We are from red states and blue; we are both youthful and seasoned; and we represent the rich diversity of America’s immigrants, recent and from decades past, as well as its native population. Together, we work with vigor and vision to end poverty and exclusion in America.
Organizing Team Electoral Team Executive Office Public Policy Team Communications Team Institutional Advancement Team Operations TeamOrganizing Team
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Michael Anderson
Michael Anderson | Director, Housing Trust Fund Project
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“Concentrate not on the eradication of evil, but the cultivation of good. Evil is not driven out, but crowded out” — Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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Sulma Arias
Sulma Arias | Immigration Field Director
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“I realized that they could take everything from me except my mind and my heart. Those things I still had control over, and I decided not to give them away!” – Nelson Mandela
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Drew Astolfi
Drew Astolfi | Senior Organizer
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Salvador Cervantes
Salvador Cervantes | FIRM Regional Organizer
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“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker
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Alma Couverthie
Alma Couverthie | Deputy Field Director of Immigration
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“Seamos realistas y hagamos lo imposible” -Ernesto Ché Guevara
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Katy Heins
Katy Heins | Senior Field Organizer
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“Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” –St. Augustine
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Cesar Hernandez
Cesar Hernandez | Senior Organizer
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“The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity.” ― Marcus Garvey
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Wendoly Marte
Wendoly Marte | Senior Field Campaign Manager
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“If we have learned anything in life is that the primary factor in everything is the human being, as well as his or her quality and spirit. Those who have faith and hope in the possibilities of humankind are those who will push it forward” – José María Arizmendiarrieta
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Kica Matos
Kica Matos | Director of Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice
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Charlene Sinclair
Charlene Sinclair | Director for Reinvestment
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Mayron Payes
Mayron Payes | Senior Organizer
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“The rose blinds the sharpshooting champions.” – Roque Dalton
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Deirdra Reed
Deirdra Reed | Senior Organizer
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“My philosophy is such that I am not going to vote against the oppressed. I have been oppressed, and so I am always going to have a vote for the oppressed, regardless of whether that oppressed is black or white or yellow or the people of the Middle East, or what. I have that feeling.” – Septima Clark
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Evonne Tisdale
Evonne Tisdale | Senior Field Organizer
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Aida Cuadradro
Aida Cuadradro | Field Organizer
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“Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.” Isaiah 10 -
Byron Hobbs
Byron Hobbs | Field Organizer
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“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today” – Malcolm X
- Isaias Guerrero
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Elsa Barboza
Elsa Barboza | Senior Field Organizer
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Ben Hanna
Ben Hanna | National Political Field Director
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“When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.” -Nelson Mandela
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Rommel Sandino
Rommel Sandino | Northeast Regional Organizer
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“Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.” –
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Chris Genese
Chris Genese | Senior Organizer, Housing Trust Fund
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“Life is beautiful. Life is a struggle. Life is a beautiful struggle.”
Electoral Team
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Grecia Lima
Grecia Lima | Political Director
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“Baila, baila Zarite por que esclavo es libre…mientras baila. Yo eh bailado siempre.” – La Isla Bajo el Mar, Isabel Allende
Translation: “Dance, dance Zarite because slave that dances is free…while dancing.. I have always danced.” – The Island under the Sea, Isabel Allende
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Dorian Lockett
Dorian Lockett | Deputy National Political Director
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“Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of people; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion.”
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Erika Grohoski Peralta
Erika Grohoski Peralta | Electoral Organizer
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Mike Griffin
Mike Griffin | Electoral Organizer
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Gilbert Nuñez
Gilbert Nuñez | Electoral Data Manager
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“The great social justice changes in our country have happened when people came together, organized, and took direct action. It is this right that sustains and nurtures our democracy today. The civil rights movement, the labor movement, the women’s movement, and the equality movement for our LGBT brothers and sisters are all manifestations of these rights.” –Dolores Huerta
Executive Office
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Deepak Bhargava
Deepak Bhargava | President
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“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.” – Frederick Douglass
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Dorian Warren
Dorian Warren | Vice President
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“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” – James Baldwin
Read Dorian full biography here.
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Emily Andrews
Emily Andrews | Director of Project Management
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“Freedom is never given; it is won.” – A. Philip Randolph
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Seth Borgos
Seth Borgos | Director of Research and Program Development
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“Without contraries there is no progress.” – William Blake
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Susan Wefald
Susan Wefald | Economic Justice Program Director
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we have chosen each otherand the edge of each other’s battlesthe war is the sameif we losesomeday women’s blood will congealupon a dead planetif we winthere is no telling.Audre Lorde -
Lilia Cherchari
Lilia Cherchari | Executive Coordinator
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“A government or a party gets the people it deserves, and sooner or later a people gets the government it deserves.” – Frantz Fanon
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Emily Fischer
Emily Fischer | Senior Project Manager
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“The cords of bigotry and prejudice here can be cut with the same blade. We have to keep that blade sharp and share it with one another.” –Malcolm X
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Kyle Grassi
Kyle Grassi | Senior Project Manager
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“Ignorance allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” – James Baldwin
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Terican Gross
Terican Gross | Executive Coordinator
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“Read my letter to the old folks, and give my love to them, and tell my brothers to be always watching unto prayer, and when the good old ship of Zion comes along, to be ready to step aboard.” – Harriet Tubman
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Mary Lassen
Mary Lassen | Managing Director
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“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” – Albert Einstein
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Julia Foster
Julia Foster | Director of Organizational Planning & Management
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“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,/Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
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Deepak Pateriya
Deepak Pateriya | Chief of Staff
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“Only people with hope will struggle. If people are in trouble, if people are suffering and exploited and want to get out from under the heel of oppression, if they have hope that it can be done, if they can see a path that leads to a solution, a path that makes sense to them and is consistent with their beliefs and their experience, then they’ll move. But it must be a path that they’ve started clearing. They’ve got to know the direction in which they are going and have a general idea of the kind of society they’d like to have.” – Myles Horton (from The Long Haul)
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Trish Tchume
Trish Tchume | Leadership Program Director
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“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” – Angela Davis
Public Policy Team
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Allegra Baider
Allegra Baider | Deputy Director of Public Policy
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“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” – Jane Addams
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Kate Kahan
Kate Kahan | Legislative Director
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“If we want a beloved community, we must stand for justice, have recognition for difference without attaching difference to privilege.” – Bell Hooks
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Rita Medina
Rita Medina | Senior Legislative Associate
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“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Chirag Mehta
Chirag Mehta | Senior Policy Advisor
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“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell
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Jaimie Worker
Jaimie Worker | Policy Analyst
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“Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven’t done a thing. You are just talking.” – Wangari Maathai
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Steve Savner
Steve Savner | Director of Public Policy
Communications Team
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Marisol Bello
Marisol Bello | Director of Content Strategy and Development
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“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela
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Anh Kim Hoang
Anh Kim Hoang | Senior Software Developer
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“If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Jasmine Nazarett
Jasmine Nazarett | Senior Media Specialist
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“We must use our lives to make the world a better place to live, not just to acquire things. That is what we are put on the earth for.” -Dolores Huerta
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Jeff Parcher
Jeff Parcher | Director of Communications
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“It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task.” – Robert Kennedy
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Cristina Rayas
Cristina Rayas | Content Creator
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“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” – Wendell Berry -
Nancy Trevino
Nancy Trevino | Digital Campaigns Manager, Immigration
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“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beautiy to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try to understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.” – Arundhati Roy
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Marcella Vitulli
Marcella Vitulli | Director of Digital Strategy
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“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman
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Tarah Walsh
Tarah Walsh | Campaign Project Manager
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“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.” — Emily Dickinson
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Devontae Torriente
Devontae Torriente | Digital Campaigns Associate
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“We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.” – Bayard Rustin
Institutional Advancement Team
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Beth Rayfield
Beth Rayfield | Director of Institutional Advancement
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We must change the world, we must change ourselves, and we must change ourselves in order to change the world.
–Kenneth Kraft, The Wheel of Engaged Buddhism
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Katherine Ollenburger
Katherine Ollenburger | Director of Brand Strategy and Chief Writer
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“You can’t write poems about trees when the woods are full of policemen.” – Bertolt Brecht
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Susan Rightsell
Susan Rightsell | Deputy Director of Institutional Advancement
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“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”― Martin Luther King Jr.
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Sandy Elkhoury
Sandy Elkhoury | Senior Development Strategist
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“Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.”
14th Dalai Lama
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Janice Wielinski
Janice Wielinski | Donor Database Manager
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“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile” – Albert Einstein
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Ghazala Salam
Ghazala Salam | Major Gifts Manager
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“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” Frederick Douglass
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Judy Woods
Judy Woods | Institutional Advancement Coordinator
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“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
Arthur Ashe
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Kristin Witting
Kristin Witting | Deputy Director of Development Strategy and Senior Writer
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Karla McLean
Karla McLean | Donor Communications and Marketing Manager
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“I come as one but stand as ten thousand.”– Maya Angelou, To Our Grandmothers
Operations Team
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Ryan Young
Ryan Young | Chief of Operations and Organizational Sustainability
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Stefan Perazich
Stefan Perazich | Project Manager: Contracts & Compliance
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Trevor Bass
Trevor Bass | Senior Accounting Manager
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“If there is no struggle there is no progress” – Frederick Douglass
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Marcia Glasgow
Marcia Glasgow | Facilities & Administrative Services Manager
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“I’m grateful for being here, for being able to think, for being able to see, for being able to taste, for appreciating love – for knowing that it exists in a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, and yet love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists.” ― Maya Angelou
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Amber Hobbs
Amber Hobbs | Senior Technology Support Manager
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“You are the somewhere you are trying to get to.” – Mooji
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Darnetta Hollis
Darnetta Hollis | Operations Coordinator
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“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” ― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
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Kathy Mor
Kathy Mor | Senior Events Manager
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The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” – Jane Addams
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Tony Nam
Tony Nam | Project Finance Manager
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“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening/that is translated through you into action,/ and because there is only one of you in all time,/this expression is unique./If you block it,/it will never exist through any other medium/and be lost./The world will not have it./It is not your business to determine how good it is;/nor how valuable it is;/nor how it compares with other expressions./It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly,/to keep the channel open.” – Martha Graham in a letter to Agnes DeMille
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Linda Nguyen
Linda Nguyen | Director of Talent Acquisition & Development
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“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action,
And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is,
Nor how it compares to other expressions.
It is simply your business to keep the channel open.” – Martha Graham -
Irma Rivera
Irma Rivera | Director of Campaign Compliance & Risk Management
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Petra Smith
Petra Smith | Director of Human Resources
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Clement Sinclair
Clement Sinclair | Administrative & Technology Support Specialist
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“Without commitment you will never start and without consistency you will never finish.” – Denzel Washington
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Nader Ghorban Zadeh
Nader Ghorban Zadeh | Talent and Organizational Sustainability Coordinator
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Victoria Ward
Victoria Ward | Director of Operations & Finance
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“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou