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SARAH CRISER CLASS V FELLOW "It's called a fellowship, but in reality, it's life. Responsibility, thoughtfulness and drive are factored into every decision we make - all with the understanding that we are impacting lives beyond our own. There is no such thing as relative integrity."

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: SARA RUBIN, CLASS IV

The foundation of a Florida Gubernatorial Fellowship is public service, and the five classes of Florida Fellows have demonstrated their dedication to serving our state in many critical ways.

That dedication becomes all the more important in times of disaster. Fellows have assisted the state Division of Emergency Management following hurricanes, tornadoes and other hazardous situations.

And now, when our state is facing one of the worst environmental crises in its history, a Florida Fellow alumna is right on the front lines.

Sara Rubin is working for the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, which was created by President Obama's executive order on May 22, 2010 to deal with the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sara, who was a member of Florida Fellows Class IV, was handpicked by Bob Graham, the former Florida Governor and U.S. Senator, to be his personal executive assistant on the commission. Graham is the commission's co-chair (with William K. Reilly).

The opportunity came as quite a surprise for Sara, though she and Sen. Graham had some history. She was in the first class of the Bob Graham Center for Public Excellence at the University of Florida, but she and the Senator got to know each other later through the Florida Fellows program.

And from June 2009 until February 2010, she worked for him: Sara was a communications associate for the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, of which Sen. Graham is the chairman.

But that didn't prepare her for the voicemail she received on a Tuesday in late June. She was in class at George Washington University, where she is pursuing double master's degrees in international affairs and public health.

"I got out of class and saw I had a missed call from Sen. Graham's office," she said. "I was super-shocked - the call was just so unexpected."

Sara quickly returned the call. Sen. Graham asked her if she would mind being detailed from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where she's worked as a program analyst since April, to be his assistant. She readily agreed, with the approval of her mentor from the Florida Fellows Program, then state Emergency Management director and current FEMA administrator.

A few weeks later, she was alongside the Senator as he toured coastal communities affected by the oil spill from the Panhandle to New Orleans.

"When I left the WMD commission, Sen. Graham said he hoped we'd work together again, so that was very exciting," Sara recalled.

She said it all relates back to a final reception her Florida Fellows class had in the Governor's Mansion. She and Elizabeth Akerman, another Class IV Fellow, were touring the mansion and enjoying the evening. Like Sara, Elizabeth was a member of the first class at the Bob Graham Center. They got word that the Senator's wife, Adele Khoury Graham, was looking for them.

"We were hearing that Mrs. Graham was looking for her 'Florida girls' - Elizabeth and me -- because we'd been in that first class," Sara said.

They spoke with Sen. and Mrs. Graham for a while. Sara told the Senator about going to Washington D.C. for grad school and the work she had done with through the Fellows program at the Division of Emergency Management.

"He was telling me about the WMD Commission, citizen engagement, and the link between WMD and emergency management," she recalled. "We talked about how emergency management is about preparing for all hazards, both man-made and natural disasters. He told me to keep in touch, which I did."

Of course, that led to Sara's position on the WMD Commission. As a communications associate, she wrote press releases and newsletters, provided research, managed social media and handled other related duties.

If that all sounds fairly journalistic, it should. Sara originally planned to be a journalist. One of her two degrees from UF is in journalism (magna cum laude), and she's contributed articles and photographs to newspapers. You can see one of her stories for the High Springs Herald here.

Perhaps it's not such a huge stretch to go from journalism to dealing with natural disasters - if any industry is in a crisis mode these days, it's print journalism.

A New Jersey native who attended boarding school in Connecticut, Sara originally chose to attend UF because it has an excellent journalism school and her parents had moved to nearby Orlando. She also got a political science degree at Florida.

She continued working on both degrees while in the Fellows program, which is no easy. Just being selected as a Fellow is challenging enough, though Sara already had part of that process covered.

Sara had always been interested in environmental issues. When she applied for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship (an extremely prestigious public service award), she created a recycling program policy proposal. She didn't get the scholarship, but she was a finalist - one of only seven in Florida.

So when Sara applied for the Florida Fellows, she admits with a laugh, she already had an excellent policy proposal ready to go for her application. No one can ever say she doesn't practice recycling.

Her assignment for the Fellows program was to manage the state Division of Emergency Management's reaccreditation process, which is a very big deal.

"I knew that the Fellowship (positions) required a lot of responsibility, that you're in a high-level position, but this really was huge," Sara said. "They showed me this shelf of 35 enormous binders, and they're filled with all these old documents, and then they hand me this list of new requirements. And they say, "You have until December to get this all figured out."

She continued: "So I'm just sort of standing there, thinking, does everyone get something like this? This is a huge responsibility, and they're giving it to me? I was basically in charge of this enormous project."

Yes, and Sara handled it in fine style. She explained how she created an "enormous spreadsheet" that covered all of the 63 standards that had to be met in the reaccreditation process. In delegating tasks to agency staff, she often created artificial deadlines to ensure everything got in well before the real deadlines.

But that wasn't a problem, Sara said, because Craig Fugate had her back all the way.

"This was very important to him, so he made sure people knew to get these things done," Sara said. "That 'buy-in' of who's in charge is really important. I can't imagine what it would have been like if I hadn't had that."

How did she do? The Division received its reaccreditation, of course, and that December Sara was named Employee of the Month - in an agency that has more than 300 people on staff.

These days, she's busy helping Sen. Graham deal with the oil spill, all while working on two more degrees at GWU. It's a busy life, but she's enjoying it, and she credits her time with the Florida Fellows for helping her get here.

"The Fellowship really opened up doors, opportunities I never would have had otherwise," Sara said. "If public service is what you're interested in, it sets the stage for a lifetime career in public service."

Click here to view the previous featured alumni.