BORDC Staff
Staff and board (left to right): Allen J. Davis (Board Secretary), Kit Gage (Board), Ben Grosscup (East Region Organizer), Michael Berg, Nancy Talanian (Director), Chip Pitts (Board President), Hope Marston (West Region Organizer), Glenn C. Devitt (Board Treasurer), Barbara M. Haugen (Administrator), Flavia Alaya (Board), and Krishna Bhavsar (Board).
Nancy Talanian is a co-founder and the founding director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. She is an experienced activist and professional writer who saw the potential for converting local successes in western Massachusetts into a national movement and worked as a volunteer to develop the web site and launch the movement. She has continued to translate the constituencies’ needs into strategies, tools, and information for local committees and new constituencies. Through her work and writings on civil liberties topics, and as a speaker at national and regional forums, she has helped build a coalition of organizations dedicated to the restoration of civil liberties. Her previous activism focused on helping to end apartheid in South Africa and military dictatorships in Nigeria and Burma.
Ben Grosscup, East Region Organizer, reaches out to communities in the Eastern United States to provide assistance to local organizing efforts. Before he joined the national BORDC staff, he worked for the Northeast Organic Farming Association, Massachusetts Chapter, to assist farmers and consumers around Massachusetts in passing town resolutions on and promoting awareness of agriculture and ecology issues. Ben brings experience in community organizing, media relations, and web-based media.
Hope Marston, West Region Organizer, maintains
contact with community committees and other constituencies in the
western U.S. and develops materials for distribution via BORDC's
web site and newsletter. Before she joined the national BORDC staff,
she organized successful city and county resolution campaigns with
the Lane County (OR) BORDC in 2002 and 2003, organized and facilitated
several statewide workshops and meetings, and was a catalyst for
grassroots civil liberties education and action in the Pacific Northwest.
Hope also brings to BORDC 20 years of experience as a former television
documentary and news producer.
Barbara Haugen, BORDC's Administrator, provides
office and technical support, updates BORDC's website, coordinates
intern and volunteer work, and assists with a variety of ongoing
research projects. She also helps develop action alerts and educational
resources, and serves as the managing editor of BORDC's monthly
newsletter. Before joining BORDC, Barbara worked as a VISTA lawyer
with the Legal Aid Society of Albuquerque, NM; as minister of the
Unitarian Universalist Church of Pittsfield, MA; and as assistant
to the director of MassAudubon's Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary in Easthampton,
MA.
Board of Directors
Advisory Board