FADE IN:
Act I
THE MAXWELL SCHOOL
EXT. SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, MAXWELL SCHOOL OF CITIZENSHIP — AUTUMN (2007)
Aerial shot of Syracuse in October. The campus is ablaze with copper and gold leaves. We descend toward the Maxwell School — a limestone building that has produced more public servants than almost any institution in America. Students stream in and out. CATHERINE NOLAN, 20s, walks briskly up the steps carrying a stack of policy briefs and a coffee that's clearly her third of the day. She moves with purpose. Always purpose.
Catherine
(V.O.)
Everyone at Maxwell had a theory about how government should work. I had a different problem. I wanted to know why it didn't. And then I wanted to fix it.
CUT TO:
INT. MAXWELL SCHOOL — DR. LAMBRIGHT'S OFFICE — DAY (2007)
A small, book-lined office. DR. HENRY LAMBRIGHT, 60s, silver-haired, sits behind a desk buried in research papers. Shelves hold titles on NASA governance, clean energy policy, and technology transfer. Catherine sits across from him, a draft of her research proposal in her hands.
Dr. Lambright
Your proposal on Clean Coal Technology is ambitious. You want to trace the entire federal funding pipeline — from authorization through appropriation to deployment?
Catherine
I want to understand where the money goes. Not in the abstract. I want to follow every dollar and figure out why some programs deliver results and others just produce reports that sit in binders.
Dr. Lambright
(leaning back, studying her)
Most MPA students want to write policy memos. You want to build accountability systems.
Catherine
Someone has to. The public deserves to know that their money is being spent well. That's not idealism. That's the baseline.
Dr. Lambright takes off his glasses. Cleans them slowly. A beat.
Dr. Lambright
I'll advise your thesis. But I should warn you — once you start pulling threads on federal spending, you tend to find things that people would rather stay hidden.
Catherine
(smiling)
Good. That means it matters.
CUT TO:
INT. MAXWELL SCHOOL — LECTURE HALL — DAY (2008)
Catherine presents her research to the Maxwell faculty. A projector displays a detailed flowchart of federal clean energy spending. The room is quiet. She speaks with the confidence of someone who has done the work.
Catherine
The Clean Coal Technology program received $2.7 billion in federal funding between 1986 and 2005. Of that, roughly 40% went to projects that were never completed. Not because the technology failed, but because the accountability mechanisms failed. No one was tracking milestones. No one was asking the right questions at the right time.
A FACULTY MEMBER raises her hand.
Faculty Member
What would you propose?
Catherine
Systematic requirements gathering before a single dollar moves. You sit down with the program managers, the engineers, the field offices. You ask: what does success look like? What are the checkpoints? Who is accountable at each stage? And then you build a system that makes it impossible to lose track.
Dr. Lambright, in the back row, nods almost imperceptibly. He has seen a lot of students. This one is different.
Catherine graduates with her MPA. She doesn't want to write policy. She wants to build systems.
Act II
GRANT THORNTON
INT. GRANT THORNTON — WASHINGTON D.C. OFFICE — MORNING (2008)
A gleaming consulting office. The walls display logos of federal agencies: FAA, NASA, VA, Interior. MARGARET CHEN, 40s, sharp and composed, leads Catherine through the corridors on her first day.
Margaret
You'll be on the Public Sector Advisory team. Federal agencies hire us because they can't figure out their own finances. Your job is to help them figure it out.
Catherine
What's the first assignment?
Margaret
(handing her a thick binder)
FAA. Air Traffic Controller training review. Congress wants to know whether FAA is spending its training budget effectively. You'll be reviewing every training program, every dollar, every outcome metric.
Catherine
When is the report due?
Margaret
It goes to Congress.
Catherine stares at the binder. This is real.
Margaret
(continued)
So it's due when it's right. Not when it's fast.
CUT TO:
INT. FAA HEADQUARTERS — CONFERENCE ROOM — DAY (2009)
Catherine is three months deep in the FAA review. She sits in a fluorescent-lit conference room across from two FAA TRAINING DIRECTORS, both skeptical. Binders and spreadsheets cover every surface.
FAA Director #1
We've had consultants in here before. They come, they write a report, they leave. Nothing changes.
Catherine
I'm not writing a report that sits in a binder. I'm building a framework you can actually use. But first, I need to understand something. Walk me through the last three cohorts of controllers. Where did the training work? Where did it break down?
The directors exchange a glance. Nobody has ever asked them this. Usually consultants come in with the answers already written.
FAA Director #2
(slowly)
Oklahoma City is where we lose most of them. The simulation testing. The washout rate is—
Catherine
(leaning forward)
Tell me about it. All of it.
She listens. She takes notes. She asks follow-up questions that show she actually understands air traffic control training — because she's read every document she can find. The directors relax. They've never had a consultant who listened.
CUT TO:
INT. CONGRESSIONAL OFFICE BUILDING — HALLWAY — DAY (2010)
Catherine walks down a marble corridor carrying a bound report. Her heels echo. Margaret is beside her. They approach a heavy wooden door labeled SUBCOMMITTEE ON AVIATION.
Margaret
(quietly)
This report goes to the Subcommittee. They'll use it to decide the FAA's training budget for the next three years. You're twenty-six years old, and your work is going to determine how America trains the people who keep planes from crashing into each other.
Catherine
(steady)
I know.
Margaret
Are you nervous?
Catherine
I'm not nervous about the work. The work is solid. I'm nervous that they won't act on it. That it'll become another binder on another shelf.
Margaret stops walking. Looks at Catherine directly.
Margaret
That's why you built it the way you did. Because your framework isn't just a report. It's a tool. Even if this Congress ignores it, the next one can pick it up and use it. That's what good work does. It outlasts the politics.
They enter the office. CONGRESSMAN HARRIS's chief of staff meets them. The report is delivered. Catherine watches it change hands. It weighs almost nothing. It matters enormously.
“Real accountability isn't about catching people doing wrong. It's about building systems where doing right is the path of least resistance.”
— Catherine Nolan
INT. NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER — GRANTS OFFICE — DAY (2011)
Catherine stands in the grants reconciliation office at NASA Goddard. Through the window, you can see the satellite testing facility. She is surrounded by spreadsheets, cross-referencing grant disbursements with milestone reports. A NASA GRANTS OFFICER, tired and overworked, sits across from her.
NASA Grants Officer
We process 2,400 grants a year. Some go back decades. The reconciliation backlog is — honestly, I don't know how far back it goes.
Catherine
How are you currently tracking completion?
NASA Grants Officer
(gesturing at a filing cabinet)
That. And email. And a shared drive folder that I think three people know how to navigate.
Catherine opens her laptop.
Catherine
Okay. Show me the shared drive. Show me the email chains. Show me the filing cabinet. I'm going to map every touchpoint in your process, and then we're going to figure out where the leaks are.
NASA Grants Officer
(skeptical)
That could take months.
Catherine
Then we should start now.
CUT TO:
INT. GRANT THORNTON — CATHERINE'S CUBICLE — NIGHT (2013)
Late. The office is mostly dark. Catherine is alone at her desk, staring at a spreadsheet. She has been at Grant Thornton for five years. The work is good. She has managed multimillion-dollar pipelines. She was the firm's Recovery Act expert. She built financial frameworks for VA, NASA, the Department of Interior, geoplatform.gov. She is good at this. But something is wrong.
Catherine
(V.O.)
I spent five years auditing other people's work. Reviewing their systems. Finding their mistakes. And I kept having the same thought: I could build this better. Not just review it. Build it. But you can't build anything in consulting. You deliver reports and move on to the next client. I needed to get my hands on something real.
She closes her laptop. Opens a browser on her phone. Types: “Ladurée New York hiring.” A beat. She stares at the screen. Then she starts filling out an application.
Act III
LADUR\u00C9E
EXT. LADURÉE — SOHO, NEW YORK CITY — MORNING (2014)
A gorgeous spring morning in SoHo. The Ladurée flagship is being prepared for its grand opening — the first American outpost of the legendary Parisian pâtisserie. Sage-green awnings. Gold lettering. Workers carry trays of macarons in pastel towers. Catherine stands outside in chef's whites, taking it all in. She is on the opening team. She is not a consultant. She is a kitchen apprentice.
Catherine
(V.O.)
People thought I was crazy. I had an MPA from Maxwell. I'd delivered reports to Congress. And I was standing in a kitchen in SoHo, learning how to temper chocolate and plate petit fours. But here's what nobody understood: I wasn't running away from anything. I was learning something I couldn't learn in an office. How to build something beautiful with your hands.
CUT TO:
INT. LADURÉE — KITCHEN — DAY (2014)
The kitchen is immaculate and relentless. CHEF LAURENT, 50s, runs it with surgical precision. Catherine is at the garde manger station, assembling salads and cold preparations. The pace is punishing. Every plate must be identical. Every macaron must be perfect.
Chef Laurent
(inspecting a plate)
Non. The garnish is two millimeters to the left. Again.
Catherine re-plates. Without complaint. Without hesitation.
Chef Laurent
You are the one from the government?
Catherine
I have an MPA, yes.
Chef Laurent
And you left this to make salads?
Catherine
(plating without looking up)
I left it to learn something new.
Chef Laurent
What can a kitchen teach a policy expert?
Catherine
The same thing policy taught me. That details matter. That if you skip a step, the whole thing falls apart. And that the person eating the food — or the citizen reading the report — deserves your absolute best.
Chef Laurent says nothing. He takes the plate. Examines it. Sets it on the pass. It goes to the dining room.
Chef Laurent
(without turning around)
Tomorrow you will work pâtisserie. I want to see if you can pipe a macaron as well as you make arguments.
CUT TO:
INT. LADURÉE — PASTRY STATION — NIGHT (2014)
Close-up on Catherine's hands. She pipes macaron batter onto a silicone mat with steady, even pressure. Dozens of perfect circles. The kitchen is winding down. Only she and one other cook remain.
Other Cook
You're going back, aren't you? To the government stuff.
Catherine
Probably. I miss building systems. But I needed to prove to myself that I could do something completely different. That I'm not just a policy person, or a finance person, or a kitchen person. I'm a do-er. I figure things out and I do them.
Other Cook
A do-er?
Catherine
(smiling at the tray of perfect macarons)
A do-er.
Catherine spends three months at Ladurée. She works the opening. She learns precision, artistry, and the discipline of starting over. Then she goes back to building.
Act IV
INNOVATE! INC. & THE REQUIREMENTS GENIE
INT. INNOVATE! INC. — HEADQUARTERS — DAY (2014)
A mid-size consulting firm that specializes in federal technology. The office is energetic, walls covered with whiteboards full of Salesforce diagrams and client timelines. SARAH REEVES, 50s, the firm's founder, meets Catherine in the lobby. Catherine is in business attire now, but there's flour under one fingernail.
Sarah
Your resume is … unusual. Maxwell MPA, Grant Thornton federal consulting, and then — Ladurée? The macaron place?
Catherine
I was on the opening team.
Sarah
Why?
Catherine
Because I wanted to prove I could build something from scratch. Kitchen, conference room — the process is the same. You start with raw materials, you follow a method, you deliver something that serves people. The medium changes. The discipline doesn't.
Sarah studies her for a long moment.
Sarah
We work with the EPA. Five different client groups, three different organizations. It's the most complex Salesforce environment you'll ever see. Requirements change weekly. Nobody agrees on what they need. Can you handle ambiguity?
Catherine
Ambiguity is where I live.
CUT TO:
INT. INNOVATE! INC. — OPEN OFFICE — DAY (2015)
Catherine is on the phone with a client. Sticky notes cover her monitor. She is six months in, working as a business analyst, and she's already frustrated. Not with the clients — with the gap between what clients need and what gets built.
Catherine
(on phone)
I understand you need the report by Friday. But the current system can't generate that data in the format you need. The fields aren't mapped correctly.
She hangs up. Stares at the Salesforce interface on her screen. Opens the admin panel. Starts clicking. She has no formal Salesforce training. She teaches herself — right now, in this moment — because the alternative is telling a client “no” and she doesn't believe in “no.”
Catherine
(V.O.)
I didn't plan to become a Salesforce developer. I just got tired of being the person who identified problems and handed them to someone else to fix. I wanted to fix them myself. So I started learning the platform — at night, on weekends, between client calls. Within a year, I wasn't just gathering requirements. I was building the solutions.
CUT TO:
INT. EPA REGIONAL OFFICE — CONFERENCE ROOM — DAY (2016)
Catherine is at a whiteboard, mapping a client's workflow. DAVID WELLS, 50s, an EPA program director, sits at the table looking overwhelmed. Three other EPA staffers are with him. There are printouts everywhere. The current system is a maze of spreadsheets and shared drives.
David
We need to track grant disbursements across twelve regional offices. Each office has its own process. Some use spreadsheets. Some use email. One office, I think, is still using paper ledgers. We need one system. And we need it to do everything.
Catherine
(at the whiteboard)
Okay. But “everything” isn't a requirement. Let me ask you some questions.
She turns to the whiteboard. Draws a simple diagram.
Catherine
(continued)
When a grant is approved, what's the first thing that happens? Not what should happen. What actually happens. Right now. Today.
EPA Staffer #1
An email goes to the regional office.
Catherine
What's in the email?
EPA Staffer #1
The award letter. The budget. The compliance checklist.
Catherine
Is it always the same checklist?
EPA Staffer #2
(laughing)
God, no. Every program office has its own.
Catherine writes this down. She asks another question. And another. For two hours, she disassembles their entire process, one question at a time. She doesn't tell them what to do. She asks them to tell her what they do. By the end, the whiteboard is covered in a detailed process map that none of them have ever seen before — because no one has ever taken the time to draw it.
David
(staring at the whiteboard)
How did you — we've been trying to document this for three years.
Catherine
You already knew all of this. I just asked the right questions in the right order.
“She's a genie. You tell her what you need — even if you can't articulate it — and she makes it appear.”
— David Wells, EPA Program Director
INT. INNOVATE! INC. — BREAK ROOM — DAY (2017)
GLEN BRADFORD, 30s, is getting coffee when Catherine walks in. They work on different projects but have started to overlap on EPA work.
Glen
David Wells just called you the “Requirements Genie” on a call with Sarah.
Catherine
(pouring coffee)
That's ridiculous.
Glen
He said you ask questions like a magician. That you see connections between systems that nobody else sees. That you took a process that twelve offices couldn't agree on and turned it into a working application in three months.
Catherine
It wasn't magic. It was listening. People tell you exactly what they need if you let them. The problem is that most consultants come in with a solution already in their head and then try to make the client's problem fit their solution. I do it the other way. I start with the problem. I listen until I actually understand it. Then I build.
Glen
Genie.
Catherine
(laughing)
If it gets me better clients, I'll take it.
CUT TO:
MONTAGE — INNOVATE! INC. — (2017-2022)
Eight years. Five EPA client groups. Three organizations. Dozens of applications.
Quick cuts of Catherine in action across the years:
— A whiteboard session with a new EPA team. Catherine mapping a completely different process. Same method. Same patience.
— Catherine at her desk at 11 PM, deep in a Salesforce flow builder, coffee cold beside her. She cracks a validation rule that has stumped the dev team for weeks.
— A training session. Catherine teaching a room of EPA staffers how to use the application she built. They're engaged. They understand it. Because she built it the way they think, not the way engineers think.
— A tense conference call. A client demands a feature that contradicts what three other clients need. Catherine draws a diagram that shows how both needs can be met with a single flexible architecture. Silence on the call. Then: “That works.”
— Catherine receiving a Salesforce certification. Then another. Then a third. She is now a certified Salesforce administrator, app builder, and platform developer. The accidental admin became the architect.
— A company all-hands. Sarah reads the Innovate! values statement: “We operate with a level of integrity that is legendary.” The camera finds Catherine nodding. She believes every word.
CUT TO:
INT. INNOVATE! INC. — SARAH'S OFFICE — DAY (2022)
Catherine sits across from Sarah. The mood is warm but tinged with the bittersweet energy of a transition.
Sarah
You've been here eight years. You've built more for the EPA than most firms do in twenty. What's next?
Catherine
I want to be closer to the mission. I've been building tools for the EPA from the outside. I want to do it from the inside.
Sarah
You know it's harder from the inside. More bureaucracy. Less flexibility. You'll miss the freedom.
Catherine
Maybe. But I'll be building something that isn't just a deliverable on a contract. It'll be infrastructure. The kind of thing that outlasts any single administration. That's what I want to build.
Sarah
(smiling)
Then go build it. And if you ever need anything —
Catherine
I know. Legendary integrity.
They shake hands. Catherine walks out. She does not look back. She never looks back.
Act V
THE EPA
INT. US EPA HEADQUARTERS — WASHINGTON D.C. — MORNING (2023)
Catherine walks through security at EPA headquarters. Badge on. Laptop bag over her shoulder. She is no longer a consultant visiting on a contract. She is EPA staff. The hallways are long and institutional, but she walks them like she owns them.
Catherine
(V.O.)
For fifteen years, I built things for the government from the outside. I was always a guest. A contractor. Someone who delivered a product and then handed it off and hoped it survived without me. This time, I'm not handing anything off. I'm staying. I'm building the thing and I'm maintaining the thing and I'm making sure the thing works for the people who need it. That's what being a do-er means. You don't just deliver. You own it.
CUT TO:
INT. EPA — TECHNOLOGY DIVISION — CONFERENCE ROOM — DAY (2023)
Catherine stands before a room of EPA leadership. On the screen behind her: “ROBOT — EPA Financial Operations Tool Suite.” She has been here three months and she has already begun building the system that will transform how the agency tracks its money.
Catherine
ROBOT isn't one tool. It's a suite. Grants tracking. Contract management. Executive Order compliance. Every dollar going out of this agency will have a digital trail from authorization to deployment. No more spreadsheets passed between offices on shared drives. No more email chains as audit trails.
EPA Deputy Administrator (Composite)
How long until we can deploy the first module?
Catherine
The grants tracking module is in testing now. We go live in six weeks.
Murmurs in the room. Six weeks is fast. Impossibly fast for government tech.
EPA Deputy Administrator
That's — ambitious.
Catherine
I've been building EPA applications for eight years. I know the data models. I know the workflows. I know what the field offices need because I spent years sitting across the table from them, asking questions. This isn't starting from scratch. This is the culmination of everything I've learned.
CUT TO:
INT. EPA — CATHERINE'S OFFICE — NIGHT (2024)
Late. Catherine's office is lit by two monitors. On one, a Salesforce org with hundreds of objects and flows — the architecture of ROBOT. On the other, an Executive Order compliance dashboard showing spending data across every EPA program.
She is debugging a flow that connects Executive Order requirements to real-time spending data. It's the hardest thing she's ever built. The requirements are contradictory. The data sources are messy. The timeline is dictated by forces far above her pay grade. But she is calm. She has been here before — not in this exact room, but in this exact situation. Ambiguity, complexity, a deadline, and the knowledge that real people depend on getting this right.
Catherine
(to herself, debugging)
The validation rule is firing on the wrong record type. The Executive Order lookup needs to cascade, not — there.
She fixes it. Runs the test. Green across the board. She leans back. Allows herself one moment of satisfaction.
Catherine
(V.O.)
Every dollar. Every program. Every executive order. Tracked. Accountable. Transparent. This is what I went to the Maxwell School for. This is what I spent fifteen years in consulting for. This is what I made macarons for — to prove to myself that I could do anything, so that when the thing that mattered most came along, I wouldn't hesitate.
CUT TO:
INT. EPA — SERVER ROOM / DEPLOYMENT TERMINAL — MORNING (2025)
Catherine stands in front of a deployment terminal. ROBOT is about to go live for the first time across all regional offices. The room is quiet. A few other team members are present, watching their screens.
Team Member
Ready?
Catherine
Ready.
She initiates the deployment. The progress bar moves. 10%. 30%. 65%. A brief hold at 88% that makes everyone's heart stop. Then: 100%. The dashboard populates. Real data from real offices flowing through the system she built. Transactions appearing. Dollar amounts resolving. Compliance flags triggering exactly where they should.
Catherine watches the first real transaction process through ROBOT. A $1.2 million grant disbursement for wetlands restoration in Region 4. The system catches a compliance discrepancy, flags it, and routes it to the correct reviewer — all automatically. All in seconds.
She does not cheer. She does not cry. She watches the data flow like a chef watching a perfectly plated dish leave the pass. Satisfaction in the craft. Pride in the doing.
Catherine
(quietly)
It works.
Team Member
It works.
“I'm a do-er. I ask questions. I listen. I build the thing. And then I make sure the thing works. That's it. That's the whole secret.”
EXT. WASHINGTON D.C. — EPA HEADQUARTERS — DAWN
Wide shot. The EPA building at first light. The city is waking up. Government workers streaming toward their buildings. In the crowd, Catherine walks toward the entrance, coffee in hand, bag over her shoulder, the same purposeful stride she had walking up the steps of the Maxwell School seventeen years ago.
Catherine
(V.O.)
People ask me how I went from policy school to consulting to a pastry kitchen to Salesforce to the EPA. As if those things are disconnected. They're not. Every one of those experiences taught me the same lesson: start with the problem. Ask questions until you understand it. Then build the solution. Don't wait for permission. Don't wait for the perfect tools. Don't wait for someone to tell you it's possible. Just do it.
She enters the building. The doors close behind her. The camera holds on the EPA seal above the entrance. Then it tilts upward to the sky. Morning light over Washington.
Catherine
(V.O., final)
Children. Education. Economic empowerment. The environment. Human rights. Health. These are not abstractions. These are the things that government is supposed to protect. And I am building the tools that make sure it does. One requirement at a time. One application at a time. One dollar at a time.
FADE OUT.
Catherine Nolan continues to build technology for the US EPA. ROBOT is now used across all regional offices. She holds multiple Salesforce certifications and remains, by all accounts, phenomenal, fearless, and the kind of person who sees connections that others don't.
She still makes a mean macaron.
Credits
Written By
Glen Bradford
AI Assistance
Claude by Anthropic
Based on the Career of
Catherine Nolan
Inspired by
The people who do the work nobody sees