Skip to content
Jan Williamson is the Executive Director of the 18th Street Arts Center, which provides studio, gallery, and public space for artists of all disciplines. During her tenure, she has developed 18th Street’s model Residency Program, led fundraising efforts for the renovation of the organization’s headquarters, and helped transform it into California’s largest artist residency center. [...]
Rabbi Marvin Gross began his career as a congregational rabbi and became the Chief Executive Officer of Union Station Homeless Services in 1995. A full-service center for the homeless in Pasadena, Union Station provides shelter, transitional housing, and an array of services to help homeless men, women, and children transition to permanent housing and self-sustainability. [...]
Angelica Salas is the Executive Director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), where she has been on staff since 1995. CHIRLA organizes immigrants and their families to oppose harmful policies and demand equity and justice from our government. A statewide and national spokesperson on immigration issues, Angelica is also a [...]
Melanie Stephens co-founded Centro Latino for Literacy with Marcos Cajina and served on its Board of Directors before becoming Executive Director in 2003. The organization taught literacy and offered other educational opportunities to those who had not had access to formal education, particularly Latino immigrants. Melanie developed Centro Latino’s Spanish literacy campaign model to mobilize, [...]
Pete White is the Founder and Co-Director of Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), an organization that cultivates grassroots leadership within the Central City East community to address issues facing its extremely low-income, predominantly African American residents. LA CAN focuses on housing and civil rights, access to healthy food, women’s rights, and violence prevention.
Susan Burton is the founding Executive Director of A New Way of Life ReEntry Project (ANWOL), which operates homes and programs in South LA to support women recently released from prison in staying sober, finding jobs, and developing life skills. Susan herself overcame a decades-long history of incarceration and the struggles with reentry. After her [...]
Sister Terry Dodge is the former Executive Director of Crossroads, Inc., which provides housing, education, support, and counseling in a homelike environment in Claremont for women who have been previously incarcerated. Beginning her tenure in 1989, Sister Terry helped equip women with the tools to lead self-sufficient lives, helping them avoid substance abuse, homelessness, and [...]
William “Blinky” Rodriguez is the Executive Director of Champions In Service (formerly Communities in Schools in North Hills), which has provided wraparound services for 30 over 30 years to those in the San Fernando Valley and Greater Los Angeles who have been marginalized by poverty, drug addiction, and trauma. The organization uplifts its community and [...]
Laurie Schell began her career as a dancer and teacher before serving for ten years as the Executive Director of the California Alliance for Arts Education (now merged with Create CA). Under her leadership, the Alliance played a pivotal role in the successful 2005 campaign that secured the largest state-funded expenditure for arts education in [...]
Debra Suh is the former Executive Director of the Center for the Pacific Asian Family (CPAF), which opened the nation’s first multilingual and multicultural domestic violence emergency shelter for Asian Pacific Islander (API) women and their children. CPAF also operates the only rape crisis center in the US dedicated to serving API survivors, along with [...]
