2017 dpcf conference
Keynote | Mayor Andrew Gillum
Mayor Andrew Gillum is a nationally-recognized progressive champion. At the age of 23, he became the youngest person ever elected to the Tallahassee City Commission, and in 2014 he was elected Mayor of Tallahassee.
He has governed as a forward-looking Mayor, including winning a legal battle with the gun lobby to prevent people from shooting weapons in Tallahassee’s public parks; welcoming same-sex couples to get married in Tallahassee when they were denied marriage licenses in other parts of Florida; standing up to President Donald Trump on “sanctuary cities,” and criticizing his lack of action on climate change.
As Mayor, he has also led Tallahassee’s push to build a 200-acre solar farm, which will triple the city’s solar energy capacity, and has worked to ensure that Tallahassee is the innovation capital of Florida. He has prioritized vocational training programs so every student and worker, regardless if they choose to attend college, can secure a high-paying job.
Under his leadership, President Obama’s White House designated Tallahassee as one of two TechHire cities in Florida, and just one of 50 in the nation, to expand local tech sectors by building tech talent pipelines in communities across the country. 2017 dpcf conference
panel | Building Bridges
Jessica Vaughn is a certified elementary school teacher, a progressive activist, the president of the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Tampa Bay, the mother of a strong-willed four-year-old, a champion of public education, and an elected Bernie Sanders delegate who is now running for Hillsborough County School Board District 6.
After graduating from the University of South Florida with a B.A in Elementary Education in 2010, Jessica began her career as a 1st grade teacher. In 2012, after the birth of her first, she used her teaching certification to become a substitute teacher in the 8th largest school district in the country.
In 2016, Jessica became heavily involved in Tampa’s Bernie Sanders campaign and was elected to moderator be a Bernie delegate in the 2016 Democratic National Convention. After the convention, sensing that progressives need a place within the Democratic Party, Jessica set out to start the Democratic Jessica Vaughn Progressive Caucus of Tampa Bay and was elected president in September 2016.
In November 2016, Jessica was also elected as Tampa Palms CDD Supervisor in Seat 5, where she works with four other board members managing a three million dollar budget.
Inspired by Bernie Sanders, Jessica is now combining her passion for public education and her dedication to reflective democracy to run for Hillsborough County School Board District 6.
Jessica currently lives in Tampa Palms with her husband and four year old. Her hobbies include filmmaking, painting, photography, nature, board games, traveling and helping to push the Democratic Party to the left. 2017 dpcf conference
panel | Building Bridges
Donna Davis is a highly experienced community organizer that has done amazing work in several places including Denver, St. Louis, New York, and Tampa (to name just a few).
Since moving to Tampa, she has co-founded the Black Lives Matter Tampa chapter, helped lead the charge for the Tampa Civilian Review Board, and Black lives is an active participant in the Community Protection Coalition. Donna also matter, tampa works as a professional organizer for a nationwide organization. Donna Davis 2017 dpcf conference
panel | Building Bridges
Marcus Klebe graduated cum laude from Amherst College in 1996 before attending New York University School of Law where he was awarded a J.D. in 1999.
Marcus practiced corporate law for nearly ten years in New York City, Frankfurt, and San Diego before starting his legal practice, San Diego Legal Strategy. Skilled in alternative dispute resolution, Marcus convened more than 100 successful mediations in New York. action Arriving in Tampa almost five years ago to support his wife’s career, Marcus took a break togehter, from the corporate world as a stay-at-home parent to focus on raising his four children. Although he canvassed for Hillary Clinton in the final weeks of the campaign, Marcus tampa bay found new focus and urgency in the results of the November election. Marcus Klebe Marcus joined Pantsuit Nation Tampa Bay and was elected Political Advocacy Task Force Officer.N ow called Action Together Tampa Bay, the group is active all over Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties and has more than 5,000 members dedicated to serving their communities. ATTB is a progressive grassroots political and social advocacy organization run entirely by volunteers. 2017 dpcf conference
panel | Building Bridges
Over the last decade, the Rev. Dr. Russell L. Meyer has led Florida’s mainline churches in public witness for the commons. He works with a multi-faith commitment from a holistic perspective to accent the values of our shared humanity. His doctoral work focused on designing community conversations that lead to collective action. The doctoral project helped Christian Churches Together in the USA prepare to observe the 50th Anniversary of Letter from Birmingham Jail. He chairs the local ecumenism network for the National Florida Council of Churches and leads statewide interfaith efforts on climate, council of healthcare, juvenile justice, and civic engagement. He is an advocate of One churches Tampa Bay – a model of communal intention for the wellbeing of all in the Rev. Dr. Russell bio-region. He is a leader in anti-racism work in the Lutheran church. L. Meyer Rev. Meyer has dual ministry roles. He is the Pastor of the New Parish of Tampa (St. Paul and Faith Lutheran Churches), ministries of renewal focusing on urban justice. Since 2005, he has served as Executive Director for the Florida Council of Churches. He also serves as the minister for Ecumenism and Advocacy for the Florida-Bahamas Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Previously, he served congregations in Lakeland; Charleston; Towson, MD, and Wantagh, NY. 2017 dpcf conference
panel | Building Bridges
Marina Welch is a full-time mental health nurse whose passion for women led her to volunteer as the captain of the Tampa/Hillsborough chapter of Women’s March Florida in November 2016. Women’s March Florida is a group of women who inspired the organizing of 18 sister marches in Florida and sent more than 27,000 Floridians to Washington, D.C. for the most attended march in history.
Welch’s responsibility as captain extends to four areas, including Tampa, Brandon/ women’s Valrico, Lakeland/Polk, and Pasco. Together with other Florida captains, Welch created Women’s Way Forward, a grassroots organizational model dedicated to protect those march at risk and those who have been dehumanized by the corrupt agendas of hate, bigotry, Marina Welch deregulation, and intolerance. The model has been adopted in other states, in Canada, and in London.
Welch is inspired by the women in her life, beginning with her mother who showed her that every human being deserves respect and kindness. She continues to be inspired by the women she encounters at work and through her affiliation with Women's March Florida. Welch believes it is the people who can make the country and the world better by being more accepting and embracing differences.
In her spare time, Welch enjoys traveling and experiencing new cultures. She has toured Europe and South America, and is planning her next adventure which includes visiting all U.S. National Parks. Welch was born in Frankfurt and is a naturalized U.S. citizen. 2017 dpcf conference
training | Media in the Age of Trump
Joel Silberman comes to political communications from a disciplined theatrical and musical career and is a widely respected media strategist and trainer for progressive organizations, activists and candidates.
Among his clients are: Progressive Congress, Earthjustice, Van Jones / Rebuild The Dream, Women Donors Network, People for the American democracy Way Foundation, the Young Elected OfficialsN etwork, Media Matters for partners America, the New Organizing Institute, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Joel Silberman Defamation, the National Women’s Law Center, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, The Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, Markos Moulitsas, Nate Silver, Mike Lux, Lt. Dan Choi, GetEQUAL, Matthew Segal, and numerous Federal, State and Local elected officials. Mr. Silberman is on the faculty of the Women's Campaign School at Yale University and is a frequent guest lecturer at the Juilliard School in New York. 2017 dpcf conference
training | Media in the Age of Trump
Vicki Roush brings a lifetime in the musical theatre, radio, TV, and music performance, along with special events moderating and commentary to the training table.
Having heard the call, she knocked on the door of mentor Joel Silberman for guidance, and now embarks on another exciting career chapter - Vicki Roush helping to get progressive Democrats elected to office. 2017 dpcf conference
breakout | Media in a Box
Brook Hines is an advertising professional from the creative side of the agency. A writer, designer, photographer with more than 20 years’ experience crafting campaigns and concepts for clients ranging from hospital chains and financial services, to liberal arts colleges, retail restaurants, music magazines, and even a radical nuns. progression As co-owner of Progression Partnership, Brook offers communication arts and partnership, media/marketing strategy for non-profits, unions, interest groups, issue campaigns, dcpf comms candidates and selected start-ups. director Brook Hines Former associations include Alan Grayson for Senate Campaign, Director of Community Business Association, Orange Co DEC Executive Board member, and leadership community as Orlando co-Director of New Leaders Council.
Writes for The Florida Squeeze, and contributes to Progressive News Network as political correspondent. Follow at Flickr or @nashville_brook on Twitter. 2017 dpcf conference
breakout | Media in a Box
After managing one Congressional campaign and consulting on another during his final semester at San Diego State University, Mario Piscatella was hooked on campaigning. Since graduating with a B.A. in Political Science, Mario has worked on dozens of campaigns for Congress, US Senate, State Legislature, Governor, and Mayor and with hundreds of candidates, campaigns, and organizations.
A founding board member of the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida, Mario dcpf left us briefly to helpN ew Hampshire Speaker Terie Norelli pass her legislative agenda founding in support of working men and women across the Granite State. The cornerstone of member this work was the passage of the New Hampshire Health Protection Program, which has already provided health care access to more than 50,000 low income Granite Mario Piscatella Staters through the Medicaid Expansion provisions of the Affordable Care Act.
Mario returned to the DPCF board in 2016 and is based in Saint Johns County. He specializes in management, strategy, and communications. 2017 dpcf conference
breakout | Legislative Session Update
Representative Sean Shaw was born and raised in Tallahassee and has been a resident of the Tampa Bay community for the past six years. He graduated from Princeton University in 2000 with an A.B. in Politics and graduated from the University Of Florida Levin School Of Law in 2003 with a J.D. In 2008, he was appointed as Florida's Insurance Consumer Advocate by Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink. In that capacity he managed fifteen dedicated state employees committed to protecting Florida families and businesses on insurance matters. Representative Shaw currently represents policyholders at the Merlin Law Group and is a public champion for policyholders as the founder of the Policyholders of Florida, a statewide consumer advocacy coalition. He has been a passionate consumer advocate for the last decade, both inside and outside of the courtroom. florida state In August 2016, he was elected State Representative from District 61, which encompasses East Tampa, representative Ybor City, Progress Village, Seminole Heights, and parts of West Tampa. Representative Shaw has Sean Shaw immersed himself in his community through mentorship, which he believes is a key element to our youth’s success. Representative Shaw is a strong proponent for fair wages and economic opportunity. In addition, he is committed to closing the gaps in the public school system and ensuring that all kids have access to the best education needed to obtain a bright future. He also believes in affordable access to high quality healthcare.
Representative Shaw is a member of St. Johns Progressive Missionary Baptist Church, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., Hillsborough Education Foundation, the Saturday Morning Breakfast Group, Tampa Organization Black Affairs, GeorgeE dgecomb Bar Association, Project NOW, and numerous other civic organizations. He is licensed to practice law in Florida and Washington D.C. and is authorized to appear before any state or federal court in the state of Florida. He is also the proud son of the late Leander J. Shaw Jr., the first African- American Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court. 2017 dpcf conference
breakout | Party Structure
Nancy C. Jacobson is a founding member of the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida and has served on the DPCF Board since 2011. She served as DPCF Treasurer from 2011 to 2015. She has been active at the local, state and national levels of the Democratic Party, serving as an elected DNC Member for Florida from 2009-2017 and State Committeewoman of the Orange County Democratic Party from 2004-2016. At the Florida Democratic Party, Nancy served on the Budget & Finance Committee from 2009-2017; the Rules Committee from 2005-2017 (as Vice Chair from 2011-2017); Select Committee on Rules Reform (Chair) from 2015-2017; and was Nancy C. a member of the Legislative, Campaigns, and Clubs and Caucuses (Vice Chair) Committees. She is a retired attorney and progressive Democrat, who, like so many others, was galvanized Jacobson into action by the events surrounding the 2000 Presidential election. She organized for Howard Dean from 2003-2004 and was the organizer in Orlando for Democracy for America (DFA) from 2004-2010. She has been a monthly contributor to DFA for at least a decade and to Progressive Campaign Change Committee (PCCC) since their formation.
In addition to supporting many progressive policy initiatives, Nancy has focused considerable organizing and advocacy energy on three key areas which pose a foundational threat to our democracy: (1) assaults on election integrity; (2) campaign finance excesses; and (3) redistricting abuses. Nancy was active in election protection campaigns to limit the use of touch-screen voting machines in Florida and in the 2005-2006 and 2009-2010 citizen initiatives to put fair-districting amendments on the ballot. 2017 dpcf conference
training | Budgets, Finance, and Low Dollar Fundraising
Nancy Hurlburt is the Political Committee Chair for the Democratic Women’s Club of Florida, a position held since November 2014. Prior to that, Nancy served as DWCF's 1st Vice President and continues to be the Bylaws Chair and VAN Administrator for DWCF.
Currently, Nancy is Chair of the Lake County Democratic Party and the President of the Democratic Women’s Club of Lake County. Nancy was elected Vice Chair of the Lake County Democratic Executive Committee in 2007 and completed a 4-year term as DEC Chair (2009-2012) in Lake County during which time she received FDP's "Golden Gavel Award - A Legacy of Leadership." Nancy was a delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. Political Committee As National President of Business & Professional Women/USA in 2004-2005, she represented BPW/ Chair, USA at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions; at a convening of the US Women’s Democratic Chamber of Commerce; a White House Project debriefing; as a delegate to the NU during the US Women’s Club Commission on the Status of Women’s Beijing+10 Conference; and, as a panelist to the Democratic Nancy Hurlbert Women’s Caucus Committee Hearing on Social Security. Nancy was one of twelve women nationally who comprised BPW/USA's ERA Task Force from 2005-2008.
Nancy is “retired” after nearly four decades in the civil engineering field. Prior to retiring in May 2003, she was a vice president, partner and civil engineer with Williams, Hatfield & Stoner, Inc., a consulting firm in South Florida with 6 offices and 75 employees. She had been with WHS for 34 years and handled marketing, public presentations for new projects and was responsible for design, permitting and construction of land development, public institutional and recreational projects. Born and raised in Cincinnati where she attended the University of Cincinnati as the only female in her engineering classes in the late 1960s, she has been a resident of Florida since 1972. 2017 dpcf conference
panel | DPCF Stories of Success and Challenges
Michael Calderin is a native Floridian and technologist who, at 26 in 2006, was the youngest person in the country on the ballot in a congressional race. He served as a committeeman on the Miami-Dade County DEC and helped found and lead the Florida Netroots Coalition, an organization that helped pave the way for the DPCF. He has since become a husband to a woman with more patience than she gives herself credit for and a father to a daring young daughter. He has built a career as a respected leader in the field of moderator technology and cybersecurity. Michael is an active DPCF board member and Michael Calderin led the caucus’s 2016 endorsement efforts.
After moving to Broward, Michael became a founding board member of the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Broward County. In 2016, he was elected precinct committeeman to the Broward DEC, where his peers recently made him the City of Miramar area leader. 2017 dpcf conference
panel | DPCF Stories of Success and Challenges
Tom Conboy, Vice President of the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida, has been organizing on a local and state level for the past 10 years. He is a small business owner and resident of the City of West Palm Beach. Tom is the President and Principal Engineer of South Florida Engineering and Consulting LLC. He is an internationally experienced Professional Engineer and Project Manager in the field of WaterR esources. Tom has been the Co-organizer of DFA Palm Beach County for more than 10 years. He has been Co-organizer of AWAKE Palm Beach County for 6 years. He was the first FDP VAN Director and then the firstT raining Director for the Palm Beach County DEC, where DPCF Vice Tom implemented impressive organizational achievements in a short period of time, President where there had previously been very little structure in place. The Palm Beach County DEC now has one of the best training programs for precinct development in the state. Tom Conboy Tom built a solid passionate team that carried on and continued to build the program four years ago when he went to Kenya for a 6 month contract to work with refugees. Since coming back from Kenya, Tom has focused more energies on building the Caucus, building an engineering firm, and organizing local progressives.
Tom, Hillary Keyes, and other Palm Beach County DFA members were instrumental in inspiring the formation of the DPCF. They lined up Alan Grayson to keynote our inaugural meeting, which was a huge success with standing room only crowd at 7:00 AM Saturday morning. Tom Conboy has served as the DPCF Vice President from the beginning and has put a significant amount of time, energy, and ideas into the Caucus. 2017 dpcf conference
panel | DPCF Stories of Success and Challenges
Born in Argentina, Thomas Kennedy came to the United States with his parents at the age of ten, first living inN ew Jersey before settling down in Miami.
After living as an undocumented immigrant for over a decade and seeing the daily struggles his parents overcame in their daily lives in order to have chair, miami- a better life, Thomas became involved in student activism and immigration dade people’s progressive reform advocacy. caucus Thomas Kennedy He currently works with SEIU Florida, as a fellow for The Community Center for Change Action (CCCaction), and is the Chair of the People’s Progressive Caucus of Miami-Dade. 2017 dpcf conference
panel | DPCF Stories of Success and Challenges
Erika Grohoski Peralta is a first generation American and Miami-Dade native who is the current Outreach Chair for the Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee and the Outreach Chair of the People’s Progressive Caucus of Miami-Dade. For years, she has been standing up for progressive values within her community. She graduated from the George Washington University in 2013 with her B.A. in Sociology. As a student, she was involved in Occupy D.C. and the Progressive Student Union. Upon graduating, she became a fellow in energy policy with Earthworks, focused on anti-fracking initiatives. After moving back to Miami in early 2015, she became active in the anti-fracking movement in Florida, interning miami-dade with Re-Think Energy Florida and organizing a lobbying trip of South Florida residents to Tallahassee. DEC, people’s progressive She then became active with online groups encouraging Senator Bernie Sanders to run caucus for President. When he announced his candidacy in late July, she spearheaded volunteer Erika Grohoski efforts around Miami-Dade for his campaign, eventually running the county field office and Peralta introducing him at his South Florida rally. After the Florida presidential primary, she worked as the Deputy Political Director for the Tim Canova for Congress Campaign. Following the Florida Congressional primaries, she joined Color of Change PAC as the Florida Digital Field Director, where she worked to get out the vote in Black communities for Hillary Clinton and other down ballot candidates like Aramis Ayala, Florida’s first black female State Attorney in Osceola County. Most recently, when Mayor Gimenez capitulated to Donald Trump’s executive orders on immigration, she and others participated in a solidarity fast with the immigrant justice and faith communities to highlight the plight of Miami’s undocumented peoples. She currently sits on the steering committee of the Miami Climate Alliance and is helping to organize what will be the biggest climate march in Florida. 2017 dpcf conference
panel | DPCF Stories of Success and Challenges
Born and raised in Tampa, Paul Stolc has degrees in History from Florida Atlantic University and Russian & East European Studies from Florida State University. Paul has spent the last eight years working as an Investigator for the Florida Board of Bar Examiners in Tallahassee.
Passionate about social welfare and justice, Paul started volunteering with president, big the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2015. His devotion to the progressive bend DCPF Paul Stolc cause led Paul to serve as a Delegate Alternate for Senator Sanders at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, join the Leon County DEC where he is currently the Chair of the Constitution & Bylaws Committee, and found the Tallahassee-based Big Bend Democratic Progressive Caucus where he serves as President. 2017 dpcf conference
panel | DPCF Stories of Success and Challenges
Mike Shlasko was born in Cleveland, grew up in the New York City area, and moved to Sarasota County twelve years ago. In the 1960s, Mike worked for Eugene McCarthy; demonstrated for justice, equality, and peace; and took over campus buildings and ran from tear gas and billy clubs. Then he got married, had kids, had a long career in IT, flew two million miles doing business with government agencies, and eight years ago, retired. president, sarasota- charlotte He just retired yet again, after eight years on the board of his homeowners’ DPCF association. Despite losing a county-wide election in 2016, Mike is proud Mike Shlasko of the 85,000 votes he received. He is currently on the board of the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida, the Venice Area Democratic Club, and the non-partisan Sarasota Alliance for Fair Election PAC, which is spearheading a charter amendment petition drive. Mike also serves as president of the Sarasota-Charlotte Democratic Progressive Caucus and was recently elected State Committeeman of the Sarasota DEC. 2017 dpcf conference
panel | DPCF Stories of Success and Challenges
OnDrew was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs. He has been an unapologetic progressive Democrat throughout his adult life and always found creative ways to participate while also working in various construction trades. In 2008, he ran for a village board seat and also sat on the Downtown Riverwalk Development Committee. president, Four years ago, OnDrew moved to Polk County. He is a millennial, a polk county DPCF small business owner, precinct committeeman, community organizer, and OnDrew Hartigan President of the Polk County Progressive Democratic Caucus.