Jan 31- Feb 1, 2008
Denver, CO
The Faculty
SPEAKERS
Craig Aaron
Communications Director, Free Press
Craig Aaron is the communications director of Free Press, a national, nonpartisan organization working to involve the public in media policymaking and to craft policies for more democratic media. Based in Washington, he oversees the group’s Web site and print materials; writes press releases, op-eds and other articles; and works on a variety of issues related to media ownership, public broadcasting, journalism, cable TV and the future of the Internet. He has appeared as a commentator on ABC World News Tonight, the BBC and NPR, and his work has been cited in the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and numerous other national and local publications. Before joining Free Press, Craig was an investigative reporter for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, where he helped create and launch WhiteHouseForSale.org, a Web site that tracked major funders of the 2004 presidential campaign. He previously served as the managing editor of In These Times magazine and is the editor of Appeal to Reason: 25 Years In These Times (Seven Stories Press). Craig’s reporting, commentary and criticism also have appeared in Dissent, The Progressive, TomPaine.com, Alternet and Dollars & Sense. He has taught in the journalism department of Chicago’s Columbia College and is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Celia Alario
Media Trainer and Consultant
Celia is a communications strategist, facilitator, media skills trainer and affinity marketeer with more than 12 years experience supporting grassroots social justice organizations. Through her consulting practice she’s helped spin groundbreaking campaigns, provided one-on-one trainings for incoming Communications Directors, and placed hundreds of stories in prominent national and international media outlets.
Her work involves supporting the groups with the most leading edge demand sets and tactics, and she draws on experience as both as a grassroots organizer and a strategic campaigner to inform her communications consulting. Celia is dedicated to helping activists find their voice as movement spokespeople and to supporting journalists that recognize and elevate the expertise of these grassroots voices.
Celia also plays on the other side of the mic as a radio journalist, and currently produces public affairs content for her local community radio station, KZMU in Moab, UT. She co-produced and co-hosted Terra Verde and Flashpoints, two public affairs shows on Pacifica Radio’s KPFA in Berkeley, California for six years, and was a producer on Michael Moore’s Emmy-nominated television show The Awful Truth.
She currently serves on the Board of Directors of IVTS (Independent Television Service) and the Advisory Board for BEN (Business Ethics Network).
John Amos
Founding Director & Executive Director, SkyTruth
John is founder and President of SkyTruth, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to strengthening environmental conservation by illuminating environmental problems and issues through the use of satellite images, aerial photographs, and other kinds of remote sensing and digital mapping. John has 15 years of experience with remote sensing, emphasizing innovative and cost-effective applications for public- and private-sector clients. His expertise spans project design, image processing and image analysis, and training. He has performed image-based investigations of land-use status, environmental change and pollution assessment. John's recent work has focused attention on the effects of oil and gas drilling on landscapes and habitats throughout the Rocky Mountain West, revealed the extent of oil pollution in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and is helping SkyTruth’s conservation partners illustrate the impacts of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia. To learn more, read his interview in Grist.
Medea Benjamin
Code Pink
Medea Benjamin is a cofounder of both Code Pink and the international human rights organization Global Exchange. She has been a tireless advocate for social justice for more than 20 years. Described as "one of America’s most committed -- and most effective -- fighters for human rights" by New York Newsday, and called "one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement" by the Los Angeles Times, Medea has distinguished herself as an eloquent and energetic figure in the progressive movement. Here’s a recent article about Code Pink and Medea in the Washington Post.
Andy Bichlbaum
Yes Men!
The Yes Men are a group of people who gained worldwide notoriety for impersonating World Trade Organization and Dow Chemical Corporation spokesmen on TV and at business conferences around the world, and for doing the same to the Bush administration on the web and on the road.
This behavior--a subset of infiltration activism--they describe as Identity Correction. Unlike identity thieves, who target regular people with dishonest intent, Identity Correctors impersonate high-power criminals to clarify what they’re about, and to publicly humiliate them for conspiring against the public good.
Nadine Bloch
Organizing Director, Oil Change International
Once described by Mademoiselle Magazine as a “female James Bond,” Nadine Bloch has worked in the peace and environmental justice movements since 1980 as an organizer and coordinator of creative non-violent direct action campaigns, both locally and internationally, marine and land based. She is currently the Organizing Director at Oil Change International, were she works on exposing the true costs of our addiction to fossil fuels and overcoming the political barriers to a clean energy economy.
Her experience includes a myriad of innovative nonviolent actions and facilitating workshops in active non-violence skills, political performance/street theater, puppet and prop-construction,earned media, strategic campaign planning and more. With a degree in environmental studies and politics, and many years as a formal and informal educator, Nadine has worked with diverse organizations including The Ruckus Society, NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration), Greenpeace, N.O.W., Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, Conservation International, AFSC, Empowering Democracy, as well as with Bread & Puppet Theater.
Nadine has held US Coast Guard 100 Ton Near Coastal and 6 Passenger Ocean Vessel and EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) Licenses. Her work has been featured in MS Magazine (June/July 2001: Bringing down Big Money with Big Puppets) and on CNN/Time (Nov 21, 1999.)
She lives in the People’s Republic of Takoma Park with her daughter, giant puppets and a biodiesel processor.
Kathy Bonk
Co-Author, Strategic Communications for Nonprofits
Director, Communications Consortium Media Center
Kathy Bonk co-founded the Communications Consortium Media Center (CCMC) in 1988 and serves as its executive director. She is a co-author of the Jossey-Bass Guide to Strategic Communications for Nonprofits (1999), part of the Jossey-Bass Nonprofit and Public Management series.
In 1989, Kathy was awarded a Kellogg Foundation National Leadership Fellowship, which enabled her to work with nongovernmental organizations in Russia, the Ukraine and Eastern Europe. In 1977, she was a public information officer for the U.S. Department of State. In that capacity, she developed media policy recommendations for the International Women's Year Commission under Presidents Ford and Carter, the beginning of her international experience. Her government career also includes four years with the Justice Department in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division. From 1978 through 1987, Kathy directed the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund's Media Project.
Jen Caltrider
Executive Producer, ProgressNow.org
Award winning television producer Jen Caltrider brings journalistic instinct and know-how to ProgressNow.org, a Colorado, internet-based coalition. A network producer for CNN, specializing in technology journalism, Jen traveled the United States to cover the latest in high-tech happenings. With accurate investigative research and diligence, Jen entered the hidden world of computer hackers and provided viewers rare glimpses of these secretive people and their incredible skills. Her television background and work on a Masters Degree in Artificial Intelligence give her insight and understanding into a wide variety of technology trends and issues. Jen created and produced a two-time nationally award winning magazine program about Denver titled @altitude. Media and tech savvy, Ms. Caltrider has also produced interactive DVDs for international businesses.
Thom Clark
Co-Founder, Community Media Workshop
Thom Clark is co-founder and president of the Community Media Workshop. Since 1989 the non-profit Workshop has trained thousands of organizations in communications strategy and how to use media more effectively. The Workshop operates an extensive website for journalists and community activists www.newstips.org, and hosts the Midwest’s premiere Making Media Connections conference annually. It publishes a comprehensive media guide, Getting On The Air & Into Print: A Citizen’s Guide to Chicago-Area Media and a Newstips sheet for Chicago-area reporters, editors and producers.
Beach Codevilla
Senior Vice President, Spitfire Communications
Beach Codevilla brings over thirteen years of communications experience to Spitfire Strategies. In 2003, she merged her own firm with Spitfire, adding a Western office to the company. At Spitfire, she provides a variety of services for clients, including trainings, day-to-day technical assistance, strategic communications planning and media outreach. Her clients include private foundations such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the William Penn Foundation as well as nonprofits such as electionline.org, American Rivers and Medical Students for Choice.
Prior to starting her own firm, Beach ran the Colorado office of Fenton Communications and worked for clients, including the Outdoor Industry Foundation’s “Business for Wilderness” campaign, National Environmental Trust and the Shadow Conventions. Before joining Fenton, Beach was a vice president at Squier Knapp Dunn Communications where she was responsible for the media strategy and advertising production for Governor Evan Bayh’s successful 1998 US Senate bid. Among other clients, she produced media for the American Cancer Society, Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore and the Gore 2000 primary campaign.
Other political experience includes serving as the campaign manager for Denver Congresswoman Diana DeGette’s 2000 re-election campaign and three years working for Ridder/Braden, Inc., a Denver-based survey research and grassroots organizing firm. In 2002 and 2004, she was the “Election Night” associate producer in Colorado for CBS Evening News. Beach has a BA in English from Vanderbilt University and a Masters of Arts in Professional Communication from Clemson University.
Lark Corbeil
Founder, Public News Service
Lark Corbeil is founder and managing editor of Public News Service, an innovative model of state-based radio news services dedicated to amplifying public interest and progressive voices in mainstream media. PNS stories currently air in 21 states on over 4,000 broadcast outlets on a daily basis from Pacifica to Clear Channel Network, and increasingly on the Web. Lark also co-founded Media in the Public Interest (MPI) to assist journalists in reporting on progressive issues more effectively, and help non-profits interact more strategically with all media. In particular, helping to develop and use shared core or meta messages (since 1996), promoting the use of strategic, or “unlikely spokespeople,” and incubating innovative media projects such as OndaLatina, a Spanish language radio news service.
Ms. Corbeil grew up with one foot planted firmly in a small cabin in Idaho and another in Topanga, California. She has over 25 years of broadcast experience and has lived and studied in France, Israel, and Taiwan. Returning to her childhood roots in Idaho, she noticed the dearth of public interest perspective in the mainstream media and created the first news service in 1996 based on her experience with Visnews/Reuters TV in New York.
Michelle Dally
Co-Founder, Progressive Promotions
www.progressive-promotions.com
A Pulitzer-prize winning journalist with a law degree, Michelle is both a writer and a strategist. When she graduated from Georgetown Law School at the ripe old age of 21, Michelle first cut her teeth in the Nation’s capital, as a legislative aide for U.S. Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island. After a brief foray lobbying children’s mental health issues for Bradley Hospital, Michelle began her journalism career as a political columnist for Rhode Island Monthly. Upon moving to Colorado, Michelle’s journalism career took her from managing editor for 5280 magazine to staff writer for Westword to capitol bureau reporter for The Denver Post. Michelle left the Post in 2000, after sharing in a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Columbine. At that time she taught journalism full time at Metropolitan State College of Denver, and later was an adjunct journalism professor at the University of Denver. During this time she also freelanced for numerous publications including U.S. News and World Report, Health Magazine, and Mother Jones magazine. In May 2004, she and Jenny Davies-Schley launched Progressive Promotions, a communications firm dedicated to promoting liberal causes. Michelle has also authored a novel, A Highly Placed Source, which was published this fall by Ghost Road Press and is available at amazon.com and the Tattered Cover, among other stores. As one of the founders of the Downtown Animal Care Foundation, Michelle currently serves as the board's president. She is also a dedicated volunteer for the Denver Dumb Friends League and the Max Fund.
Valerie Denney
President, Valerie Denney Communications
Valerie Denney established Valerie Denney Communications (VDC) in 1989 to offer professional public relations services to organizations and individuals working for positive social change. Valerie works with government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector to develop communications strategies for complex issues such as the environment, affordable housing, community development, education, community finance, and solutions to poverty. Valerie's current work includes projects with The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the City of Chicago's Department of Planning and Development, The Chicago Community Trust, the Joyce Foundation, Metropolitan Planning Council, Chicago Public Schools, and Housing Illinois.
Valerie brings a broad experience base to her work at Valerie Denney Communications. Prior to establishing her firm, Valerie served in Mayor Harold Washington's press office, worked for U.S. Steel, served as a union representative and teacher, and participated in numerous electoral and community-based campaigns.
Valerie conducts media trainings for a wide variety of organizations including National Community Capital Association, National Legal Aid and Defenders Association, and the Chicago-based Community Media Workshop. Valerie has a Master's degree in English from Indiana University.
Lori Dorfman
Co-Author, News for a Change
Director, Berkeley Media Studies Group
Lori Dorfman earned her doctorate in 1994 from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, where she studied how television news frames health issues. Her recent research examines how local television news and newspapers portray youth and violence, and family violence.
Lori conducts training for grass roots organizations and public health leaders, consults for government agencies and community programs across the U.S. and internationally, publishes articles on public health and mass communication, and teaches a course for masters students on mass communication and public health at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health. She co-authored the major texts on media advocacy: Public Health and Media Advocacy: Power for Prevention and News for a Change: An Advocates' Guide to Working with the Media. She edited Reporting on Violence: A Handbook for Journalists, which encourages journalists to include a public health perspective in violence reporting. She is part of an interdisciplinary team that conducts workshops on violence reporting for newspapers and local TV news stations.
Rebecca Farmer
Communications Strategist, The SPIN Project
Rebecca Farmer is a Communications Strategist at The SPIN Project and has worked in communications at social justice & feminist non-profits for the past nine years. Prior to SPIN she was the Communications Officer at Breast Cancer Action, where she directed media relations efforts, was editor of the BCA Source and managed the wildly successful Think Before You Pink campaign. Rebecca also spent 5 years in Washington, DC, working as the Press Secretary at the National Organization for Women. Beginning that job at age 24, she was the youngest person in NOW's history to hold that position. She led NOW's media work through the 2000 election season and its aftermath, as well as the early stages of the 2004 season and the planning for the 2004 March for Women’s Lives.
Apollo Ganzales
Netroots Campaign Manager, Natural Resources Defense Council
Apollo Gonzales began designing corporate websites in the early 90's. As both an in-house designer, and a design company owner, he also gained a developer’s view of usability and interactivity. Later, with a degree in Communications from American University in Washington, DC, he chose to apply his skill set to help the progressive non-profit world. On the heels of his graduation from the New Organizing Institute, he went to work for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Apollo Gonzales is currently the Netroots Campaign Manager at NRDC, and is tasked with engaging and mobilizing bloggers and relevant social network groups around NRDC's priorities.
David Harsanyi
Columnist, The Denver Post
David Harsanyi is an award-winning columnist at The Denver Post. In addition to three weekly columns, David's writings on politics and culture have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, National Review, New York Press, Christian Science Monitor, Jerusalem Post, Toronto Globe & Mail, The Hill, Sports Illustrated Online, and numerous other publications. He’s also a regular guest on radio and television shows across the country and has appeared on PBS, NPR, MSNBC, Fox News and NBC Nightly News.
Ina Howard-Parker
Director, Represent Agency
Ina Howard-Parker is a communications strategist and advocate working on a wide range of progressive political issues including racial and economic justice, detainment and prison policy, and resistance to America’s wars of empire. Her work has focused on diversifying the range of debate in the mainstream and alternative media and building networks between social justice organizations, media makers, activists, artists and funding sources.
The former Director of Communications for The New Press, a leading public interest publisher in the US and UK, and the former Publicity Director for Nation Books, she has advised numerous publishers and documentary film distributors about reaching out to progressive audiences in innovative ways that channel resources into strengthening related movements. The former US Director of Media Tenor, a global media monitor based in eight countries, she has consulted for the United Nations, the Government of South Africa and many global companies on communications strategy.
She has written for multiple publications and her articles have been anthologized in the 2003 Project Censored Awards book as well as Voices of Dissent: Critical Readings in American Politics. Ina is the editor of Pulitzer Prize-winner Alice Walker’s New York Times bestseller, We Are The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness, as well as the forthcoming 10 Excellent Reasons to Think Twice About Meat, by popular musician Moby.
She is a coordinating committee member of the Media Consortium, a collaborate venture of more than 40 leading independent media outlets in the U.S. She has appeared on CNN and radio stations across the country. Beginning in Spring, 2008, she will host a weekly book show on Link TV.
She is the founder and director of Represent Inc, a communications and public relations agency based in Brooklyn, NY.
Craig Hughes
Partner, RBI Strategies and Research (RBI)
Craig Hughes oversees all quantitative and qualitative research for the firm and provides campaign management expertise for its political clients. Since coming to RBI in April, 2000, Mr. Hughes has supervised several hundred polls (and focus groups) for the firm’s political, non-profit and corporate clients. Mr. Hughes has also supervised the design and management of dozens of issue and candidate campaigns throughout the U.S. Just a few of RBI’s current or former research clients include State Treasurer Cary Kennedy, No on Amendment 40 (judicial term limits), NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado, Colorado Conservation Voters, and the Leadership Council for Civil Rights.
Mr. Hughes came to RBI after working as Eastern Political Director in the Clinton White House from 1998-2000. In that position, he supervised political activities for the President, First Lady, Vice President, and Mrs. Gore in twelve Eastern states. Hughes was one of the earliest staff members for the Clinton for President campaign in 1991, and subsequently worked for both Clinton/Gore campaigns, as well as the Democratic National Committee. Through these, and other, positions, Hughes has worked on or consulted for campaigns in over twenty states covering every section of the country.
Hughes was named a “Rising Star in Politics” by Campaigns and Elections magazine in 2000 and has been a featured speaker at political trainings, retreats and clinics, including seminars in Kenya, Uganda, and Brazil. He has also taught political science at Metro State University in Denver.
Michael Huttner
Executive Director and Founder, ProgressNow
Progress Now a cutting edge web-based advocacy organization with hubs in Colorado and Ohio. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Denver College of Law where he teaches Legislation and Lobbying. Mr. Huttner worked as Policy Advisor to Colorado Governor Roy Romer, and before returning to Denver he clerked at the White House for the Office of the Counsel to the President. Mr. Huttner earned his law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law and his Bachelor of Arts from Brown University. Mr. Huttner was chosen by The Denver Business Journal as one of the “Forty under 40” Leaders of Denver and by Denver’s 5280 magazine as the “Top Up-and-Comer to Keep Your Eye On.” He is married to Debbie Herz, a lawyer by training who now teaches Yoga; they live in Boulder with their new baby Lee and their dog Yoshi.
Omar Jabara
Senior Director of Communications and Media Relations, Newmont Mining Corporation
Before joining Newmont, Jabara was Senior Vice President of MGA Communications, Inc., a Denver-based communications firm specializing in public involvement in the natural resources industry. Jabara boasts extensive experience in the high-pressure environment of political communications where he served as press secretary and spokesman for US Senate candidate and former Colorado first lady Dottie Lamm. He also worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC as Communications Director for Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, where his innovative approaches helped to significantly increase her national profile and reposition her to win one of the most hotly contested elections in 1996. Jabara holds an Honors BA in Political Science from the University of Western Ontario.
Alan Jenkins
Executive Director, The Opportunity Agenda
Before joining The Opportunity Agenda, Jenkins was Director of Human Rights at the Ford Foundation. Previously, he served as Assistant to the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he represented the United States government in constitutional and other litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he was Associate Counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where he defended the rights of low-income communities suffering from exploitation and discrimination. His other positions have included Assistant Adjunct Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, Law Clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Law Clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Carter, and Coordinator of the Access to Justice Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. Jenkins serves on the Board of Governors of the New School and the Board of Trustees of the Center for Community Change and the Legal Action Center, and is a Co-Chair of the American Constitution Society’s Project on the Constitution in the Twenty-First Century. He holds a law degree from Harvard Law School, a Master’s degree in Media Studies from New School University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Social Relations from Harvard College.
Martin Kearns
Green Media Toolshed
Martin Kearns is an innovator in the field of netcentric campaigns and advocacy. He is also Co-Founder and Executive Director of Green Media Toolshed. He has pioneered integration of network-centric principals to the field of civic organizing and social change work. He is designing software and services targeted to create value at the multi-organizational and movement scale. He is the catalyst behind MobileActive , a global network of activists who use cell phones for civic action and engagement. Kearns is currently working on MediaVolunteer, the first peer-produced, massively distributed research project designed to help advocates and citizens engage the media.
Green Media Toolshed (GMT) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the environmental movement communicate more effectively. GMT offers a professional suite of communication tools, strategic advice, trainings and services. Previously, Kearns also successfully founded the Georgia River Network, a group dedicated to preserving Georgia's rivers. Kearns worked on local, state and national political campaigns. He is a dynamic speaker and is often found at communications, technology and organizing strategy venues supporting progressive civic engagement. He volunteers on the Advisory Board of the New Organizing Institute. He spent three years working at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Kearns has a Bachelors of the Arts from LeMoyne College and a Masters in Environmental Science from Yale University.
Kearns spent two years as a Jesuit International Volunteer in Kingston, Jamaica teaching computers at St. George's College and working with inner city youth. He is a runner, hiker and fisherman. He and his wife Maryann are raising their three children in Silver Spring, MD. Kearns writes a daily blog, Network-Centric Advocacy : Advocacy Strategy for the Age Connectivity.
John Kelly
Founder, Morningside Analytics
John Kelly is the founder and Chief Scientist of Morningside Analytics, a firm specializing in social network analysis of global online media. John is also an Affiliate of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, and a Research Associate of the Center on Organizational Innovation at Columbia University. He received his M. Phil. in Communications from Columbia in 2007, where he is also completing his Ph.D. From 1999 though 2002, John co-directed the Interactive Design Lab at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.
John's research combines content analysis and large-scale social network analysis of online communications, looking at patterns of links, citations, replies, and other discursive ties among large numbers of actors. His core focus is understanding how online networks are structured around the interests, identities, and ideologies of participant actors, and how these structures channel collective attention to various sorts of information.
Prior to founding Morningside Analytics, he applied his methods as a consultant for clients in Washington D.C. and New York. He is also active in academia, working with the Berkman Center on their Internet and Democracy project, as well as their Open Net Initiative. These projects strive to understand and promote the internet as key global infrastructure for political freedom. John's recent work at Columbia includes structural and semantic analysis of American political weblogs and analysis of foreign-language weblogs. He has also just completed a study with the University of Bonn analyzing online professional networks around enterprise software. Other recent work includes network analysis of online threaded discussion forums, in collaboration with researchers at Microsoft Research’s Community Technologies Group.
Cole Krawitz
Communications Strategist, The SPIN Project
Cole Krawitz is a Communications Strategist at The SPIN Project, bringing over ten years of combined experience in local and national organizing, policy campaigns, training and media strategy to the table. Cole is also a writer and poet, and has been widely published in outlets including Newsday, The Advocate, Huffington Post and The Forward. Cole has been a poet artist-in-residence at Makor/92nd Street Y in New York, a teaching assistant at UC Berkeley's Poetry for the People Program, and is pursuing a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Lesley University.
Lindy Eichenbaum Lent
Senior Advisor to the Mayor, City and County of Denver
Lindy Eichenbaum Lent served as the communications director on the 2002-3 long-shot mayoral campaign of geologist-turned-brewpub owner and political neophyte John Hickenlooper. Six months and a landslide victory later, she was appointed as Mayor Hickenlooper’s communications director - serving as the mayor’s spokesperson, speechwriter and media strategist while overseeing the communications-related functions of the paradigm-shifting administration’s first four-year term. In this capacity, Lent helped to establish the mayor’s national profile on sustainability, homelessness, transit, economic development, education, government reform, regionalism and arts and culture. In 2005 – less than two years into his first term – TIME Magazine named Hickenlooper one of the top five big-city mayors in America. Now serving as a senior advisor to the mayor, Lent’s current responsibilities focus on strategic communications and special projects - including preparations for the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
Lent previously worked as Democrat Mike Feeley’s deputy communications director in his 2002 bid for Colorado’s 7th Congressional District seat, one of the top targeted races in the country. Before moving to Colorado, she served nearly three years as the communications director for U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin) of Texas working to establish the congressman’s national profile on issues ranging from campaign finance reform and international trade to tax policy and Social Security.
Beginning her career in political journalism, Lent covered Chicago City Hall for the Illinois Times, Daily Southtown and Arlington Heights Daily Herald newspapers; covered Capitol Hill as a Washington correspondent for WISC-TV (Madison, WI) and KVIA-TV (El Paso, TX); and held internships at CNN’s Washington bureau and Chicago’s CBS affiliate. Lent received her bachelor’s degree in political science from Stanford University and her master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.
Mark McCoin
Musician
As a composer and sound designer for over 25 years, Mark designed numerous Theater productions including “Pericles” at Center Stage in Baltimore and “Mysteries of Eleusis” at the Next Wave Festival in New York. Sound design and music composition for Site-Specific Multimedia performances and installations include the award winning “Circadia” performed at Blake’s salvage yard, “Animal Communiqué”, performed at the Denver Zoo, “Music in Motion”, and “Home Wisdom” with New York choreographer Martha Bowers. Mark also co-produced the award winning NPR radio series “Terra Infirma”, which combined social and political issues with audio art, as well as worked for years as a scoring composer/designer for episodic television (Animal Planet, Food Network), film, and Dance Theater. He currently teaches in the Film Studies department at University of Colorado, Boulder, and runs Brave New Audio, a creative project studio intended for music production, sound design, and audio/video postproduction.
Recent awards include “A.F.I.M. INDIE” award for production work on Mary Youngblood’s “Heart of the World” CD, “Native American Music Award” for production work on Joanne Shenandoah and Laurence Laughing’s “Orenda” CD. Mark also performed on Mary Youngblood’s Grammy Award winning CDs “Beneath the Raven Moon” (2003) and “Feed the Fire” (2007).
Tony Newman
Director of Media Relations, Drug Policy Alliance
Tony Newman has worked for the Drug Policy Alliance for the past eight years. Mr. Newman has more than 15 years of public relations experience. Before coming to DPA, he was the media director for the human rights organization Global Exchange and co-founded the public relations firm Communication Works. Mr. Newman received his B.A. from the University of California-Santa Cruz.
Robert Perez
Senior Vice President, Fenton Communications
Robert A. Pérez has more than 12 years' experience in nonprofit and political communications and a background in grassroots organizing and legislative advocacy. Before joining Fenton, Pérez was the communications director for the California League of Conservation Voters and the public affairs director of its Education Fund where he worked to help pass the nation's first state law to curb global warming pollution from automobiles.
Pérez has directed communications and managed local and statewide political campaigns, including serving as the Washington State press secretary for the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004. At Fenton, he has provided media trainings and strategic counsel to groups such as the Trust for Public Land, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. As the lead communications consultant for the Education Trust-West, Pérez helped release a series of groundbreaking reports exposing salary disparities among California's teachers that shortchanged poor students and students of color. Thanks in part to the tidal wave of publicity, the governor enacted a law to make teacher spending at every school in the state more transparent and accountable to the public. Pérez was also the lead communications strategist for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District's successful campaign to protect 11,800 acres of farmland and open space on the San Mateo coast.
Pérez has served as an outreach manager for San Francisco's NPR affiliate, KQED-FM, on health-related community initiatives and as the communications director for the STOP AIDS Project. He was pivotal in helping pass a law protecting students in California public schools from discrimination and harassment based on real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a B.A. in political science.
Chris Rabb
Consultant, Social Commentator, and “Netroots” Activist.
He has been covered by or featured on C-SPAN, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, various nationally syndicated radio shows on NPR, Air America Radio and XM Radio, having also been an on-air guest on radio shows hosted by Tavis Smiley, Michael Eric Dyson, Bev Smith, and Al Sharpton. Mr. Rabb is also a published writer, having written for such publications as The Nation, Colorlines, Mother Jones and Savoy Magazine. A former columnist at the Yale Daily News, Mr. Rabb was also a stand-up comedian while in college and is a trained improvisational comedy performer and group facilitator. He has spoken at conferences, universities, corporations and other venues across the U.S., Europe and Brazil.
He was one of fewer than approximately 40 credentialed bloggers at the 2004 Democratic Convention, blogging on-site for Afro-Netizen, which he founded in 1999. And since his groundbreaking participation at the Convention, he is a regular panelist at a number of major conferences focusing on participatory journalism, new media, civic engagement and social justice, such as Take Back America, National Conference for Media Reform, Personal Democracy Forum Conference, Online Politics Conference, the Facing Race Conference, ConvergeSouth, and other nationally recognized gatherings.
Presently, he is a principal with Visceral Ventures LLC, a consultancy focusing on organizational effectiveness and new media strategy. His professional specialties center on effective means of targeting and engaging various constituencies, including: voters, consumers, and other groups within predominantly African-American communities.
He is a graduate of Yale College and also earned an M.S. in Organizational Dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania. Chris is a 2001 American Marshall Memorial Fellow, and was elected as a Democratic Committeeman in May 2006, serving his Mt. Airy neighborhood of northwest Philadelphia. A native of Chicago, he is the proud husband of Professor Imani Perry, and father to two sons, Freeman Diallo and Issa.
Bobbi Russell
Associate Director, Green Media Toolshed
Bobbi Russell joined Green Media Toolshed as the Director of Media Services and Marketing in September 2000. She became Associate Director in December 2005. Bobbi manages the membership and training programs for GMT and works with a growing community of more than 180 environmental organizations. She also manages financial process for the organization, contributes to fundraising efforts and helps to manage GMT's growing staff. She previously worked as a Program Coordinator at Environmental Media Services, focusing on marine, land conservation and energy issues. Prior to this she worked as an environmental reporter for several newspapers in western Pennsylvania, specializing in mining and land use issues. Bobbi further gained interest in public outreach through her work at Mote Marine Laboratory and the Clarion River Basin Commission. She earned a Bachelor's degree in English and minor in Environment & Society at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. She has an MBA from George Washington University, with a focus on nonprofit management. Bobbi enjoys hiking and boxing and lives in Alexandria, VA, with her partner Dave and their two dogs.
Rashad Robinson
Senior Director of Media Programs, GLAAD
Rashad currently serves as the Senior Director of Media Programs for GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. In that role, he oversees the advocacy work of the media programs staff as they work with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocates and media professionals alike to promote fair, accurate and inclusive media coverage of the LGBT community. Before joining GLAAD, Rashad served as National Communications Director for the Right to Vote Campaign and as National Field Director with the Center for Voting and Democracy. Rashad has been a featured spokesperson on an array of issues in print, radio and television, and in 2004 he appeared as the youngest contestant on Showtime’s Political Reality series American Candidate. A graduate of Marymount University in Arlington, VA, Rashad was a Politics major with a minor in History and Communications. He is also a graduate of the SPIN Project Media Academy in Petaluma, CA and currently sits on the board of directors for FairVote.
Dianne Saenz
Director of Communications, North America, OCEANA
Dianne manages Oceana's communications work in North America, designed to further Oceana campaigns to protect and restore the world's oceans. She began her career at The Washington Post, where she eventually became an investigative researcher and a reporter for the Metropolitan news section.
Since then, she has worked in strategic communications positions for Fleishman-Hillard International Communications, Fenton Communications, Friends of the Earth, the Calvert Group socially and environmentally responsible mutual fund family, and Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Dianne was also part of the small team that launched the Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan research organization focused on U.S. Latinos, as its first director of communications. She also worked to publicize the open access research website Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology and PLoS Medicine and worked with EMS/Science Communication Network to help scientists explain their research findings and its implications to the public.
She earned a B.A. in English from Vassar College and completed professional development work at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Jason Salzman
Author, Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits
President, Cause Communications
Jason Salzman is president of Cause Communications, which focuses on assisting nonprofit and activist groups.
He is a media critic for the Rocky Mountain News and the author of Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits. Now in its second edition, the book has been translated into Chinese, and it won a Colorado Book Award in 1999.
With Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry’s, he wrote 50 Ways YOU Can Show George the Door in 2004. His articles have been published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek, Sierra, and others.
He is married and has a eight-year-old son, Dylan, who seldom stops, and a fiver-year-old daughter, Nell, who never sleeps.
Karen Showalter
Manager of Network Advocacy, Netcentric Campaigns
Karen is the Network Advocacy Manager at Netcentric Campaigns, a nonprofit organization helping activists harness the power of a connected grassroots. Her work ranges from guiding investments of resources in networks – for example through greasing the communication wheels or building relationships between members – to helping networks understand how Web 2.0 tools can speed up and expand their work. Karen is also on the Steering Group of IFIwatchnet – an online community of activists using web-based tools to monitor the international financial institutions. Karen has previously managed outreach and communications for the Bank Information Center, an organization promoting social and economic justice and ecological sustainability at the international financial institutions, and the Youth Tutoring Program, a nonprofit organization serving refugee children living in Seattle’s public housing communities.
David Sirota
Author, Hostile Takeover
Sirota is a political journalist and bestselling author living in Denver, Colorado. He is widely known for his reporting on political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America’s political parties. The New York Times has called him a “populist rabble-rouser” with a “take-no-prisoners mind-set,” while the Philadelphia Daily News labeled him “a progressive powerhouse."
Sirota’s writing has won praise from across the political spectrum. The liberal American Prospect said Sirota is "the kind of pundit you'd like to have on your side in a knife fight and wouldn't want to cross in a dark alley." Syndicated columnist Molly Ivins said “Sirota is a new-generation populist who instinctively understands that the only real questions are ‘Who’s getting screwed?’ and ‘Who’s doing the screwing?’” Even Barron’s, the right-leaning business weekly, said, “Sirota may someday emerge as the left-wing’s answer to right-wing heavy-weights Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter... he has the rabble-rouser's prerequisite sharp tongue, as well as a quick eye for his opponent's tender spots.”
Sirota’s first book Hostile Takeover: How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government – And How We Take It Back was released by Crown Publishers in 2006 and quickly became a New York Times bestseller. Sirota is is now working on his second book for Crown, a tour of the populist political movement growing in response to severe economic pressure on America’s middle class. The book is due out in the Spring of 2008.
Sirota serves as a senior editor at In These Times magazine; contributes regularly to The Nation, the American Prospect and the Huffington Post; is the full-time blogger at workingassetsblog.com; and publishes a newsletter at davidsirota.com that is e-mailed to thousands of subscribers each day. He serves as a co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a 501(c)3 organization that provides nonpartisan legislative research to state lawmakers.
Over his career, Sirota’s work has been published in, among others, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post, The Baltimore Sun, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Hartford Courant, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Charlotte Observer, The Oregonian and Knight Ridder Newspapers. He has been a guest on, among others, CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, PBS's Now with David Brancaccio, and National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation. Sirota was also a twice-weekly guest on The Al Franken Show for the show’s entire run.
During his previous career in electoral politics, Sirota served as a senior campaign strategist to Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D), Montana’s first Democratic governor in 16 years; a campaign adviser Connecticut’s antiwar icon Ned Lamont, who defeated Sen. Joe Lieberman in the 2006 Democratic primary; the chief spokesman for Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee; the press secretary for Vermont Congressman Bernard Sanders, the longest-serving independent in congressional history; and a contributor to the California Democratic Party’s website. In 2003, Sirota became one of the first employees of the Center for American Progress, where the National Review called his work “the most aggressive, most energetic opposition research in politics.”
Sirota received a degree in journalism and political science from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. After graduating in 1998, he lived for five years in Washington, D.C., and then for two and a half years in Helena, Montana before moving to Denver in 2007 with his wife, Emily, and his dog, Monty.
Brian Smith
Pacific/International Press Secretary, Earthjustice
Brian’s work ranges from publicizing Earthjustice legal work on global warming and international environmental issues, Native Hawaiian rights, protecting national forests, and cleaning up the air and water in California's Central Valley where he grew up. Brian has worked in non-profit media for 16 years on a wide range of issues ranging from food security and globalization to economic justice. He is a graduate of University of California, Santa Cruz.
Eric Sondermann
Founder, SE2
Eric Sondermann founded and now chairs SE2, a Denver-based consulting firm specializing in public persuasion, media relations, and all forms of mass communication in the broad realm of public policy.
Clients include a mix of public, private and non-profit organizations, all requiring expert services in understanding and moving public opinion through effective positioning and message delivery.
Sondermann has directed this consulting business for over twenty years. During the early years, he did business under the title of The Sondermann Group. In the mid-1990's he teamed with Eric Anderson (with Susan Morrisey joining the management team more recently) as part of a shared commitment to business expansion, building critical mass, and providing distinctive and exceptional service in a specialized field.
Sondermann is particularly regarded for his strategic vision, his skill in crafting effective messages in various challenging contexts, and his ability to always see the forest no matter how many trees might be in the way.
A high-profile political analyst and media pundit, Sondermann has been interviewed by a laundry list of local, national and international publications and media outlets. He appears as a regular panelist on the weekly "Colorado Inside Out" program on local public television. He is sought after for his independent thinking, his ability to distinguish analysis from spin, and his forthrightness in calling things as he sees them.
Sondermann currently serves on the Boards of the Colorado I Have a Dream Foundation which seeks to keep at-risk kids in school through graduation and then funds their college tuition, and of Urban Peak which focuses on issues of youth homelessness. He also has a long-standing leadership commitment to The Logan School, a highly-regarded, innovative, private K-8 school on the grounds of the old Lowry Air Force Base. He served on the School's Board of Trustees for over eight years, and as Board Chairman for five of those years. He is a former Board member of Colorado Public Radio and the Children's Museum of Denver.
Sondermann and his wife, Tracy Dunning, are the parents of two children, Katrina and Clarke.
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