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The Center's affiliate organization, Western State Strategies, is continuing our traditional work on campaign finance reform, supporting voter-owned elections and promoting a more transparent election system that expands democracy.
   
   
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  BOARD OF DIRECTORS  
     
  The Center has a long history of recruiting Board Members who reflect the organizations and constituencies in which we work. The Center's 2006 Board of Directors includes:  
     
 
   
Scot Nakagawa, Portland, OR (Chairperson) - Scot is Grants and Program Manager at Social Justice Fund Northwest. Before moving to Oregon, Scot worked with Native Hawaiian and immigrant youth and families on the island of O'ahu. He was a founding staffperson of the Coalition for Human Dignity, and has worked as Fight the Right Project Organizer and Field Director for the National Gay and Lesbian Task; Force; Executive Director of the McKenzie River Gathering Foundation and Co-Director of Education for the Highlander Research and Education Center.
   
Amy Herzfeld, Boise ID (Secretary) - Executive Director of the Idaho Human Rights Education Center.  A graduate of the Center’s Western Institute for Organizing and Leadership Development, Amy worked as a journalist and campaign manager before serving as Director of Administration and Special Projects for the Idaho Nonprofit Development Center from 2003-2005. She is the former Board President of Idaho Women’s Network and current Board Co-Chair of Your Family, Friends and Neighbors.
   
Dan Neal, Casper WY (Treasurer) – Dan is now Executive Director of Equality State Policy Center, having spent much of his career as a journalist with the Casper Star Tribune, where he served as Editor from 2000-2004.  He has also served as a strategist for both Congressional and ballot initiative campaigns.
   
george George Cheung, Seattle WA – George is Founder and CEO of Lopez & Cheung, Inc., a public affairs consulting firm specializing in social science research, demographics and civic engagement.  George founded and served as first Executive Director of Equal Rights Washington, the state’s largest LGBT advocacy organization.  Prior to his consulting work, George served as a civil rights investigator for several state agencies and completed a Masters in Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
   

Leah Henry-Tanner, Bremerton, WA - Leah is coordinator of United Indians of All Tribes Foundation's Native American Women's Dialogue on Infant Mortality. She has extensive experience on issues ranging from violence against women of color to tribal sovereignty. She is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe and a graduate of Western States Center's Western Institute for Leadership and Development.

   

Alysha Goheen Jannotta, Missoula MT– Alysha is Outreach Coordinator for the Montana Women Vote Coalition. Prior to joining MWV’s staff, she worked at Women’s Opportunity Resources Development (WORD), holding a variety of roles including serving as a school family advocate, leading teen parent leadership groups, and running a program supporting women pursuing non-traditional careers.

   

Marjory Hamann, Portland OR – Marjory is Executive Director of the McKenzie River Gathering Foundation.  Previously, she was a founder of Values Into Action, where she worked with nonprofit and public sector agencies as they built their capacity to address critical social issues, and was a Senior Manager at REACH Community Development.

   

María González Mabbutt, Nampa ID - Maria worked as a farmworker advocate for more fifteen years and is a key leader in Idaho's Latino community. She has coordinated the Idaho Latino Voter Education Project, and served on the boards of the Idaho Law Foundation, the Hispanic Women's Organization, Mujeres Unidas de Idaho, the Idaho Hispanic Political Caucus and Idaho Women's Network. Maria's work was recently recognized with an Alston/Bannerman Fellowship

   
 

Kenya Pierce, Las Vegas NV – Kenya is Board President of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada.  A Professor of Sociology at the Community College of Southern Nevada, Kenya is also the co-founder of TRENDZ, a youth mentoring organization.

   
   
Sharon Gary-Smith, Portland, OR (Emerita) - Sharon continues her lifelong commitment to racial and social justice through consultations with nonprofits and philanthropies. She is the former national programs director of the National Black Women's Health Project, and former National Programs Director of Be Present, Inc., a national organization dedicated to training black women and girls, other women of color, and white women, to work together to build a social change movement in a world where racism, classism, and homophobia still exist and historical barriers have divided us.
   
   

   
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