Team Bios

Ishmael is a recognized national leader and respected facilitator at the intersection of culture, place, and community building.

With an applied social and racial equity lens, Ishmael seeks to cultivate relationships and environments—physically, professionally, and interpersonally—for stakeholders with diverse backgrounds to connect and learn from one another. His work on Black-affirming and culturally responsive placemaking has been featured in workshops, panel discussions, and trainings for urbanist networks across the country. Ishmael specializes in facilitating large and intimate-scale community planning efforts that require strategic development, consensus building, placemaking, economic development, and citizen advocacy for government, nonprofits, and communities. Born in Colombia and raised in Canada, Ishmael is proud to call Seattle home and holds a Master of Urban Planning from the University of Washington.

Ariam brings a decade of experience leading social change movements through the lenses of sustainability, data, and social justice.

Ariam has spent her career working with local governments and nonprofits to develop urban and rural planning solutions that create the conditions for community health—socially, economically, and environmentally. As a previous executive director for an environmental justice nonprofit, she worked to create inter-generational wealth through vacant land reclamation in Pittsburgh. Her superpower is building teams and coalitions with mission clarity, emotional mindfulness, situational awareness, performance outcomes, and mutual respect. She has a technical background in geospatial statistics and has worked as a military master planner doing land use planning for army bases. Ariam is originally from Maryland and holds a Master’s in City Planning from Boston University and a B.A. in History from the University of Virginia.

Andrés brings over 20 years of experience in facilitation, policy development, data analysis, and engaging diverse stakeholders and communities.

Andrés’ expert facilitation skills and ability to bring policy leaders, stakeholders, and the community to consensus have been instrumental in the success of multiple statewide, agency-led projects. His extensive experience working closely with policymakers and elected officials informs his deep understanding of social justice and equity initiatives. He previously served as Director of the City of Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods, leading community engagement initiatives for the city across transportation, housing, and homelessness initiatives. He has directed projects focused on homelessness policy development, engagement, and grant distributions, all of which included robust engagement strategies. Andrés holds a B.A. from the University of California Santa Barbara in Latin American Political Studies and Spanish.

Troy leads and manages enterprise efforts to incorporate equity into the clean energy transition. He previously led corporate compliance, privacy and other enterprise functions including operational training, quality management, project, portfolio and performance management functions.  

He is a seasoned executive with demonstrated leadership, operations, performance management, continuous improvement, fundraising, strategic planning, and public policy skills.  He has a diverse career as a commissioned army officer, hospital nurse, association and non-profit executive, national and state leader on workforce development, senior agency and corporate executive, and internal leadership consultant.  Troy maintains a consistent focus on improving the customer experience, empowering and supporting staff, building strategic communities, developing high performing business architectures, and a culture of innovation and creativity.  He is a trustee on the Seattle Children’s Health System board where he is on the executive committee and chair of the Quality and Medical Staff Oversight committee. Troy has a degree in nursing from Seattle University and a law degree from the University of Washington.