ABOUT US

A Wisconsin native, Maggie Thompson is the executive director of Generation Progress. Previously, she was the campaign manager for the Higher Ed Not Debt campaign, a nationwide multiyear effort working to ensure that a quality higher education is affordable and accessible to all without the burden of financial hardship.

Prior to joining Generation Progress, Maggie was a founding member of Brass Tactics, a grassroots advocacy firm that engaged on key progressive priorities including bringing nontraditional voices to the climate-change fight, implementing the Affordable Care Act in states, and organizing for gun-violence-prevention legislation. She was also a state outreach director at the Common Purpose Project, helping to oversee numerous issue campaigns across the Midwest, including “The Action,” the successful campaign to avert the fiscal cliff by ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Maggie served in the Obama administration at the White House Council on Environmental Quality as well as in the Office of the Director at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. During her time in both offices, she not only worked on administration policy but also assisted in designing public engagement strategies to introduce administration priorities.

Maggie has also worked as a trainer with Wellstone Action since 2005, when she assisted in the development of the first Campus Camp Wellstone program. She worked for then-Sen. Barack Obama starting in 2007 during the Nevada primaries and became a regional field director in the 2008 Obama for America campaign in Saint Paul. She has also worked on races ranging in size from county commissioner to statehouse to mayoral. Prior to her work in politics, Maggie worked as a field archaeologist in central Greece and Germany. She graduated with a degree in economics and classical archaeology from Macalester College.