Starting when she was a little girl Josephine Tucker essentially acted as a translator for her severely hearing-impaired mother, and she said that experience has served her well in a career that has spanned the globe.

Growing up in Michigan, Tucker, now a managing director at JLL Americas who leads its clean energy and infrastructure advisory practice, often acted as a go-between for her single mother and the outside world. Her mother Linda is deaf but can read lips.

“Growing up with my mom I had to learn how to explain things in a lot of different ways and simplify concepts and learn how to use analogies,” Tucker told CoStar News. “I can remember being at the doctor’s office or AT&T or with the electrical company, eight years old, having to ask questions about, why is the bill like this? Or what does this mean? Or when is the next appointment?”

It almost felt like being a teacher, according to Tucker.

“I loved it then and I think it set the foundation for what I do now,” she said. “I find that to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the job.”

In her role at JLL, Tucker and her team advise public and private industry clients about constructing, improving and updating infrastructure in ways that are both environmentally sound and financially sustainable. These days, much of the consulting pertains to rolling out electric vehicle charging.

In her position Tucker said she works with interdisciplinary teams that include everyone from engineers to finance experts, who “all speak different languages” but need to be able to communicate with each other. She said she's found she has the skills to get them all on the same page, and that her experience helping her mother also made her develop problem-solving abilities earlier than most, “and it’s made me a pretty savvy operator.”

She has had a passion for environmental science and renewable energy since her youth, and she's pursued it in the Great Lakes State and around the globe.

Tucker said her mother, one of five sisters, bucked the family norm by opting not to get married and to instead raise Josephine on her own. Tucker was the first one in her family to go to college, earning a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies at Western Michigan University. She said her mother ingrained in her the need to be independent and the importance of an education.

As an undergraduate, Tucker ran a biodiesel co-op with the help of a $9 million government grant.

"We were producing about a thousand gallons a week of biodiesel," she said. "At that young age I was negotiating ... It taught me that actually even though I was really passionate about the environmental science side of things, I didn’t know anything about financial sustainability. And so as the grant was running out I had to think about fuel costs and how I was going to make payroll, and that was kind of what got me interested in economics and finance.”

After graduating from college Tucker got an internship in India, where she worked on a hydropower dam project. She continued her globe-trotting by traveling to Australia, where she studied and received a master of economics from the University of Queensland. Tucker got a job with Deloitte and spent about nine years in Australia before returning to Michigan after her mother suffered a stroke.

During that time, when Tucker was helping her mom and taking a break from Deloitte, she used her life savings to start a yoga mat company. Tucker blogged about her experience and what she had learned.

The mats "did really well," but the business "wasn't scaled enough for me to really survive," Tucker said.

After her mother made a full recovery from the stroke, Tucker went back to work for Deloitte, this time in Washington as national economic and financial advisory leader for the firm's Infrastructure and Capital Projects practice. Last year, JLL hired her in Washington as a managing director and global head of sustainable infrastructure.

“From negotiating institutional public-private partnerships to assessing credit risk of clean energy innovators, Josephine’s background as a strategic problem-solver makes her a trusted adviser for clients navigating complex funding structures,” Chris Roth, chief operating officer of JLL government and education, said at the time.

As she did with helping her mom navigate new challenges, Tucker is adapting to trends in her own industry, especially those pertaining to client demands.

The availability of charging stations for electric vehicles, or EVs, is the No. 1 issue corporate occupiers take into consideration in their upcoming lease renewals, according to a JLL survey this year.

“It’s a totally new landscape, and I think that’s probably why it’s top of mind,” Tucker said.

She oversees a team of over 40 people working on numerous clean energy and EV projects at the federal, state and local levels as well as commercial clients. They have advised on more than 180 megawatts of clean energy, according to Tucker.

She has been personally involved in projects with the Georgia Department of Transportation on the roll-out of EV chargers across the Peach State; Texas University on a 64-megawatt solar project; the Port of San Diego on a heavy-duty vehicle EV charging project; and Prince George's County, Maryland, public schools on their school-bus fleet electrification initiative.

Tucker said she hopes her life experience will encourage others, particularly young women who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, to aim high and to be willing to get out of their comfort zones.

“I’m the first person in my family to go to college," she said. "I was the first person to leave the country. It’s a tremendous opportunity and I feel so grateful for the position that I’m in.”