My work is federal program integrity and compliance, and all of it came after the money was already gone. By the time a file reached me, the funds were disbursed. What was left to determine was whether the borrower had been eligible in the first place, whether affiliates or corporate groups should have changed that answer, and whether the file could prove it.

I spent nearly 20 years in legal support and regulatory research, where close reading of statute and case law and producing documentation sufficient for attorney review were baseline expectations. That’s where the writing started. I researched and helped draft legal briefs, and I liked the work of building something that had to hold up on the record.

After moving to Colorado in 2007, I researched nonprofit law and drafted the formation paperwork for a 501(c)(3) youth baseball organization, which my husband and I ran together for 15 years. I filed the annual returns and handled registrations, scheduling, tournament operations, and planning. It was the other side of the same problem. Instead of reviewing whether an entity had met its requirements, I was the one responsible for meeting them and documenting that we had.

At SBA, I spent nearly five years conducting eligibility and compliance reviews on 7(a) and PPP matters in a high-volume remote review environment, grounded in the Small Business Act, the CARES Act, applicable Interim Final Rules, SBA SOP 50 10, and 13 CFR §121 affiliation and control standards. I reviewed complex multi-tier ownership structures, corporate groups measured against the corporate group loan limits for First and Second Draw loans, affiliated-entity relationships, and high-risk eligibility issues. I prepared written determinations and case analyses used in forgiveness and appeals, audit inquiries, and federal cases, including support for existing qui tam cases brought by relators under the False Claims Act and matters referred to OGC and DOJ. Separately, I supported a special audit assignment for OIG.

My writing is grounded in what federal lending review looks like from the back end: how eligibility, verification, affiliation, ownership, control, documentation, and audit trails are evaluated in actual case files, after the money has already moved. The pattern I saw repeatedly is that these get treated as after-the-fact review problems when they belong in program design as front-end requirements.

I’ve published commentary in Government Executive, Federal News Network, and The Hill on emergency lending governance, fraud prevention, and the need to build eligibility controls, documentation standards, and fraud-risk screening into program design before funds move.