Alumni – NewDEAL

Laura Terech

Andrea Cruz — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 04:00:52 +0000

Laura Terech

Former Representative | Scottsdale, AZ

Representative Laura Terech is a teacher and community leader. She started her career as an educator teaching kindergarten in a Title One school. After the ceiling of her classroom collapsed over a rug full of her students, she knew she needed to take action and get involved. Now, she is a member of the Arizona State House of Representatives from Legislative District 4.

Representative Terech is committed to working for the good of her constituents in Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, and Phoenix. She is a leading advocate for protecting and expanding the freedom to vote, providing public school students with the funding they deserve, fighting to end the gun violence epidemic and ensuring students are safe in schools, securing Arizona’s water future, and safeguarding reproductive freedoms.

Ethan Ashley

Andrea Cruz — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 04:00:26 +0000

Ethan Ashley

Former School Board Member | New Orleans, LA

Ethan Charles Ashley served as an elected Orleans Parish School Board member. Previously, Ethan worked on policy and advocacy issues in many positions, including on the Hill, at the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, at the Urban League of Louisiana, at the ADL, at the CDL and for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

Ethan is an advisory board member for Bard Early College New Orleans, a rigorous, credit-bearing, tuition-free college course of student in the liberal arts and sciences available to junior and senior level students. Ethan is also a board member of the Boy Scouts of America Southeast Louisiana Council, the National Juvenile Justice Network and the New Orleans Regional Leadership Institute. He is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi, Fraternity, Inc., where he has inspired colleagues to support youth through scholarships and mentoring. Ethan was a 2014 fellow of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Community Leadership Network. Ethan is a member of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, LA.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Ethan graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School, a law magnet high school in Los Angeles, at the age of 16. Afterwards, he continued his education at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he obtained a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and a Juris Doctor degree by the age of 22.

Above all, Ethan is a strong advocate for equity, business development, youth justice, civil rights, and servant leadership.

Anthony Foxx

Rachel Walsh — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 16:16:30 +0000

Anthony Fox

Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation

Foxx, a former mayor of Charlotte, was sworn in as the 17th U.S. Secretary of Transportation after receiving a 100-0 confirmation vote and entered an agency under distress. Congress had not approved a long-term surface transportation bill in more than a decade. The entire government faced sequestration funding and, within six months, was shut down entirely for 16 days. Rather than scale back the agency’s ambitions, Foxx plowed forward and, as a result, had one of the most consequential runs in the history of the Department.

Foxx developed the Obama Administration’s first surface transportation bill and worked on a bipartisan basis to get its congressional incarnation, the FAST Act, passed. He consolidated the Department’s innovative financing programs and accelerated permitting policies into a new Build America Bureau and put a new executive director in place before my departure. He embraced technology by pushing forward new rules governing the commercial use of drones, blueprinted the most comprehensive national policy on autonomous vehicles in the world, and launched the Department’s first, and the Administration’s most successful, Smart City Challenge, engaging more than 70 cities to develop their own strategies to incorporate new technologies into their transportation networks. He placed nearly $30 billion in discretionary federal grants around the country, giving rise to a national pipeline of projects now poised to seek innovative financing, including the NY-NJ Gateway Project, Chicago Union Station, Florida East Coast High Speed Rail, and Texas Central Railway.

Foxx currently commutes between Chevy Chase, Maryland and New York City but still calls North Carolina home.

Kristen McDonald Rivet

Rachel Walsh — Wed, 03 May 2023 01:00:37 +0000

Kristen McDonald Rivet

U.S. Representative | MI-08

With more than 30 years of experience in public policy and advocacy, Senator Kristen McDonald Rivet knows firsthand how to champion our communities and step up as a leader. She is serving her first term in the Michigan Senate. Throughout her career, McDonald Rivet has worked for systemic change to improve employment and educational opportunities, revitalize neighborhoods, increase youth development programs and create public policy addressing institutional inequity issues.

In addition to providing strategic leadership to two non-profits focused on improving health and economic outcomes in Michigan, McDonald Rivet served as a City Commissioner for Bay City and President/ CEO of the network of Greater Midland Community Centers. McDonald Rivet was also a lead architect of Michigan’s birth to five system of care (Great Start) and its parent organization, the Early Childhood Investment Corporation (ECIC). These initiatives have helped millions of Michiganders thrive.

Megan Barry

actualize — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 10:06:29 +0000

Megan Barry

Former Mayor | Nashville, TN

In 2015, following eight years of service on the Metropolitan Council, Megan Barry was elected the first woman mayor of Metro Nashville on a platform of being a pro-business progressive who would keep Nashville moving forward. In 2016, Barry worked with labor organizations and the business community to create the Nashville Construction Readiness Partnership, a pre-apprenticeship program and employee database that will connect local workers to training for good-paying construction jobs during Nashville’s building boom, while helping developers find local workers for their job sites. To connect youth to opportunity and hope, Barry created Opportunity NOW, a youth employment initiative with a goal of putting 10,000 of Nashville’s youth aged 14-24 into paid, meaningful jobs or internships in the public and private sectors. Barry has also sought to address the lack of affordable housing by investing $10 million per year for low-income housing opportunities and creating the Housing Incentive Pilot Program (HIPP), which is designed to encourage mixed-income rental housing options throughout the community. In addition to these initiatives, Mayor Barry has remained focus on investing in Nashville’s public schools, building better transit infrastructure, and promoting public safety in a way that improves the quality of life for all.

Luke Bronin

Andrea Cruz — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 17:17:28 +0000

Luke Bronin

Former Mayor | Hartford, CT

Luke Bronin is a husband, a father, a veteran, and an attorney, and, during his tenure are mayor, committed to building a stronger Hartford for all of the city’s residents.

After taking office in 2016, Mayor Bronin led the city through the biggest fiscal crisis in the city’s history, working to put Hartford on a path to fiscal stability. In addition to promoting economic development and investment, his administration has focused on building opportunity for Hartford residents through key initiatives like the Youth Service Corps and the Reentry Welcome Center. He has also worked to position Hartford as a center of innovation and establish Hartford a leader in environmental stewardship.

Prior to becoming mayor, Mayor Bronin served in senior positions in both federal and state government. In 2013, he was appointed by then-Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy to serve as General Counsel. As the governor’s chief lawyer, Bronin was deeply involved in developing policies to combat veterans’ homelessness, pass common sense gun laws, expand economic opportunities, reform our criminal justice system, and protect our environment.

Prior to his role in the Governor’s office, he served in the Obama Administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that role, he helped lead the federal government’s efforts to isolate and disrupt international terrorist groups, and advanced U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. Previously, he served as the Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, as an international affairs fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, and as Chief of Staff to the President of Property and Casualty Operations at the Hartford Financial Services Group, one of the capital city’s largest employers.

Mayor Bronin served as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and was a member of the military’s anti-corruption task force during his deployment to Afghanistan from September 2010 to April 2011. He earned his B.A. and J.D. from Yale University and his M.A. from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

He and his wife Sara live in Hartford with their three young kids.

Colin Parent

Andrea Cruz — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 22:52:43 +0000

Colin Parent

Former City Councilmember | La Mesa, CA

Colin Parent was elected to the La Mesa City Council in November 2016.

Currently, Colin works as the Executive Director and General Counsel at the nonprofit Circulate San Diego. He is responsible for advocating for affordable transit, safe walkable neighborhoods, and effective land use policy.

Colin served on the Jerry Brown for Governor 2010 campaign, and was appointed by Governor Brown as the Director of External Affairs for the California Department of Housing and Community Development. Prior to working for Governor Brown, Colin practiced law for three years as a commercial litigator at the San Diego office of the international law firm of DLA Piper US LLP. During 2013 and 2014, Colin served as the Director of Policy at the San Diego Housing Commission.

Colin is a serial social entrepreneur in San Diego. He co-founded the San Diego Leadership Alliance, an organization that trains young San Diegans to be equipped for civic leadership. As a board member of the League of Conservation Voters San Diego, he chaired the first ever coalition to grade the environmental records of elected officials in the City of San Diego.

Colin grew up in East County San Diego and is a graduate of Valhalla High School, U.C. San Diego, and NYU Law School. He enjoys spending time with his Kindle, and taking pictures of his food.

Janelle Bynum

Andrea Cruz — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 16:48:29 +0000

Janelle Bynum

U.S. Representative | OR-05

A courageous trailblazer, State Representative Janelle Bynum serves as the Oregon State Representative for House District 51 (East Portland and Happy Valley). In the Legislature, she is the immediate past Chairwoman of the House Judiciary Committee, current Chair of the Interim House Committee on Small Business and Economic Development and serves as a member of the House Business and Labor and Joint Ways and Means committees. She is also a founding member of the BIPOC Caucus giving voice to Oregon’s Black, Indigenous, and People of Color constituents, advocates, and businesses.

During her tenure in the Legislature, Rep. Bynum has spearheaded bipartisan initiatives encompassing Voter Engagement and Turnout; Investment in K-12 and Higher Education; Juvenile and Criminal Justice Reform; Police Accountability, and targeted support for small businesses. In the 2021 legislative session, Janelle passed an ambitious agenda with over 23 pieces of landmark legislation on Public Safety, over $70M to help grow the number of mental health providers, and the CROWN Act that protects both workers and student-athletes.

Concurrent with her leadership in public service, Janelle and her husband Mark are parents to four children and own multiple McDonald’s Restaurants. She has served on the Board of Trustees for the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon, Business Oregon, the Center for Women’s Leadership, and the Oregon Commission on Black Affairs. She earned her undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Florida A&M University, and her MBA from the University of Michigan—Ross Business School. She is also a member of African American women’s associations Jack and Jill of America, Inc. and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Janelle is a champion for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and is an avid consumer of American football, basketball, barbeque, and artisan cheeses.

Timothy Ragland

actualize — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 18:29:57 +0000

Timothy Ragland

Former Mayor | Talladega, AL

Timothy L. Ragland, J.D., became mayor of the City of Talladega in a history-making runoff election on November 4, 2019. Mayor Ragland defeated the incumbent mayor by a margin of just 23 votes, making him the city’s first African – American and youngest mayor in the last century.

A native of Talladega, Alabama, Mayor Ragland has successfully led Talladega during the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis. Despite these unique trials, Mayor Ragland advances a community-centered plan that addresses the city’s most urgent issues and puts Talladega on course to reach its fullest potential. Mayor Ragland directs the effort to create a workforce development program that trains, educates, and provides social services to working-age individuals, following a “people-first approach” to enable them to succeed in the labor force and meet employers’ demand for quality talent. This effort includes Talladega’s unique demographic makeup by incorporating individuals from the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind and Talladega College.

He is a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Mayor Ragland and his wife, Chelsea Ragland, Esq. are the proud parents of one daughter.

Mark Strama

join.us — Mon, 16 May 2022 15:27:20 +0000

Mark Strama

Former Representative | Austin, TX

Mark is Google Fiber’s General Manager for Expansion Operations. Previously, he represented the north Austin area in the Texas House of Representatives. Mark received Honorable Mentions on Texas Monthly’s Ten Best Legislators list in three of his five sessions in the House. Texas Monthly said, “Strama cares as much about others’ success as his own.”

Prior to running for public office, Mark founded the first company to enable Americans to fill out a voter registration form on the Internet – 700,000 people used this technology to register to vote in the 2000 election cycle. Earlier, Mark was Director of Programs at Rock the Vote, a non-partisan organization that works with MTV and the music industry to engage young people in the political process. He previously worked for former Texas Governor Ann Richards and Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis.

Mark graduated from Brown University with degrees in philosophy and political science. He is married to Crystal Cotti, a former Austin City Hall reporter who now teaches at Dobie Middle School. They have three daughters.