Marty Miller

President

Washington

Marty Miller is the executive director of the Yakima-based Office of Rural and Farmworker Housing (ORFH), a nonprofit housing developer and Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) serving rural Washington. He has more than 20 years of affordable housing development experience. Mr. Miller also is active in advocacy and serves on several boards including the National Rural Housing Coalition and the National Farmworker Housing Directors Association. He has a master’s degree in economic development from Eastern University in Pennsylvania.

Frank Bravo

Vice President

California

Frank Bravo is the community lending officer for First Republic Bank. He has more than 20 years of banking experience, which includes an in-depth understanding of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), multifamily mortgage revenue bonds and Low Income Housing Tax Credit programs. He also has more than 16 years of experience in community and affordable housing development, economic development and financing. During the past nine years, Mr. Bravo has focused on bringing financial resources to rural communities of California, specifically farm worker housing and infrastructure finance. Mr. Bravo’s most recent assignment calls for the development and implementation of a community lending strategy for First Republic Bank’s bicoastal markets. Mr. Bravo currently serves on the boards of the Kings County Management & Development Corporation and the California Community Reinvestment Corporation. He has a bachelor’s degree in biological science from University of California, Davis.

Carleen Herring

Secretary

Idaho

Carleen Herring is the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s representative for Idaho and Nevada.  Prior to joining EDA, Ms. Herring spent more than 33 years working for Region IV Development Association, a nonprofit economic development organization located in Twin Falls, Idaho. At the Association, she focused her rural community development career on infrastructure finance and small business lending. Retiring in 2019 as the Association’s president, today, Ms. Herring continues to support rural constituencies by working on issues that impact sustainability across Idaho and Nevada.

Ms. Herring holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and business administration from Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois.

Claudia O’Grady

Treasurer

Utah

Claudia O’Grady has been involved in community development, and particularly affordable housing solutions, for more than 22 years. She began her career working for a Utah-based nonprofit developer of affordable multifamily housing, where she served as the executive director for more than a decade. The organization focused on small project development in rural communities throughout Utah. Later she joined Homestead Capital, a regional syndicator of Low Income Housing Tax Credits, where she developed investor relationships and placed equity investments in tax credit housing throughout the Intermountain West. Since 2009, Claudia has served as the vice president, multifamily financing, for Utah Housing Corporation, the state housing finance agency. She oversees the state’s housing credit program and multifamily lending programs. Ms. O’Grady also serves on the Salt Lake City Redevelopment Advisory Commission where she helps create redevelopment strategies in blight areas. She holds a bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard University.

Robert Apodaca

Board Member

New Mexico

Robert Apodaca currently is the Con Alma Health Foundation vice chair and the San Ildefonso Development Corporation chair. He is a Native American Budget and Policy Institute Board member and was a New Mexico Rural Energy Transmission Authority Board member.

Previously, Robert was president for New Mexico Communities in Schools where he represented underserved communities and volunteered with schools to assist with food drives, fundraising, mentorships and more. He worked closely with Indigenous communities to support economic and community development, strategic planning, funding and infrastructure development.

Andrés Cano

Board Member

Arizona

Andrés Cano is currently pursuing his Master’s in Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the former Democratic Leader in the Arizona House of Representatives, where he represented District 20 (Tucson) from 2019 to 2023.

Raised by a single mom, Andrés, 31, saw a path for advancement in Arizona’s public schools. He is a first-generation college graduate. Prior to elected office, Andrés served as a senior aide to Pima County Supervisor Richard Elías from 2012 to 2018. In this role, Andrés prioritized juvenile justice reform, public health, and neighborhood infrastructure.

In the Arizona legislature, Andrés served on the House Committee on Ways & Means, in addition to the House Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, & Water.

From 2020 to 2023, Andrés served as the Director of the LGBTQ+ Alliance Fund, a philanthropic initiative of the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona. During his tenure, he raised $1 million to support the Fund’s grant-making in Southern Arizona.

Andrés will complete his graduate studies in May 2024.

Kate Hammarback

Board Member

Oregon

Kate has worked in community and economic development for more than 15 years, leading work that spans the nonprofit, private and public sectors with a special focus on community development finance. Kate’s multi-sector background in program development, relationship management, project execution and fundraising gives her a unique perspective on problem-solving, collaboration and investment. She has worked closely with multiple foundations to develop and execute their impact investing programs helping clients brainstorm, develop, execute and manage impact investing strategies that help them grow their mission and meet their financial goals.

Kate has underwritten more than $20 million of impact loans to small business and affordable housing intermediaries in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii. As a Community Development Financial Institutions’ advocate, she has worked to increase equitable access to capital for underserved entrepreneurs and supports initiatives focused on wealth redistribution. Kate became involved in the Oregon Capital Scan, a statewide report on capital access for business across the state, in 2016 and continues to advocate for statewide access to capital. She is also a Ninety-Nines international organization of women pilots member. Kate has master’s degrees in both business and public administration from the University of Oregon and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Keoni Lee

Board Member

Hawaii

Keoni Lee is the chief executive officer of Hawaii Investment Ready, a nonprofit impact investing intermediary working at the nexus of purpose, business and culture to restore regenerative abundance to Hawaii’s economy. HIR supports purpose-driven impact enterprises (for-profit and nonprofit) and the funders of impact in Hawaii to strengthen and scale their impact through a variety of programs and services for capacity building and impact capital deployment. Prior to joining HIR in 2019, Keoni was a successful social entrepreneur having co-founded ‘Ōiwi TV – the first Native Hawaiian language and cultural television station and media production company – where he spent over a decade producing news stories and documentaries in and about Native communities throughout Hawai’i and around the world.

Keoni has a MBA from the Shidler College of Business at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. His leadership accomplishments garnered his selection as a fellow to the Omidyar Fellows program, the First Nations Futures Program, and the Just Economy Institute. He was awarded the 2021 Investor of the Year by the Hawaii Venture Capital Association and named to the 2022 class of 20 for the Next 20 by Hawai’i Business Magazine. He is a member of the Toniic Institute, the global action community for impact investing, and serves on numerous nonprofit boards with a focus on impact in education and local food systems.

Doris Morgan

Board Member

Colorado

Doris Morgan is a retired congressional staffer with 21 years of experience. She began her congressional work in 1990 and retired in 2014.
Her expertise was in public awareness, problem solving and working through the red tape of federal agencies and Congress. She was well known in the sixteen county area as the “go to” staff person.

Doris successfully completed numerous educational classes while working in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate to expand her knowledge on the operations of congressional offices and Congress. With over 100 hours of comprehensive education courses, she earned the Cooperative Credentialed Director, Board Leadership Certified, and holds the Director Gold Credential from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. This assisted her in building knowledge and to govern on a local electric cooperative provider board.

Her work in serving Colorado Members of Congress, San Isabel Electric Cooperative Board, Action 22 President, and Colorado Boys Ranch Foundation has proven she was open and straightforward with the people she served. Her rapport led to a higher level of communication and trust with constituents, electric consumers, co-directors and associates.
Doris has been acknowledged for her networking and rapport within all communities in SE Colorado and across Colorado. Her desire is to continue learning, to be challenged to learn more and contribute in a manner that will make a difference in rural communities.

Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer

Board Member

Alaska

Jackie, an Iñupiaq from Kotzebue, Alaska, is the community development manager at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. For a decade she has worked across Alaska holistically infusing indigenous knowledge into a variety of sectors in which she has experience, including comprehensive planning, energy, housing, water security and sanitation, and climate change adaptation for rural communities. Her passion is to serve the indigenous people of Alaska and provide an indigenous perspective to all her work, including the importance and recognition of traditional philosophies, knowledge and lifestyles.

Jackie received her fashion degree from the American College in London, Residential Space Planning certificate and studied interior design at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. She has co-authored six regional energy plans for the state of Alaska and has worked with Newtok and Kivalina on community relocation due to climate change. She authored the Oscarville Tribal Adaptation Plan in 2019 and continues to serve the Tribes of Alaska in her current capacity.