Board of Directors

Martha joined the ROP board in 2017. Although new to activism, Martha comes across as a seasoned organizer, with great instincts and a keen sense of strategy. She is one of the founders and leaders of Hood River Latino Network, serves on the leadership team of Gorge ICE Resistance and is one of the lead organizers of the Hood River Rapid Response Team. In addition to forming and organizing these groups, Martha has also organized rallies in support of Dreamers, served as a spokesperson during the hunger strikes at NORCOR regional jail, and helped organize other leaders in Hood River to meet with and challenge the mayor and county commission to take action on their local jail’s contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Martha hit the ground running with her activism and has become a true force in the Gorge. Her heart, commitment, and extraordinary instincts make her an incredible addition to our board, where she now serves as Chair.

Lisa is a long-time organizer and activist committed to practicing liberation in many forms through community celebrations, cultural organizing, and ongoing actions. She is a part of multiple groups in Corvallis, including the local Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) group and “Save Our Sunflower House,” a coalition working to save the long-time home of the Corvallis Multicultural Literacy Center. She also helped create Rapid Action Community Response (RACR), her town’s rapid response team. Lisa brings a deep grounding and thoughtfulness to her work and is a skilled facilitator, supporting groups through discomfort and conflict to find new ways of working and being together. Last spring, Lisa helped plan for and respond to white nationalist activity at the annual Solidarity Fair, even demanding they leave the park where they were attempting to disrupt the event and escorting them out of the area. A brilliant and strategic organizer, Lisa brings a depth of experience to ROP and serves as Vice-Chair of the board.

Joe’s politicization happened suddenly when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State on May 4, 1970. Joe was shot that day. He returns each year to the Kent State commemoration and gives talks about that day to local civic clubs and schools. Serving 15 years on the Scappoose School Board, 33 years at the City of Scappoose public works department and helping raise seven children, Joe has always been committed to engaging his community in justice and opportunity. Joe is one of the many members of Columbia County Coalition for Human Dignity (CCCHD) who was touched, shaped and inspired by ROP Founder Marcy Westerling and helps carry on a vision of human dignity organizing through CCCHD and as a regular volunteer. Sometimes you might even catch him in the car with an ROP staff person, joining road trips, meeting his peers and counterparts in other counties around the state. Joe serves as Treasurer of ROP’s Board of Directors.

Katie hails from California, then Maryland and now from rural Gillam County where she lives with her husband Tom, a farmer and rancher, and where they raised their three children, Jacob, Benjamin, and Annika. Katie taught Language Arts at Condon High School for eight years and is now taking a break from teaching, giving her more time for organizing, justice work, and the ROP Board! The United Church of Christ played an instrumental role in her understanding of social justice issues, and after the last election, she felt compelled to start Rural Voices (a private Facebook group) so that people in isolated counties of Eastern Oregon could have a safe place to ask questions, take action and discuss issues. Katie has been spearheading work in Gilliam County in support of hunger strikers at NORCOR, their county’s regional jail. With others, they have been raising critical questions: do we want our county public services to be used in a system to detain and deport community members? Is this really a priority for our community? Organizers like Katie, and questions like these, are the force that will get ICE out of NORCOR.

Stephanie grew up in the cornfields of Central Illinois before moving to Oregon and has lived in Redmond since 2015. She is a behavior specialist for children and adults that experience disability and is an advocate for reimagining the systems and institutions that are supposed to support youth and families to thrive. Her organizing experience started while navigating special education services for her own child and learning about the school to prison pipeline and the Dignity in Schools Coalition. In 2020, inspired by an ROP strategy session, she co-founded Redmond Collective Action, focused on human dignity, mutual aid, and increasing civic engagement in Redmond and Deschutes County.

Briana, (she, her) is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) and Afro-Puerto Rican. Her Indigenous name is Šápliš Hétsin (Shup-lish Hat-seen) which means “like a whirlwind”. She has been involved in activism since she was a child standing on the front lines on the streets or in board rooms with her family. She stepped into a more prominent leadership role as one of the lead organizers of Pendleton’s Black Lives Matter march. She has continued to support the movement and her community as the Founder of the Pendleton Community Action Coalition (PCAC), a Steering Committee Member for Luchadores por Cambio, and a Board Member for the Women’s Foundation of Oregon. Briana draws on her experiences of being a person of color, a woman/female presenting, living in poverty, being homeless and in foster care to be a strong advocate. She strives to show people with similar lived experiences that they too, can take up space and have a voice at the table.