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Kathy Hannun
Kathy Hannun
01:04

Kathy Hannun

Dandelion Geothermal

Mount Kisco, NY USA

"Maybe you’ll feel like you have no idea how to do that or what to do, but that’s kind of normal. If you can just hold your breath and take the leap, you’ll figure it out."

Career Roadmap

Kathy's work combines: Engineering, Entrepreneurship, and Working with Others

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Day In The Life

Co-Founder & President

I run engineering, product, and research and development for a home geothermal company.

My Day to Day

You can find me interviewing candidates for roles we'd like to hire for, meeting with engineers and product managers to understand the status of projects or weigh in on decisions, meeting with the management team to address the top issues of the day, and meeting with external experts, industry stakeholders, manufacturers, or suppliers. I also do a fair amount of advocacy and public engagement about geothermal and heat pumps more broadly by speaking to reporters or appearing on podcasts.

Skills & Education

Here's the path I took:

  • High School

  • Bachelor's Degree

    Civil Engineering

    Stanford University

  • Graduate Degree

    Computer Science

    Stanford University

Life & Career Milestones

My path in life has been direct

  • 1.

    When I was in college, I knew that I ultimately wanted to work in either energy or water.

  • 2.

    I earned my bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in computer science, but I wasn’t really sure how to translate those interests into a clear career path.

  • 3.

    I ended up joining Google in a customer support role—Google seemed like a good company to gain work experience and learn from smart people.

  • 4.

    I spent seven years working at Google and was able to work my way up to a product manager position, through which I finally got to work on energy.

  • 5.

    After gaining experience, I decided that I wanted to start my own company—I conceptualized Dandelion while working at Google.

  • 6.

    The northeast of the country stood out as the place where we could have the most impact, so we moved to New York and started Dandelion Geothermal.