Carol Obando-Derstine

A Community Leader 

Carol Obando-Derstine is an engineer, advocate, educator, and bilingual leader dedicated to serving her community. At only three years old, her family immigrated from Colombia to build a better life in the United States. Starting over meant living in a one bathroom house with about a dozen family members, as her parents worked as a factory machine operator and a hospital technician to help them get ahead and build a better life.  

In high school, she worked multiple jobs and volunteered as a hospital candy striper, but despite her busy schedule, Obando-Derstine graduated near the top of her class. She went on to college and received a master’s degree from Pennsylvania State University. 

Obando-Derstine has dedicated her career to helping people help themselves and reach the American dream, as her family was able to. She worked in a Head Start program, oversaw a food pantry, an after-school program, and later, she became the executive director of two prominent non-profits – SkillsUSA Council, which focuses on career and technical students, and the Children’s Coalition of the Lehigh Valley. Obando-Derstine also worked as Regional Manager and Statewide Latino Affairs Advisor for Sen. Bob Casey and served on Gov. Wolf’s Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs. She is a longtime volunteer of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce and taught at Northampton Community College. 

At age 43, Obando-Derstine went back to school to earn a master’s degree in energy engineering from Lehigh University. She worked to connect renewable energy to the grid, and also helped lower costs for seniors and working families with PPL Electric Utilities for nine years.

Impactful Change for Pennsylvanians

Obando-Derstine is a community leader who is ready to fight for real economic change in Pennsylvania. She is committed to building an economy where working families like the one she grew up in can afford housing, groceries and utilities, and have a pathway to real prosperity. Obando-Derstine will work to support small businesses, technical training, and incentivize good-paying manufacturing jobs. She is running to stand up to Republican extremists and Donald Trump, who will stop at nothing to rip away health care from millions of Americans and take food off families’ tables to give trillions in tax cuts to their billionaire donors. Obando-Derstine is committed to helping every Pennsylvanian live the American Dream by helping families living on the economic edge not just get by, but to thrive. She will fight to protect our reproductive freedoms and our right to choose. 

Take Back PA-07

Carol Obando-Derstine is running to defeat Republican extremist Rep. Ryan Mackenzie. In 2024, Mackenzie narrowly defeated EMILYs List-endorsed Susan Wild in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District by just one percentage point. Obando-Derstine is committed to standing against Trump and his billionaire cronies and extremists in the U.S. House working to strip America’s working families of health care and other basic needs. She is the candidate to get the job done for Pennsylvanians and EMILYs List is proud to support this critical flip opportunity.