11.22.24

IIDA Honors Legislative Staff with Inaugural Staff Appreciation Awards

This past year, IIDA’s NorCal and SoCal Advocacy teams spent extensive time with legislative staff who are an integral part of the policymaking process. For the first time in IIDA history, we presented an award to two legislative staffers who went above and beyond in their role and in doing so, had a meaningful impact on our organization’s advocacy efforts.

The recipients of the award were recognized for reasons including but not limited to their receptiveness to our issues, dedication to studying and understanding the nuance of the policy areas we seek to change, and responsiveness to our requests to meet.

Northern California was proud to honor Anna Billy at their Leader’s Breakfast in September. Anna Billy was formerly a Senior Policy Analyst for Senator Eggman of Senate District 5.

“From our first introduction in January 2024, Anna Billy stood out as extremely approachable and genuine in her interest in our issues. Her passion to dive deeper into the layered subject matter of our industry and the commercial interior design profession was admirable. She was also the first to offer her assistance with providing our draft policy proposals to the Legislative Counsel. This is important because in order to get bill language drafted you first need a member of the Legislature to request the draft from Legislative Counsel. This offer, and her follow-through with Legislative Counsel, were invaluable in our advocacy and resulted in our drafts becoming three distinct policy proposals.”

Southern California was proud to honor Julie Cravotto at their Leader’s Breakfast in November. Julie Cravotto is Chief of Staff to Assemblymember Addis of Assembly District 30.

“In our correspondence with Julie this year, she was always very professional and grasped our issue right from the beginning. She did not hesitate to lend her assistance with the Legislative Counsel when we reached out for additional help, even when her responsibilities were increasing due to her promotion as Chief of Staff. We greatly appreciate her diligence and willingness to engage with us on our policy priorities.”