Over the last 15 years, Jess has played almost every role at the Rural Organizing Project, first as a human dignity group leader, then on the Board of Directors, she joined the staff as an organizer in 2011, then became Organizing Director, Co-Director, and now serves as ROP’s Executive Director. Not knowing at the time that it was called organizing, Jess began organizing with her peers in high school to launch a successful campaign to end mandatory viewing of Channel One, which launched an ongoing student group that led campaigns on immigrant rights and interrupting the poverty draft. As an ROP organizer, Jess worked with some of the most rural communities in Oregon to fight for the commons from post offices to libraries, to organize and counter organize in frontline communities reeling from vigilante and state violence and white nationalist organizing, and to advance experimental campaigns at the intersections of racial, economic, and social justice. Mobilizations of paramilitaries in rural Oregon and beyond led her to research and publish analysis on Oregon’s far-right organizing, including co-authoring Up in Arms: A Guide to Oregon’s Patriot Movement. Jess has had the privilege to keynote local, statewide, national, and international movement gatherings like the Citizen Participation University in Kunbábony, Hungary, and has shown up at the invitation of organizers looking for emergency strategic organizing support in the border zone, in rural Appalachia, and beyond. Under Jess’ leadership, ROP’s model has evolved to include a rural, decentralized staff team to better organize, support, and collaborate with our members. Send Jess an email at jess@rop.org.