stood there for maybe two or three seconds, but he stood there looking at me, and I mouthed the word “Hi.”

13:26.25   Doria: Did he look bemused or confused? How did he seem?

13:30.62   Lucy:  I did not know how to read him. He looked like he was waiting for me to say something. His detail leader, which is another Secret Service agent who’s with him all the time said, “Sir, go ahead. Go in.” 

13:34.58   Doria: Okay.

13:49.40   Lucy:  The President walked into his hotel room, and they shut the door. I thought that was weird. I don’t know what happened, but later someone came up to me and asked, “What were you doing?’’She looked at me, and I had very long hair at the time. My hair was covering my identification pin, so he didn’t know I was an agent. He thought maybe I was there to greet him.

14:09.71   Doria: Oh.

14:15.20   Doria: That makes sense now. I was wondering why he would be looking at you, and not saying anything! Oh my gosh. 

Okay, you investigated financial crimes post 9/11…

14:25.46   Lucy:  Yes, I got such an education. I was assigned to the financial crimes squad also known as the fraud squad.

14:33.10   Doria: What was that like and what were you looking for?

14:44.90   Lucy:  I Investigated identity theft and credit card fraud. Obviously it was so huge back then. It’s still huge now, but it was quite an education to see how organized crime knew how to work identity theft and credit card fraud…

14:53.14   Doria: Yeah, so…

15:03.80   Lucy:  …and how prevalent it was. We would serve search warrants all the time and I remember —   this wasn’t my case —   but somebody else had just served a search warrant and found the identities of so many well-known people. 

15:30.22   Doria: Oh my gosh. That’s incredible and you’re right: It is a very serious issue.The older population, in particular, gets targeted so often. What I wanted to ask you was were you looking for? A terrorist-related activity specifically, or was it more across the board?

15:53.75   Lucy:  While I hoped that I could get in on the whole intelligence counterintelligence/counterterrorism thing, you can get assigned to any squad and they assign you to that. If I had stayed in the Secret Service, I probably would have wanted to get into one of those squads, but mine was financial crimes so we did get a lot of intelligence. We we did deal with terrorism but in in different aspects.

16:28.60   Doria: Got it. Then you decided to leave the workforce and become a full-time mom much like your own mom and it’s a decision that you don’t question then or now. What was the adjustment like from being a high-profile working professional to a stay-at-home mom?

16:50.71   Lucy: Yeah, that was a slap in the face. I quit before having kids. I quit because we wanted to have kids and we were dating long distance. So I moved out to DC to marry my first husband.

16:59.36   Doria: Ok.

17:09.63   Lucy:  It was interesting because after I left the Secret Service I met new people. When I would tell them I didn’t work, I felt like  —  even after I had kids, and we moved to Naperville, Illinois —   before I met my mommy group —   I felt like everyone was more interested in knowing that my husband was an FBI agent. I felt like I didn’t have much of an identity. Yeah, I felt invisible, and when you’re talking to other moms it’s about what your husband does. Not everyone, but for a lot of people I had met, so it took a while for me to make new friends.

17:43.50   Doria: Yeah, you felt invisible.

18:01.91   Lucy:  We got to know each other as people, not professions.

18:05.79   Doria: After you had three children and 10 years of marriage, you and your husband decided to divorce. At the time your children were 2, 5, and 8. So many women go through this. How did you cope with the idea of being a single mom of three? I’m also wondering if you have tips you could provide to listeners who might be in that situation.

18:39.62   Lucy:  Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I will say I didn’t see it coming. Speaking to any woman who’s in a marriage where they think that it’s not working out maybe —  start planning  —  start thinking about what you might need to do for money. I didn’t plan on it, so it caught me off guard. When you don’t see it coming, It makes it that much worse…

19:00.15   Doria: Just in case, right.

19:17.88   Lucy:  That’s it. You know you have no choice but to move on, so reach out to your friends. It was difficult for me to admit that I had a failed marriage, and that I was going to go through a divorce. I was the first among my friends to go through a divorce with children. I was embarrassed and felt alone. I felt like, “This is it. I’m going to live in poverty. This is the last I’m going to know of a normal life.” 

19:48.60   Doria: Right. Were you worried about your ex-husband taking custody of your children? 
20:03.70   Lucy:  No I wasn’t because he recognized that I could provide a good home for the children and that I was also a stay-at-home mom. At the time, we weren’t even talking about me going to work. I was trying to figure out if it was possible for me to still stay at home with them  —   living off child support — which as it turns out —   No.

20:28.30   Doria: Right? It is usually woefully inadequate for the actual needs of a living family.

20:38.86   Lucy:  Right? Yeah, unless he’s a doctor and he makes a really good living, you’re going back to work.

20:46.55   Doria: Thankfully you had your degree in civil engineering, and you had your past experience, but I can imagine that all of a sudden you have to shift mentality from being a stay-at-home mom to brushing up your résumé and getting out there again. How did you approach that?

21:09.55   Lucy:  Well, I dragged my feet for two months when we first filed for divorce. I was digging in my heels. I thought, “Okay I’m going to find a really cheap apartment in a tiny town somewhere where I can afford to live off child support.”

21:25.92   Doria: Right.

21:28.80   Lucy:  That was a horrible idea, by the way, because my kids still wanted to be with their friends who are here, and it’s expensive to live in Naperville. I sat on it for two months  —   like I said I didn’t see it coming.

21:31.12   Doria: You loved your kids, right? And you wanted to be with them of course.

21:38.39   Doria: Yeah.

21:47.64   Lucy:  I cried for two months straight. I needed to get my act together to wrap my head around the whole idea of building a future for myself. After two months I started just looking at jobs. Looking back, I can’t believe I was doing calculations on how well I could survive off of minimum wage. I thought I would have to start at a minimum wage job because I’d been out of the workforce for so long.

22:18.36   Doria: You were undervaluing yourself.

22:22.15   Lucy:  Oh absolutely. My self-esteem was already in the toilet. When your self-esteem is that low and you have to go back to work, l thought I was going to have to start at the very bottom. Plus, I was hoping that I could find a job that had flexible hours so that I could still be there for my kids before and after school.

22:46.62   Doria: So how did that work? Were there resources that you looked at? Was it just LinkedIn? Was it networking? How did you find that first job?

22:57.82   Lucy:  The first job was interesting. When I first started applying, I was applying for administrative assistant positions. I think I put my application in at Costco even though they weren’t advertising jobs.

23:16.74   Doria: Wow! Yeah, I could understand that.

23:17.48   Lucy:  I did not know how to look for a job. I didn’t know where to look, and I didn’t know anybody in Illinois on a professional level. All of my professional experience was in California. If I lived in California, I could have returned to engineering quickly. As it turns out, I didn’t know anybody out here. There were no civil engineering jobs posted at the time that I started looking, so after two months of me looking oddly enough engineering jobs started popping up. I specifically targeted government jobs because they tend to be lower stress and you can take care of your family while working. So I applied to a few jobs. The first few jobs that I applied to for engineering I actually got rejection letters at least.For any of the other jobs that I applied for, I didn’t even get acknowledgement that they received my application. I hate that. I really wish they would at least acknowledge that I’m not qualified, or that they’re looking at other candidates, or that they even received my résumé.

24:19.34   Doria: Yeah, yeah, it’s disheartening. 

24:32.39   Doria: Completely. It’s so true and today we use the internet so much for hiring. And I’ll just say that when I receive résumés, I don’t get a cover letter anymore — like it’s a completely different environment than 20 years ago.

24:55.13   Lucy:  Sure and I understand why they don’t put cover letters together anymore because they don’t get responses. So why put the effort into putting a cover letter together?

25:03.20   Doria: Yeah. When I was in graduate school looking for an internship, I had a broad base cover letter, but I was cutting and pasting the name of the person at the publication and got distracted. I didn’t know until it was sent back to me but this person took the time to send back my cover letter, and he or she circled the name and pointed out that it was not her name. That has stayed with me all my life, and now I try to check, double check, and triple check those kinds of things.

25:58.90   Lucy:  Oh absolutely.

25:59.73   Doria: They do matter. So that was my little embarrassing story. You remarried and you have stepchildren now is that right? 

26:12.34   Lucy:  Yes, but they are adult stepchildren, so I have step-grandchildren now. They’re so cute.

26:19.16   Doria: Oh That’s exciting. Do you have advice for women who are contemplating blended families? Maybe it’s a little different for you if the children are adults, but was there any friction, or was it easy for the respective children to form relationships?

26:43.89   Lucy:  It took a little time. Actually it took no time at all for my children to adjust to having a new man in my life, which is a testament to my [current] husband, Jim. He didn’t insert himself with the children. We slowly transitioned the kids into meeting him, telling them, “We’re in a relationship.” Then transitioning into, “Hey he’s gonna be family now.” He’s great with the kids and my kids are pretty adaptable. So they liked him right away, but his children took a little time to want to meet me but that’s more of a testament to his own first marriage.

27:39.80   Doria: Yes, understood, and I think we can read between the lines. We’ve all been in that situation. So, you are currently studying for an MBA. It’s as if you are a lifelong learner, which I love.

27:54.90   Lucy: Yes.

27:58.11   Doria:  And I’m curious why you decided to pursue politics and why now.

28:05.80   Lucy: Yeah, that is probably the funniest thing about me. My political aspirations. I did not plan to run for anything. My friend Christina had been bugging me for a while to run for city council, or run for county board. I kept telling her, “Why don’t you? You’re being ridiculous. I don’t want to be a politician.” Finally it was two weeks before the petition for Naperville City Council was due and she said, “Why don’t you run? I don’t understand why you won’t run.” 

I don’t want to run. Why would I? She kept poking me. You know, forcing me to come to the conclusion that I have no reason to say no anymore. Why shouldn’t I run? I do have a lot of things to say and you know because one thing that I’ve always said is, “If you want somebody to represent someone like you in politics, that person is you.”

29:04.13   Doria: Yes, yeah.

29:22.31   Lucy:  I thought, “There’s nobody on the City Council who is a single mom, a civil engineer, and is Asian.” I represent a lot of demographics that I would like represented, so I remember thinking to myself, “Well I don’t know anybody else who’s exactly like me who will run? I suppose I should run!” and because of COVID, I can do it on the cheap because we can’t host coffees. There’s not much that we can do, so I decided on a whim to run.

29:58.37   Doria: That’s exciting and you decided to run as an independent. I’m also an independent. You are after my own heart there. It’s hard to run as an independent. I would think.

30:10.00   Lucy:  Yes, absolutely. Definitely. After the election I lost. I didn’t even come close to winning. I got about 4,000 votes, and it took about 8,000 to win.  You know, interestingly enough, I ran on a tiny budget of $2,500, so if you look at the cost-per-vote, my votes were 60 cents per vote, and I think a lot of the other candidates had to spend $4 per vote. So…

30:31.41   Doria: Oh my gosh good for you.

30:46.46   Lucy:  It encourages me if I do run again —  next time people will be familiar with my name. I know I came from out of nowhere. I wasn’t part of the political community. I am now, but I wasn’t before, so I understand everyone’s hesitation. They didn’t know who I was, and I wasn’t vocal. In city council meetings, I wasn’t vocal; I wasn’t part of community organizations. I came out of nowhere. 

31:15.56   Doria: Do you think the fact that your opponents spent so much more is also an indication that more money is necessary for someone to win.

31:37.85   Lucy:  I think so. I mean that’s the sad conclusion that I’ve come up with. It will take more money. I think part of it is that money generates your publicity. So…

31:53.14   Doria: Right.

31:56.21   Lucy:  You need that to get your name out there. This is Naperville  —  a town of about 145,000 people. It’s too big of a territory for you to knock on doors and reach everyone. So I think the money’s necessary. It makes me a little sick to know how much money goes into politics now because some of the candidates have spent  —   I don’t think for this election, but I know past candidates have spent like $60,000 on their campaign and lost. So I cannot imagine.

32:28.84   Doria: Wow.

32:34.26   Lucy:  Wanting something that much.

32:35.20   Doria: Yeah, and and it sounds like if it’s a grassroots type movement that it would take a lot of planning, years before or at least a year before maybe two, to start garnering the interest of people and getting that whole momentum going and the donation starting to flow in.

32:56.11   Lucy:  Yeah, I’m still learning the process. A lot of people are way ahead of me on this game but I will say that of the $2,500 dollars, $1,300 of it was my own because I spent it before fundraising and so the remaining $1,200 dollars I raised in one day. So it was shocking to me that I got so much, and I shut it down. I wanted to cap it at $2,500. I love the fact that I did not have to spend a whole lot of my precious time fundraising and asking people for money.

33:29.30   Doria: Yeah I think it’s like something that makes almost everyone’s skin crawl, right? It’s a terrible feeling, but yet necessary to accomplish things at times. So you didn’t win. But if you had and when you do: What would you want your constituents to know about you in terms of your policies? 

33:58.58   Lucy:  Well my policies, I think they’re straightforward and I think more politicians will be running on the platform that I ran on: the three pillars of sustainability are people, planet, and prosperity. So every decision that you make, if you take those three — not people and planet, they have to make financial sense, so the prosperity has to be there. Everybody needs to know what’s in it for them or how much it’s going to cost them. So if you take all three of those into account, you’re going to be responsible. Your decisions will be responsible, so you know that’s the message I’m trying to get across. I need to tell people who I am and how I am likely to vote and if they agree with it then they will vote for me.

34:54.80   Doria: And how would you say you are as an independent? Are you socially liberal and fiscally conservative or how would you describe yourself in those terms?

35:06.21   Lucy:  Well I’m pretty much right down the middle. I’m a little bit more liberal with being an Asian female. I do think we need to be a little bit more active in diversifying everything in life. It sparks creativity and prosperity. But as far as  —  you know there’s a lot of controversy with law enforcement and policing. I’m very much on the side of the police. 

35:36.79   Doria: Yes.

35:44.30   Lucy:  I understand that there are a lot of reforms that are necessary. But for the most part, there needs to be some compromise, and I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater with regards to policing. They are there for the public and I don’t like to see people denigrate policing in general. So in that respect I think I lean a little more conservative.

36:09.46   Doria: Yeah, and it’s interesting that that has even become a conservative issue because when I was growing up the police were there as you said to protect you. I have two daughters, 17 and 14, and they spent a lot of time on TikTok. I don’t know if that’s where they’re getting some of their ‘being woke.’ I could call it a lot of other things. One of the things that one of my daughters said to me was post George Floyd, which everyone agrees was a travesty. However, to take that  —   and now I’m probably going to get myself into trouble —   and say that all police officers are no good… There was a movement called all lives matter. My daughter said that was basically saying that you agreed to what happened to George Floyd. Things are getting so convoluted in this day and age, that it’s kind of terrifying.

37:15.84   Lucy:  Who is right? It’s polarizing. You know what? You have one bad cop, which leads to possibly a bad department, which leads to possibly a bad police agency. I don’t doubt that that’s what’s happening, but it does not mean that every single police department is run by a bunch of murderers. You know it’s crazy that people would think that, and you know well then I hope you never have to call 911 because… 

37:54.96   Doria: Right? You don’t want a thug to show up at your door to protect you! I understand that completely. Where can people learn more about you and what you may be up to in your future?

38:10.62   Lucy:  I have not been maintaining my campaign website. I post regularly on LinkedIn. I had a post that went viral in April.

38:23.71   Doria: Yes, yes.

38:25.60   Lucy:  You know what’s funny is it went viral. It’s got I think 3.8 million views or something. I could not believe it, and the funny thing is everybody was asking me why I posted it. And I said well you know the sad fact of the matter is I was  still licking my wounds from losing the election and feeling sorry for myself a little bit. And I was like okay you know what, I’m going to write a nice little story about how I went back to work.And because I’m not working now,I’m devoted to my MBA program. I am going to have to relaunch my career again at some point. So I’m just going to put it out there to only my people because I did not have many followers on LinkedIn. Saying, you know, this is what I did. You know if you’re going through something similar a lot of people want to see you succeed.

39:10.49   Doria: Yeah.

39:21.30   Lucy:  And subliminally I was putting the message out there that I’m going to need a job soon. 

39:25.54   Doria: That’s a great way to do it: 3.2 million people know it now. It’s been such a pleasure having you on. My last question would simply be, “If you had one woman dead or alive that you look up to, who would that be and why?”

39:51.78   Lucy:  Oh this is really hard. You know what this sounds like an easy question but it’s really hard because I have not had much mentorship in my life even though I’ve searched for it. I reached out and was…

40:05.65   Doria: That’s interesting.

40:09.92   Lucy:  Met with a no throughout my life. I don’t know, I guess…

40:14.63   Doria: It doesn’t have to be someone you know, like it could be someone publicly that you admire.

40:20.84   Lucy:  Okay, well then I will choose Kamala Harris because I find her to be a fantastic leader.

40:28.16   Doria: Yes, What was her famous saying when Mike Pence interrupted her. I can’t remember it now. Okay, never mind. It was a great quote and I had it on my T-shirt, and I think she’s pretty cool. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

40:52.80   Lucy:  Thank you for having me. This is such great fun.