Cynthia Ward, Executive Director
Cynthia Ward is Executive Director of Northeast Action. She began organizing as a VISTA volunteer in 1980, developing local health care campaigns to win access to health care for the uninsured. For four years she served at the Director of the Campaign County Health Care Consumers. In 1986, moved to Mass Fair Share, leading an uninsured organizing project that contributed to the state passing a major new initiative to expand coverage to the uninsured and the working disabled. Cynthia joined the Northeast Action staff in 1991 to develop a network and policy support arm for progressive elected officials. Major campaigns included creating a progressive jobs agenda for the Northeast to counter the conservative "better business climate" agenda solution and corporate subsidy accountability campaigns that resulted in passing some of the most advanced disclosure legislation in the country. Since becoming Northeast Action's Executive Director in 2000, Cynthia has led Northeast Action's increased focus on organizational infrastructure building for our affiliates and allied organizations. Program components include: strategic planning, power analysis, relational organizing, staff and leadership development, and registration and mobilization of infrequent voters.

David Desiderato, Field Director
David is a long-time progressive activist in the Hartford community and statewide. David was Research Director for the Connection Citizen Action Research Groups for 7 years, providing key support on issues of housing, energy and environmental policy. He served for four years as Executive Director of the Hartford-based Citizens Research Education Network and a year as Staff Director for the Hartford City Council Democratic Caucus. These positions and his ongoing community work make him a valuable resource on local organizing and urban policy initiatives. David joined the Northeast Action staff in 1992, as the health care project director. With his support, Northeast Action's coalitions made health care a signature issue, leading to passage of some of the most expansive state programs for covering the uninsured in the country. David has played a key role in the development of Northeast Action's Training program, bringing our curriculum to new audiences across the Northeast. David has also played a significant role strengthening Maine People's Alliance's strong membership and active leadership programs.

Cindy Suarez, Field Director
Cindy brings a wealth and variety of community building work to Northeast Action. In positions as varied as MassChoice political organizing consultant to Bay State Banner reporter, Cindy has developed skills as a talented organizer and trainer. Working with Inquilinos Boricuas en Accion, Cindy built community coalitions to increase Latino youth academic achievements. At the Boston Foundation's Community Building Network, she helped disenfranchised communities design collaborative processes to drive community change. At the Interaction Institute for Social Change, a nationally known institute in designing collaborative practices, Cindy further developed her skills as a trainer and facilitator. Since joining the Northeast Action staff in 2004 as our Training Director, Cindy has helped bring these new practices to our network. She redesigned our basic organizing curriculum and has led numerous highly successful trainings. She has also provided key support to new organizers, especially organizers of color, in the region.

Carin Schiewe, Field Director
After working with Mass Fair Share for several years, Carin worked with Massachusetts NARAL where she cut her teeth on electoral organizing. When a position as Director of the newly created Commonwealth Coalition opened, Carin was first in line to apply. For almost 20 years, Carin led the Coalition. With her involvement in over 100 campaigns, she is respected as one of the most able electoral consultants in the state and region. Under her leadership, the Commonwealth Coalition launched several important projects to expand democratic participation in the state. Mass Voters for Clean Elections helped make clean elections a household word in the state. Voter Power and BostonVote created a new successful model for expanding the voter franchise. Since stepping down as Commonwealth Coalition Director in 2002, Carin has been a key part of the Northeast Action staff team as a half-time consultant. She provided strategic hands-on support to New Hampshire Citizen Alliance's impressive 2002 and 2004 civic engagement programs. She also designed and conducted civic engagement training for organizations in four states. Carin's talents have been tapped by other key civic engagement efforts. In the past several years, she has worked on consulting projects such as coordinating the Boston Foundation's Civic Engagement Initiative, evaluating 2004 civic engagement programs for the Proteus Fund , providing consulting support to Oieste, a Massachusetts organization promoting Latino civic engagement, and helping staff the Proteus Fund's "Blueprint" project in Maine.

Felix G. Arroyo

Felix has been working professionally in public service and organizing for over eight years. For four years he served as Legislative Aide to Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, where he worked on issues like redistricting, CORI reform, and Quality Schools. He took leaves from Councilor Turner's office to work on the Campaigns of former City Councilor Felix D. Arroyo and former Gubernatorial Candidate Warren Tolman. In September of 2004 Felix joined SEIU Local 615 as Political Director. At SEIU Felix was responsible for all of the Local's lobbying work, electoral work, and ensuring that the membership was active and educated on political issues that affect their families and communities. Felix is also active in his community, where he is a volunteer youth baseball coach, elected board member of the Jamaica Plain Community Center, and elected member of the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council. He did his undergraduate studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston and completed his Master Degree in Community Economic Development at Southern New Hampshire University.