Zoom Get-Togethers, Dinners with Mayor Pete and a New Grandkid: How Jennifer Granholm Is Adjusting to D.C.

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Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm

As if decamping from California to Washington, D.C., amid a pandemic weren't change enough, Jennifer Granholm also had to get acclimated to her new role as secretary of the Department of Energy - and adjust to her new roommates, her daughter and son-in-law, with whom she and her husband now live in a brownstone three miles from work.

"I have very little downtime," Granholm, 62, admits in an interview with PEOPLE, adding that she makes an effort to carve out time for her family, her friends and herself.

An avid runner, Granholm also uses a D.C. bike-share service to make the trek to her office every weekday morning, occasionally running into another Cabinet secretary, Pete Buttigieg, who also bikes to work.

Granholm adds that she and her husband have connected with Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, for dinner occasionally too.

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"It's a new friends environment," she says of Washington (a city not necessarily noted for its enduring collegiality). "It's been really enjoyable to be able to have dinners with people that you respect and that you work with."

Granholm says that most of her time spent outside the office and away from her colleagues is spent with family - particularly her 1-month-old grandchild.

Her daughter gave birth in May. "No better Mother's Day gift for me than my first grandchild," Granholm tweeted in celebration.

Granholm gets plenty of time as a new grandmother while at home: She and husband Daniel Mulhern live in the basement of her daughter and son-in-law's brownstone.

"It's totally great. I love them and it's great support for them, as well," Granholm says. "My husband teaches virtually" - he, like their daughter and son-in-law, is a teacher - "so he's able to be more hands-on with the baby. It's really a privilege for us."

Balancing the personal with the professional is important to Granholm, who has a core group of female friends who know firsthand the demands of working in government.

Among them are some familiar names: former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (who also served as secretary of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama); former Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire; former Kansas Gov. and secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius; and former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp who served as attorney general of her state around the same time Granholm was attorney general of Michigan.

"We're all very close friends," Granholm says, adding that, prior to the spread of COVID-19, "twice a year, we would gather at one of our respective places and have a beverage and maybe have a sleepover because it's important to connect with people who are going through what you have gone through."

During the pandemic, the group still gets together, albeit remotely.

"We have a Zoom cocktail party every other month," she says.

Department of Energy Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm (center)

Department of Energy Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm (center)

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Getty Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm at a nomination hearing in January

The personal supports the professional in another way: Building strong relationships with women has been an integral part not just of Granholm's career but a primary focus in her new role, as she works to attract more women to STEM fields.

As she tours laboratories across the country, Granholm says seeing women of all ages who work as leaders in the sciences is "utterly inspiring."

"There are some women who have been at the front lines of science and innovation with gray hair, maybe even in their 70s, who have been quietly working behind the scenes," she says. "It is awe-inspiring. They were really the lone rangers at a time where there weren't very many women in their field."

Drawing more diversity to the field - both in gender and in ethnicity - is crucial, she says. Otherwise it leaves America with less innovation and a lot of untapped potential.

"The STEM workforce is heavily white and it's heavily male. Black and Hispanic Americans hold just eight or 9 percent of all STEM jobs respectively. And women only make up 15 percent of the nations' engineers and architects," she says. "Because of that, it could and has created blind spots around research and development."

Department of Energy Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm (center, left) with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin

From a policy perspective, Granholm says, her agency is working to invest in historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions to "expand the STEM pipeline for the next generation of scientists and researchers to go into our 17 national labs at the Department of Energy."

The next national lab is climate-related and will be located at an HBCU, should President Joe Biden's American Jobs Plan pass Congress.

As for her own career (she was the first woman to serve as Michigan's governor and second to head up the DOE, following Hazel O'Leary in the Clinton administration), Granholm says she has no doubt that seeing many more women leaders will one day become the norm.

"Ultimately, we want to get to a place where breaking a glass ceiling means that somebody threw a rock through your sunroof. It should be boring that we have women in all these positions," she says. "And I'm so glad that this administration is making it the norm, so that the next generation doesn't have to worry about that. They can just do their work, and change the world."

Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm (right) addresses reporters on April 8 at the White House.

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Until then, Granholm will continue working to increase access to traditionally white- and male-dominated fields - and heed the advice of women like the late Texas Gov. Anne Richards, who once visited Granholm during her time in office in Michigan.

"There just weren't a whole lot of women like her," Granholm says. "She had this hair that was perfectly coiffed and her pearls on and she was saying, 'Oh honey, when those boys give you the blues, you just sit up and smile and give 'em the finger.' "