Experience & Leadership
My career has taken me from frontline and volunteer service into program management, executive leadership, national research and planning, clinical social work, and board service. The roles changed, but the central question stayed similar: how do we build systems that actually help people?
I produced daily operational reporting and dashboards tracking shelter capacity, service pressure, resettlement locations, service infrastructure, and community readiness. I also worked on medical and social-service capacity assessments, referral-system consultation, federal-contract analysis, and management of a 10-person case-management team supporting refugee employment partnerships in Arizona.
I progressed through Program Coordinator, director-level leadership, and ultimately Executive Director in 2023. At the executive level, I led a $12 million annual multi-site humanitarian reception system serving up to 1,800 asylum seekers nightly with 62 staff and more than 600 volunteers. The work included staffing, logistics, transportation, funding, risk, data systems, community engagement, media communication, partnerships, and adapting quickly when policy or arrival patterns changed.
What I value most from that experience is not only the scale. It is the relationships and trust that made the scale possible. County and federal partners, nonprofits, faith communities, volunteers, funders, staff, and the people we were receiving all had to be part of the same response.
I helped design and support referral mechanisms, shared data practices, reporting structures, and program metrics connecting border and interior service organizations. The work required understanding what different agencies needed, where their workflows did not line up, and how to create a shared structure that people could actually use.
I managed border-response programs and partnerships, contributed to planning and allocation within a $7 million response portfolio, and supported monitoring, coordination, and implementation across partner organizations in the U.S.–Mexico border region.
I now practice as a Licensed Master Social Worker in Tucson. I see that work as connected to the rest of my career. Direct practice gives me a closer view of trauma, family systems, access barriers, and what organizational decisions feel like when they reach a real person.
I currently serve on the Center for Victims of Torture Board of Directors and as Board Secretary for Kaleidoscope Humanitarian Aid. Historical professional biographies also document service on the NASW Arizona Board and co-chairing the Refugee Council USA Asylum Task Force.