Editor’s note: Day reporters followed two state representatives for a day each to see what it’s like to work a full-time job while the legislature is in session.

East Lyme ― Holly Cheeseman was in the narrow, haphazard attic office of the Niantic Children’s Museum on a Tuesday morning around 10 o’clock signing checks as the organization’s executive director.

“I like to say running a nonprofit does not mean losing money,” she said. “You have to make money to invest in your organization, in your people, in your mission. You don’t just give it to shareholders.”

A stop at the front desk to drop off paperwork put her on the ground floor of one of the region’s most popular destinations for young children. Kids at knee level ran by the A-Mazing Airways exhibit, where they could stuff scarves into the transparent maze of pneumatic tubes to watch air at work. She said the $32,000 exhibit was part of a $100,000 grant from offshore wind development partners Ørsted and Eversource Energy secured by one of the museum’s board members.

Less than two hours later, having commuted to Hartford in a red SUV with East Lyme Vikings and Salem Cougars stickers affixed to the back, she was sitting in a meeting room of the Legislative Office Building behind a “Rep. Cheeseman 37” nameplate.

The 37th District comprises all of East Lyme and parts of Salem and Montville after last year’s redistricting. Cheeseman, 68, previously represented East Lyme and Salem in their entirety.

The four-term state representative had greeted Eversource executive Peg Morton and others before settling into her seat for the informational forum on energy distribution and regulation in front of the Energy and Technology Committee.

Cheeseman was among about ten committee members who showed up in person, amounting to half of the listed membership. It was not readily apparent how many members chose to participate via Zoom using the remote framework in place since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

The four-hour presentation was adjourned after multiple regulatory agencies got the chance to speak, but before leaders of Eversource and United Illuminating took the microphone in what promised to be a tense line of questioning if concerns about pricing and customer service raised in lawmaker’s conversations with the regulators were any indication.

Cheeseman in her office after the meeting said her personal “default” is to physically attend every forum, committee meeting, public hearing and vote. She recalled sharing that philosophy as the mentor to first-year state Rep. Laura Dancho, R-Stratford, when the newcomer was struggling to follow livestreamed video of two public hearings at once from her office.

Cheeseman said she told Dancho to pick a committee room and go there. Then she could go to the other.

“You’re a freshman,” she recalled telling the representative. “You’re not going to form relationships sitting in your office looking at your computer screen. You need to be there in the committee room. You need to get to know your fellow committee members on both sides. You need to interact. Being present is such a part of the experience that you just can’t get in a virtual environment.”

Flexibility is key

Back at the museum’s upper level office, Cheeseman said her long days balancing two jobs typically start at 5 o’clock in the morning with a cup of tea.

“It was all those years living in London,” she said, recalling more than a decade spent in the publishing industry across the pond. It’s where she met and married her husband, Ian Cheeseman, and where the first of two sons was born. The family moved to East Lyme in the late 1980s and went on to start a large corporate communications company.

A widow now with five grandchildren, Cheeseman is in her eighth year as museum director. She began her sixth year as a lawmaker in January, this time as an Assistant Republican Leader serving again as ranking member of the powerful Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee.

Before heading out each day, she walks the younger of her two Chesapeake Bay retrievers because the elder is no longer up to the two or three miles they typically cover. She reads digital editions of multiple newspapers and checks her email multiple times. She follows that first cup of tea with a mug of coffee. She eats a boiled egg.

“If I’m not in the legislature early, I’ll come here and then head to Hartford,” she said. “If I finish early, I will come back here.”

Cheeseman generally works a 32-hour week at the museum, though she said it may shake out closer to 20-30 hours per week while the legislature is in session. She goes into the museum on weekends and works from home as needed.

Cheeseman cited the short notice so typical in the legislature as one of the main sources of frustration. She pointed to the text message she’d gotten that morning alerting her to a meeting of Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee leadership the next day to go over the list of bills being considered for public hearings.

“So, flexibility,” she said.

The lawmaker credited the museum’s “incredibly understanding” Board of Trustees and her staff with giving her the time and the space to do both jobs.

The nonprofit organization was started in 1992 by a group of volunteers as the Children’s Museum of Southeastern Connecticut. Cheeseman was a board member before becoming interim executive director in 2015 and then earning the permanent position.

Board President John Burkhardt this week said Cheeseman “really turned the museum around” in terms of finances and available offerings by the time he joined the board five years ago.

The retired Pfizer executive cited some of the same skills that make her a good legislator as the ones that help her succeed at the museum.

“She lives in the community and has deep roots in the community, and knows lots of people,” he said. “She knows how to get things done – anything from repairs, to who we might get to volunteer, to a business that might donate something to the museum.”

The board has had to reschedule meetings when Cheeseman got called in at the last minute to the legislature, which he described as an accommodation members are willing to make.

“She doesn't punch a clock,” he said. “She’s held accountable for what she delivers. That flexibility is becoming more common in many job types, but that’s a feature here.”

Cheeseman recalled getting ready for the museum’s biggest annual fundraiser, the Be a Kid Again Gala, in 2017 on the eve of a bipartisan budget vote several contentious months in the making.

“I am in my party frock, 6 o’clock the night of the gala, and we have a giant tent set up across the street,” she said.

She recalled guests starting to arrive when the message “Where are you?” appeared in a text message from then-House Republican Leader Themis Klarides. So she jumped in her car and headed to Hartford for the vote.

The House ultimately approved the budget at 3 a.m., after lengthy debate.

Always learning

Cheeseman for the first time this year sits on the Commerce Committee after serving on the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee in previous terms. She talked about complex issues like how to lure employees to the region and to replicate success Eastern Connecticut has had with the Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative, which was established in 2016 by the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board to teach young or underemployed people the skills that employers are seeking.

She said good ideas should spread, whether from one region to another or state to state. It’s not always necessary to reinvent the wheel, according to the legislator.

It would be overwhelming for lawmakers if they thought they had to know every detail about every issue, according to Cheeseman.

“On the other hand, I can say without a doubt this is the most intellectually stimulating job I’ve ever had because it is so different all the time,” she said. “And if you are doing it appropriately, you are always learning, you are always paying attention, you’re always willing to entertain new ideas.”

e.regan@theday.com