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| Bill Vandenberg,
Co-Executive Director |
Email:
cpc@progressivecoalition.org |
Bill is a co-founder of CPC and has been at the coalition since its founding in 1996. He is an accomplished political organizer with 16 years of Colorado experience, including legislative lobbying, ballot initiative and issue campaign direction, and multiracial organization building work. Bill works with CPC leaders to develop strategic issue campaigns to advance racial, economic, health, and environmental justice and to expand our resources to build a progressive future for Colorado. A Maine native and Boston College graduate, Bill serves as Co-Chair for Colorado Unity, the state affirmative action coalition; Board Chair for Rights for All People/ Derechos Para Todos; and on the Steering Committee for the Denver Foundation’s Non-Profit Inclusiveness Project. He is also a 2007-8 Fellow in the national Rockwood Leadership Program and a diehard Boston Red Sox fan. |
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| Open, Co-Executive Director |
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| Clark Bouton, Health Care Organizer |
| Email: cbouton@viawest.net |
Clark and his wife, Denny McGihon, became CPC members in 1999 and have become some of CPC’s most dedicated volunteers along with their daughter, Anne McGihon, Chair of the Colorado House of Representatives Health & Human Services Committee. Clark is a retired professor from the University of Colorado, San Jose State University (where he taught John Carlos, the sprinter who gave the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics), and the University of the District of Columbia and is now a full-time volunteer organizing people and communities to become involved in statewide efforts to achieve health care for all. |
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| Leah Bry, Lead Health Justice Organizer |
| Email: leah@progressivecoalition.org |
Leah joined CPC in 2007 and leads our statewide health activist base building and leader development efforts. A Colorado native, documentarian, and budding triathlete, Leah graduated from Grinnell College with a degree in Anthropology and Studio Art and was a leader in Grinnell College Students Against Sweatshops. Prior to joining CPC’s staff she worked at SEIU Local 105 as a Lead Internal Organizer representing over 1,000 building service workers in the Denver Metro Area. |
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| Francoise Mbabazi,
Health Care Organizing Program Director |
| Email: francoise@progressivecoalition.org |
Francoise joined CPC in 2004 following receiving her Master’s Degree at Arizona State University (her Bachelor’s degree is from the American University in Nairobi, Kenya). A native of Uganda of Rwandan descent, Francoise has a wide range of community organizing and direct service activities including working with children suffering from HIV/ AIDS and refugee women through Catholic Charities. Francoise directs CPC’s health care organizing and policy campaigns and leads on our health disparities and organizing to build a statewide base of activists united for health care for all. |
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| Dennis Roe,
Senior Health Care Organizer |
Email: dliberal@progressivecoalition.org |
Dennis is a retired mine worker and pressman, a grandfather of 16, and the first health care organizer hired on to CPC’s staff in 2000. Dennis is a recognized community leader in health care organizing and is considered the leading people’s advocate for affordable prescription drugs in the state, facilitating more than 40 prescription drug affordability forums at community and senior centers throughout Colorado. Dennis is a long-time labor and economic justice activist and former leader in the Denver County Democrats. |
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| Gail Gonzales,
Bookkeeper/ G2 Services |
Gail joined CPC in 2004 and provides accounting support and financial management services. A mom of four, Gail comes from a nationally prominent activist family – the late Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, founder of the Crusade for Justice, the nation’s leading Chicano political movement, is her father – and has been an activist in Denver throughout her life and is a strong advocate for CPC and progressive change. |
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| Miriam Pena, Development Director |
| Email: miriam@progressivecoalition.org |
Miriam joined CPC in 2005 and directs our grassroots fundraising efforts. A 2007 graduate of the University of Denver, she majored in Public Policy and Communication. Miriam was born in Cd. Juarez, Mexico, coming to the U.S. when she was 6 months old. A graduate of Denver’s West H.S., Miriam has been a part of immigrant justice efforts, including CPC’s language disparities work where she focused on mono-lingual Spanish speaking immigrant communities. She is also a Board Member for New Era Colorado, a young voter program, as well as Metro Denver Partners, a youth at risk mentoring agency. |
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| Cheyenne Hughes,
Racial Justice Organizer |
| Email: cheyenne@progressivecoalition.org |
Cheyenne joined CPC as a high school junior in 2002. A 2004 graduate of Denver’s East H.S. and student at Arapahoe Community College, Cheyenne has conducted health disparity outreach in the African-American community and was a statewide coordinator for CPC’s massive 2004 GOTV program. A leader on our 2005 campaign against a $600 million jail, Cheyenne appeared on Dateline NBC spotlighting racial profiling. He is currently building a youth and community base to take on overrepresentation of youth of color in the juvenile justice system and was named USAction’s 2007 National Grassroots Activist Honoree of the Year. |
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| Faatma Mehrmanesh, Racial Profiling and Police Discrimination Hotline Coordinator |
| Email: RPHotline@progressivecoalition.org |
Faatma, born in Iran, has been a Colorado resident for almost her entire life. She has spent the better part of her life rallying in support of and organizing for social justice, including work with the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training, Students 4 Justice, and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance. A community activist, mother of three, and small business owner, Faatma is excited to re-launch the Colorado Racial Profiling and Police Discrimination Hotline, following-up on a CPC initiated civil rights law passed in 2001 with support from now State Senate President Peter Groff. |
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| Margaret Montano,
Southern Colorado Director (Pueblo) |
Email:
margaret@progressivecoalition.org |
Margaret joined CPC in 2004 and directs our Southern Colorado regional program, based in Pueblo. She has raised five children and long been active community efforts in Denver and Pueblo, including organizing community gardens with Denver Urban Gardens, developing youth programs and the business center at Mi Casa Resource Center for Women, and volunteering with the Community Alliance for Ethics, a Pueblo educational justice organization. She is leading several dynamic environmental justice campaigns and building a strong, community led civic engagement program in Pueblo. |
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| Angie Diaz, Northern Colorado Community Organizer |
| Email: diazas@hotmail.com |
Angie joined CPC in January, 2008. As the Northern Colorado Community Organizer, she works on civic engagement and the Racial Profiling and Police Discrimination Hotline. She is a Greeley native, graduate of Greeley Central High School, and received her Social Science degree with a minor in Mexican American Studies from the University of Northern Colorado. Angie became an activist during college and continues to fight for social justice. She also works with the Upward Bound Math/Science program at UNC, a pre-collegiate program that motivates low-income and first generation students to graduate high school and enroll into college. |
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| Lindsey Hodel, State Field Director |
| Email: lindsey@progressivecoalition.org |
Lindsey joined CPC in 2006 and directs our field and chapter building efforts, particularly in Northern Colorado. An experienced grassroots organizer for environmental and social justice and gay and lesbian rights, Lindsey is a graduate of Green Corps' Field School for Environmental Organizing, a year-long fellowship program for advocacy and organizing leaders. She has worked as New Hampshire State Director for Toxics Action Center and on the Sierra Club’s staff in the San Francisco Bay area. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Lindsey also coordinates Colorado Voice, the state’s non-profit civic engagement roundtable. |
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| Nicole Hurt, Northern Colorado Community Organizer |
| Email: nhurtcpc@gmail.com |
Nicole is a Greeley native who returned to Colorado in 2005 after living for 11 years in Ohio, Michigan, and Washington, DC. An Oberlin College graduate (1998) with majors in African-American Studies and Women's Studies, Nicole joined CPC in 2007 following our first Greeley Chapter Meeting. Nicole brings 13 years of experience working for progressive social change, especially on racial and economic justice and LGBTQ rights issues. For CPC's Northern Colorado regional program, she brings a passion for - and great experience in - coalition-based work to connect issues and communities. |
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| Claudia Ahwireng, Economic Justice Organizer |
| Email: claudia@progressivecoalition.org |
Claudia was raised in Silver Spring, MD and received her B.A in Sociology and History from the University of Maryland in 2006. Claudia has always possessed a passion for promoting equality and civic participation. During college, she served as a field director for Eric Olson's Campaign for County Council. In this capacity, Claudia helped raise awareness in the community about the need for socially responsible public officials. Likewise, Claudia participated in the Center for Progressive Leadership's New Leaders Program in the summer of 2006. Claudia is now working as part of the CPC's Campaign for Economic Justice. |
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| Corey Baker, Economic Justice Organizer |
| Email: cpc@progressivecoalition.org |
Corey recently joined CPC's Campaign for Economic Justice as part of a national fellowship program with Young People For. He comes from the east coast; a childhood in Brooklyn, NY and an education in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. He's been doing work in the progressive movement since high school when he helped educate students about poverty with The City School. Since then, he has taken his organizing to the classroom as an elementary teacher and to the internet as an online organizer. His goal is to be a part of empowering communities with information, access, and pride. |
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| Jessie Ulibarri,
Campaign for Economic Justice Director |
Email: jessie@progressivecoalition.org |
Jessie joined CPC in 2007 and directs our Economic Justice Campaign. A Colorado native with extensive experience in grassroots organizing, Jessie was the Director of Legislative Affairs for the University of Colorado Student Union where he developed a campaign to defeat a $200 million proposed budget cut to higher education forced by Colorado’s TABOR law. Prior to joining CPC, he worked in the office of Congressman Luis Gutierrez, assisting in the preparation of economic justice legislation around predatory lending, remittances, comprehensive immigration reform, and the President’s budget cuts. |
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| Jane Feustel, Community Organizer/ Colorado Progressive Action |
| Email: jane@coprogressiveaction.org |
Jane joined Colorado Progressive Coalition in September, 2006 as a one of the lead GOTV organizers on the successful minimum wage increase campaign and coordinator of the Women’s Voices, Women’s Vote project. In that role, she conducted door-to-door outreach to women in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color throughout Aurora, Colorado. Since the 2006 election, Jane now works with Colorado Progressive Action, the lobbying arm of CPC. Born in Madison, Wisconsin and raised in Lakewood, Colorado, Jane is a graduate of Oberlin College with a degree in Comparative American Studies. |
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| James Johnson, Civic Engagement Program Director |
| Email: james@progressivecoalition.org |
James joined CPC’s staff in 2007 following a three year stint representing SEIU Local 105 on our Board. James is directing the building of CPC’s massive statewide civic engagement effort. Raised in Fort Knox, Kentucky, James was a long-time resident of Vail, Colorado, where he served as an Eagle County Commissioner. A Board Member for the Latin American Research and Service Agency (LARASA), James is active in efforts to unite the African-American community to support immigrant justice efforts. James is also the former Political Director for SEIU Local 105. |
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| Shannon Masden, Civic Engagement Intern |
| Email: smasden@du.edu |
Shannon joined CPC in September 2007 as part of her Social Work graduate program at the University of Denver. In addition to her work with the Civic Engagement team, she is also working at DU’s Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning doing community organizing with youth at Bruce Randolph High School and adults in the Denver Housing Authority site in the Quigg Newton neighborhood. She is an active member in the Graduate School of Social Work’s Multicultural Social Justice organization and the Queer Equality Alliance. Prior to moving to Denver for graduate school, Shannon lived in Chicago where she worked with victims and survivors of domestic violence as a counselor and legal advocate. |
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| Nisar Nikzad,
Technology Director |
| Email: webmaster@progressivecoalition.org |
Nisar joined CPC in 2003 and directs the organization’s technology support, web development, database management, and internet fundraising efforts. Currently a student at the University of Colorado at Denver where he is studying to become a human rights physician, Nisar is a native of Kabul, Afghanistan, who moved to Denver in 2001. |
