The Requirements Genie
Catherine Nolan
The Requirements Genie. Salesforce wizard. Pastry chef. Government transformer. Glen's favorite coworker.
“I'm a do-er.”
The Do-er
“I'm a do-er.” That's how Catherine describes herself, and after working alongside her for nearly eight years, I can tell you it's the most accurate two-word self-description I've ever heard.
Catherine doesn't just talk about things. She doesn't sit in meetings and nod along and then go back to her desk and check email. She listens, she asks questions, she understands the problem — and then she builds the solution. Not “plans to build” or “proposes to build” or “writes a requirements document about building.” She builds it. She deploys it. She follows through.
In her own words: “Perhaps most importantly, I follow through to deliver.” That sentence sounds simple. In the federal consulting world — where projects get scoped, re-scoped, delayed, deprioritized, and quietly abandoned — following through to deliver is the rarest and most valuable trait a person can have.
Catherine has it. She's had it for as long as I've known her.
The Legendary Skill
The Requirements Genie
She asks the right questions. She listens. She delivers.
Catherine's coworkers and clients call her the “Requirements Genie.” It's not a title she gave herself — it's a title that was given to her because of what she does in a room with stakeholders.
She asks lots of questions. Not surface-level questions — the kind of questions that make people stop and think about what they actually need, not just what they think they want. She listens. She puts herself in their shoes. And then she connects what they need with what's technically possible.
This is a rare and extraordinarily valuable skill. Most consultants can gather requirements. Catherine understands them. She sees the connections between what one stakeholder needs and what another stakeholder is trying to solve. She finds the patterns that turn five separate requests into one elegant solution.
“Her commitment to clients and their missions is unparalleled.”
That's not marketing copy. That's what the people who work with Catherine say about her. When you need someone who will truly understand your problem before trying to solve it — that's Catherine Nolan.
Innovate! Inc.
Where Glen and Catherine worked together — 8 years building Salesforce apps for EPA
Catherine was a Technical Product Owner at Innovate! Inc. from February 2014 to March 2022 — over eight years. I was there for nearly all of it. We overlapped from August 2014 to March 2022 — almost eight years working together, building Salesforce applications for EPA program offices across three organizations and five sets of clients.
What makes Catherine's story at Innovate! remarkable is her trajectory. She started on the business side. She wasn't hired as a developer or an admin. But she saw what needed to be done, and she taught herself to do it. She became what she calls an “accidental admin” — and then she kept going. She now does nearly all the configuration and some custom code. She earned her Salesforce Certified Administrator credential in 2019 and became a Trailhead Ranger.
That kind of initiative — seeing a gap and filling it yourself rather than waiting for someone else to do it — is exactly what makes her a do-er.
Innovate! Values
“We operate with a level of integrity that is legendary.”
That was the Innovate! standard. And Catherine embodied it every day. When you work somewhere for eight years, you don't just adopt the values — you become the values. Catherine was Innovate! through and through: client first, follow through on every commitment, and hold yourself to a standard that your clients can count on.
This is personal for me. Innovate! is where I learned what good federal consulting looks like. And a big part of that education came from working alongside Catherine.
The EPA
Building government transparency, one tool at a time
What Catherine is doing right now at the EPA is remarkable. Since October 2023, she's been a Digital Workflow Project Manager — and she's building the tools that track every dollar going out of the agency.
Think about that for a moment. Every dollar. Agency-wide. That's not a small Salesforce app for one program office. That's enterprise-scale government technology that directly supports efficiency, transparency, and financial accountability.
Deployed
Build America, Buy America
Catherine built a Salesforce application to track Build America, Buy America waiver requests across the entire agency. Every request gets reviewed, routed, and audited. This is federal compliance at scale.
Building Now
ROBOT
Resources, Organizations, and Business Operations Tool — an entire suite of applications:
- HR preprocessing — deployed Q2 2025
- Awards processing — Q3 2025
- Base budget tool — August 2026
- Budget execution — coming next
Agency-Wide
Executive Order Compliance
Catherine built an agency-wide Executive Order compliance tool ensuring leadership review of every dollar going out of EPA. This is government transparency in action — real tools that ensure real accountability.
The Mission
Efficiency & Accountability
Catherine supports the Administration with efficiency, transparency, and financial accountability. She's not just maintaining legacy systems — she's building the digital infrastructure that makes government work better.
Grant Thornton & Congress
5.5 years of federal consulting — from FAA to NASA to Capitol Hill
Before Salesforce, before Innovate!, Catherine spent five and a half years as a Senior Associate and Consultant at Grant Thornton's Global Public Sector practice (July 2008 to January 2014). This is where she cut her teeth on federal consulting — and the scope of what she accomplished is impressive.
Her work on the FAA Air Traffic Controller training review resulted in a report delivered to Congress. Let that sink in. She conducted a review of how the FAA trains the people who keep planes from hitting each other, and the findings went to the United States Congress.
FAA Air Traffic Controller Training
Conducted the training review. Report delivered to Congress.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Grants reconciliation — systematic, thorough, and audit-ready.
NASA HQ & VA
Financial Management QA/QC at NASA HQ. Internal Controls review at the VA.
Geospatial Platform
Design and implementation of geoplatform.gov — the federal geospatial data platform.
CMS Internal Controls
Internal controls review for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Business Development
Managed multimillion-dollar pipeline for DOE and DOI accounts. Recovery Act resident expert.
OpFocus
Salesforce consulting, CPQ implementation, and data migration
Between Innovate! and EPA, Catherine spent a year and a half as an Engagement Manager at OpFocus (March 2022 to October 2023). OpFocus is a Salesforce consulting firm specializing in CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) implementation and data migration.
This is the kind of role that requires everything Catherine is good at: understanding complex business requirements, translating them into Salesforce configurations, managing client relationships, and delivering on time. CPQ implementations are notoriously complex — and data migrations are where most projects go sideways. Catherine handled both.
Plot Twist
The Ladurée Chef
Yes, she was also a pastry chef at Ladurée's NYC flagship
Before Innovate!, before the Salesforce certifications, before building government transparency tools — Catherine was a Kitchen Apprentice and Garde Manger chef at Ladurée's SoHo flagship in New York City. She was a member of the opening team.
Ladurée is the legendary French patisserie, famous worldwide for its macarons. The SoHo location was their first US flagship — and Catherine was there on day one.
This tells you everything you need to know about Catherine's range. She can go from a professional kitchen in SoHo to a congressional report on FAA training to an agency-wide Salesforce deployment at the EPA. Not many people can do that. Catherine can.
Syracuse Maxwell School
Where the government expertise was forged
Catherine earned her Master of Public Administration (MPA) from the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, specializing in State and Local Financial Management (2007–2008). The Maxwell School is consistently ranked among the top public affairs programs in the country.
During her time at Maxwell, Catherine was a Research Assistant for Dr. Lambright, working on Clean Coal Technology and the FutureGEN project. This is serious energy policy research — the kind of work that informs how the federal government approaches large-scale infrastructure and environmental programs.
The Maxwell School gave Catherine the foundation in public finance, policy analysis, and government operations that has powered everything she's done since. From Grant Thornton to Innovate! to EPA — the thread of public service runs through her entire career.
Catherine also became a Salesforce Trailhead Ranger (2014), earned her Certified ScrumMaster (2016), and her Salesforce Certified Administrator (2019) — credentials that complement her public policy background with deep technical expertise.
The Recommendations
Catherine is the model project manager and technical consultant, with the innate ability to deliver high quality work products and produce happy clients on every one of her projects.
— Vivian Phan
Catherine is a phenomenal management consultant with an excellent work ethic and a maturity in the workplace far beyond her years. She is fearless in taking on difficult new subject matters.
— Eric W. Hunn
These aren't canned LinkedIn endorsements. Read them again. “Innate ability to deliver.” “Fearless in taking on difficult new subject matters.” “Sees connections others don't.” This is what the people who've worked with Catherine say about her — and it matches exactly what I saw over eight years.
What She Cares About
43 skills. 500+ connections. And a causes list that tells you exactly who Catherine is — someone who cares about people, about equity, about the environment, and about using her skills to make things better.
From Glen
Catherine and I worked together at Innovate! Inc. for nearly eight years. In that time, I watched her go from business analyst to accidental admin to full-blown Salesforce expert. I watched her earn the trust of every client she worked with. I watched her take on problems that nobody else wanted to touch and turn them into working solutions.
She is one of the best people I've ever worked with. Not because she's perfect — because she's relentless. She follows through. She cares. She does the work.
Catherine is currently “open to work” — though I want to be precise about what that means. She's not desperately “looking for” work or “needing” work. She's open to the right opportunity. That's a very Catherine distinction: she doesn't just take whatever comes — she's thoughtful about where she can make the most impact.
If you need someone who will understand your requirements, build the solution, and follow through to deliver — Catherine Nolan is that person. I'd stake my professional reputation on it.
Disclosure: This page was written by Glen Bradford with AI assistance to promote his former coworker Catherine Nolan. All facts are drawn from Catherine's publicly available LinkedIn profile.
Can You Grant the Requirements?
Catherine's clients call her the “Requirements Genie.” Match stakeholder needs to Salesforce solutions before the sprint ends. Can you deliver like Catherine?
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