Before being elected to the Longmont City Council in November, 2017, Marcia was a volunteer activist for environmental and civil rights causes.

Prior to her retirement in 2014, Marcia was a software engineer; an inventor and designer of products in the fields of storage management and electrical distribution systems. She holds 20+ patents, in subjects that include cyber-security for the electric distribution grid, load balancing, and on-grid communications and discovery. These are technologies which enable the smart grid and the faster introduction of distributed generation via renewable energy.