Welcoming new GGWash board members and kicking off our year-end fundraiser
Car-free King Street in Alexandria, Virginia by Joe Flood licensed under Creative Commons.
This may come as a surprise, but…it’s already November.
While we’re not quite sure how that happened, the GGWash team wants to take some time to reflect on 2021 before it draws to a close. Over the next few weeks, we’ll share highlights from our year, including the impact that so many of you have had on making this region a greater place to live.
And with your help, during the same time frame we’re also going to raise $25,000, and grow the team of volunteers to ensure those efforts can continue.
But first, I’d like to introduce you to some wonderful people.
Meet our new board members!
This fall, we’ve taken a big, important step to strengthen GGWash: welcoming 11 new board members into the fold. Our board of directors now numbers 18 people, a tremendous boost for a small organization.
These leaders bring housing and transportation expertise, journalism experience, and deep knowledge about the nuts and bolts of running organizations: law, strategic planning, management, human resources, finance.
They stepped up to serve GGWash during a critical time of planning and transition, in the ongoing pandemic context, to support the challenging work of making this region a more resilient, equitable, connected, and affordable place to live. We could not be more grateful for their dedication and leadership.
Please join me in welcoming the newest members of the Greater Greater Washington board of directors:
Below, you’ll find bios of each new member. They’ve joined a stalwart team; you can see our full board of directors here.
With strength in our expanded numbers, we’ve jumped right into a strategic planning process, and can’t wait to share a refreshed set of shared beliefs, vision, mission, and goals with you in early 2022.
The GGWash staff are also hard at work on budgeting and program planning for next year. I think you’ll be excited to see what we’ve got in store.
Meeting the moment through the strength of community
Since starting at GGWash about six months ago, I’ve been in awe of the dedication of this team and the huge community of volunteers and advocates to making this region safer, denser, more resilient, and more affordable.
As a small nonprofit, though, our vision is big and our resources are constrained. As I shared over the summer, we’re working to fill a budget deficit. And every time we decide to take on one project or issue, we’re implicitly not tackling something else.
This is a tension we feel every day, and this fall has been especially intense. It feels like many of the interconnected issues that motivate us — climate change, housing affordability, exclusionary land use planning, pedestrian and cyclist safety, transit accessibility and reliability — are reaching points of crisis at the same time.
GGWash is going to grow to meet this moment and beyond. Of that, I have no doubt. How quickly we’re able to get there, however, depends in part on you.
That’s why we’ve launched our year-end campaign with an ambitious $25,000 goal. I’m asking you to take a leap with us and make a one-time or recurring contribution to GGWash. Working together is how we step into 2022 stronger than ever.
Michelle Beaman Chang is a Vice President of Mixed-Use Development at HRP, a national brownfield redeveloper. Michelle has over 15 years of commercial real estate development experience in the Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New York City metropolitan regions. Much of her professional experience focused on housing at all income levels. Michelle is a member of ULI’s Responsible Property Investment product council, local Housing Council, and Urban Plan committee. She is a mentor at Capital Impact Partner’s Equitable Development Initiative and lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two children.
Eric Blaylock is a management consulting executive possessing 20 years of experience leading teams and delivering results for clients representing some of the world’s largest and most prestigious organizations. His area of expertise is in strategic human capital management, HCM technology, corporate wellness strategies and workplace of the future. Eric has lived in the DMV since 1998 and is proud to have called The District home since 2010. In his free time, you can find Eric on his road bike on one of the many area trails. Other life activities Eric enjoys include global travel, cooking, dining in one of the many great DC restaurants, or lounging at home watching a movie.
Jesse Cohn McGowan is transportation planner at the Montgomery County Planning Department, where she focuses on transportation safety and transit planning. Her passion for cities and urban planning stems from cross-country cycling tours she completed in 2008 and 2011 with Bike & Build, a nonprofit organization that leads bicycle trips to raise funds for affordable housing. Jesse lives in Petworth with her husband, and, as a Jersey girl, she is always on the hunt for good pizza and bagels.
Amanda Cowley is General Counsel and Senior Vice President responsible for Legal, Strategy and People at the global public health nonprofit, US Pharmacopeia. Amanda has a JD from Yale Law School, and graduated from Williams College. She is a member of the DC Bar. Amanda has lived in DC since 2004. An enthusiastic cyclist, she first met her husband during a five-month cycling tour from Khartoum, Sudan to Cape Town, South Africa. They now live in Bloomingdale with their two young children, with whom they enjoy cycling on a much more modest scale.
Ronit Aviva Dancis is the Employer Outreach and Proffer Manager for the Dulles Area Transportation Association. She works to increase sustainable commuting and mobility in the Dulles area, eagerly awaiting the opening of Silver Line Phase 2 stations. She previously spent three years as the Tysons Partnership’s TMA Director. A Maryland native, she was President of the Action Committee for Transit 2016-2018, and continues to serve on the ACT board. She lives (sans car ownership) walking distance from the Silver Spring Metro station.
Malcom Glenn is an organizational consultant and public policy and communications specialist. He’s drawn to opportunities to use public policy to improve outcomes for people in local communities in areas like housing, transportation, education, criminal justice reform, and public health. He’s spent his career building partnerships between large corporations, nonprofits, and governments, and telling the stories of the impact of that work. A native of Denver, Malcom lives with his wife in Columbia Heights. You can learn more about him at www.malcomglenn.com.
Nina Janopaul was CEO of APAH, an award-winning, nonprofit affordable housing developer based in Arlington, until she retired in 2021. She has served on a number of boards, including HAND, NVAHA, the Urban Land Institute’s Terwilliger Center Advisory Board, and Virginia Housing Alliance. She is passionate about building strong nonprofits and rectifying historic housing injustices.
Pherabe Kolb is the Vice President of Operational Effectiveness & Enterprise Risk Management for the Aspen Institute. She has extensive nonprofit management and business process development experience, as well as a background in law, communications, and journalism. She earned a BA in History from Dartmouth College, a JD from Northwestern University School of Law and is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia and Maryland. Originally from New Orleans, Pherabe has lived in Washington, DC, for more than 25 years and currently resides in Hill East in a 100+ year-old rowhouse she adores. She does not own a car and values the connections and experiences that come from walking, biking, and using public transit in a great city.
Candace Y.A. Montague is an online and print freelance journalist in Washington, DC. She has over 12 years of experience covering health, gender equality and social justice issues for several local and national publications. She is a native Washingtonian and proud alumna of Lincoln University (PA) and Trinity University (DC). In 2019, received the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2020, she was the recipient of an award from the National Association of Black Journalists for feature: Single Story. She was a finalist for the 2021 Dateline Award for Excellence in Local Journalism in the Washington DC Pro Chapter journalism competition.
Alberto Rivera, a Partner at Krooth & Altman, represents mortgage lenders in a variety of commercial real estate financing transactions involving tax-exempt bond financing, secondary financing, and low-income housing tax credits. Alberto has called the DC area home since he was four years old when he moved here from Honduras. He now lives in Sixteenth Street Heights with his wife and two kids, and they are always on the lookout for great pupusas and baleadas.
Rosie Romano is a workers’ rights attorney at Murphy Anderson PLLC. Originally from Iowa, Rosie first fell in love with DC more than a decade ago as a student at American University. She is passionate about voting, walkable cities, and bourbon. Rosie lives in Ward 8 with her husband, Grayson, and their rambunctious pup, Scout. She loves the bus.