Brian Arbogast, President
Brian Arbogast is a founder and board member of the Progress Alliance of Washington. He is also corporate vice president of the Mobile Services organization within the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft. His teams are responsible for delivering the mobile services strategy, platform, and experiences for Windows Live, as well as the strategy, platform, and integrated services for network operators and other syndication partners, bringing compelling services to a fast-growing segment of consumers. These development efforts span campuses in Redmond, Seattle, Shenzhen, Tel Aviv and Braga. He has more than 20 years of experience in leading teams that deliver innovative software solutions. Arbogast earned a bachelor’s degree of mathematics in computer science from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

Dean Nielsen, Vice-President
Dean M. Nielsen is the Regional Director for Progressive Majority, a national organization that recruits, trains and elects progressive champions at the state and local levels. In this position, he directly manages 8 state programs from coast-to-coast. Prior to being promoted, Dean served as Progressive Majority’s Washington State Director, where he helped elect more than 100 candidates using Progressive Majority’s innovate “farm team” program. After four elections, he held the highest candidate win rate in the organization. Dean is a career politico, having worked in various capacities on more than 250 campaigns throughout the Western United States and Eastern Europe starting with Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign. His lengthy client list includes Governor Gary Locke (WA), Solidarity Party (Poland), the Gore/Lieberman Campaign, as well as issue campaigns for groups such as EMILY’s List, NARAL Pro-Choice Washington, SEIU, Harborview Hospital and the Democratic Party in several states. In addition to campaigns, he helped build and expand a grassroots and grasstops lobbying program for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, conceived and launched the Institute for a Democratic Future, did qualitative research for several casinos in Las Vegas, and managed a crisis communications project for a Fortune 500 company.

Adam Glickman-Flora, Treasurer
Adam Glickman-Flora is Vice-President and Director of Public Affairs for SEIU Healthcare 775NW, the long-term care workers union representing 30,500 home care and nursing home workers in Washington and Montana. As director of Public Affairs he oversees SEIU Healthcare 775NW’s political, legislative, community outreach, and media relations work. Adam grew up on the East Coast and became involved in labor and other social justice work while at Wesleyan University. After graduating, he worked in New York doing communications and political work, including as the Communications Director for New York’s Working Families Party. He is married and has two wonderful children – Micah and Asher.

Matt Lerner
Matt Lerner is CTO of Front Seat Management, creators of www.walkscore.com. Prior to that, Matt led the team at Microsoft responsible for core parts of the Windows Vista user interface. While at Microsoft, Matt founded www.drivingvotes.org which helped thousands of people plan trips to register Democrats in swing states. Matt co-founded EQuill, which built software for Web development, and sold it to Microsoft in 2001. Matt has a degree in Computer Science from Brown University and was awarded a Fulbright fellowship.

Adam Ruben
Adam Ruben is the Political Director of MoveOn.org Political Action. He joined MoveOn.org in 2004 with the mission of engaging MoveOn’s 3.2 million members in election efforts. During the 2004 election, he launched Leave No Voter Behind, a neighbor-to-neighbor get-out-the-vote effort with 75,000 volunteers. On Election Day, MoveOn volunteers verified nearly half a million new or infrequent progressive voters showing up at the polls. In 2006, he created Call for Change, in which 100,000 MoveOn members around the country made 7 million phone calls to voters in swing congressional races, helping to tip many close races to progressive candidates. He also developed MoveOn’s $750,000 Bake Sale for Democracy in 2004, and appeared on the Today Show debating the merits of Fahrenheit 9/11. Until 2002, Mr. Ruben was the National Field Director of U.S. PIRG, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, where he ran national environmental and consumer campaigns on issues including Arctic protection, clean energy, wild forests, and clean air. From 1995-1999, he served as the Organizing Director for Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing, and was responsible for coordinating the campaign activities, trainings and supervision for the organizers.

Martin Collier
Martin Collier is founding Executive Director and a Managing Board member of the Glaser Progress Foundation created by Rob Glaser, CEO and Chairman of RealNetworks. At the Foundation, Collier oversees initiatives to: find better measures of social, economic and environmental progress; support independent and progressive media; and strengthen the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He is a Board Member of the National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture, Treasurer of Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media, and Advisory Board Member of Free Press. Before joining the Foundation, Collier was an analyst for the Washington State Senate and an attorney focused on business, environmental and consumer interest class action litigation. He resides on Bainbridge Island with his wife and son.

Aisling Kerins
Aisling is currently the GOTV Director for MoveOn.org Political Action. Before that she was the Associate Director for Futurewise, a statewide non-profit working to build great communities and cities, and protect farmland and open spaces. She served as the Campaign Director for the No On 933 Campaign, has worked on federal and legislative issue campaigns and 4 successful statewide initiatives, including serving as the Field Director for the successful Yes on I-297 campaign to clean up radioactive waste at Hanford — which received the highest winning vote margin in Washington State history. Previously, she was the Field Director for the Washington Public Interest Research Group (WashPIRG). Aisling serves on the board of the Women’s Political Caucus of Washington and Environment Washington and is a graduate of EMILY’s List Political Opportunity Program.

Kurt Guenther
For more 20 years, Kurt has helped clients reach the audiences they want with the messages they need to get results. Known for his enthusiasm and openness to new ideas, Kurt combines research with savvy about people in his broadcast, print, Internet, and overall strategy work. Health, education, conservation, women’s rights, workers’ rights, freedom of speech, national service, new sciences and world relief & development are among issues Kurt has worked with clients to promote, as well as Presidential, Senate and Gubernatorial candidates. Kurt is a founder of doingsomething , an all-volunteer network featured in the national media, two-term member of the Partner Board at his children’s public school, chair of communications for the board of the Washington Environmental Council, and a baseball/swimming/soccer dad. Kurt attended Occidental College and Boston University , where he graduated summa cum laude from the School of Public Communication with graduate work in advocacy. He lives with his wife, two children and a nice dog named Ty in Seattle.

Sandeep Kaushik
Sandeep Kaushik is a political, communications and public affairs consultant. He has worked on multiple political campaigns, including as communications director for the No on I-920 (estate tax repeal) campaign in 2006, the Not Another Elevated Viaduct campaign, as campaign manager for the the King County parks levies campaign in 2007, and more recently as a commincations consultant on the campaigns of Bill Sherman for King County Prosecutor and as a new media commuincations consultant on the Yes on Roads and Transit effort. He currently serves as spokesperson for Darcy Burner’s campaign in the 8th Congressional District of Washington and does public affairs work for Nyhus Communications. Between 2005 and April 2007, he worked as deputy communications director for King County Executive Ron Sims, and prior to that as a political columnist/writer for the Stranger and as the Seattle stringer for Time Magazine and the Boston Globe. He has a B.A. in history from Reed College and an M.A. in British history from Princeton University. He lives in Seattle’s Phinney Ridge neighborhood with his wife and two children.

Sharon Smith
Sharon is a Partner at River Run ventures, which just completed a large-scale condominium building in downtown Spokane. For 25 years, Sharon Smith led national operations and marketing efforts for hotel brands such as Hilton, Doubletree and Red Lion Hotels. Sharon served as Chairwoman of the Spokane County Democrats in the 2005/6 election season leading to election victories unparalleled in Eastern Washington in decades.