Senior Consultants
We are proud to have long-lasting relationships with professionals locally and nationally who offer their talents and dedication to our projects. Our senior consultants and facilitators have expertise in the following areas: project management, government relations, public policy, community outreach, online engagement, organizational development, meeting facilitation, meeting design, meeting and event planning, technical directing and organizing.
Gabriel A. Arteaga is the co-founder of Create&, focused on teaching organizations and social entrepreneurs design thinking, lean business principles, and storytelling to launch their big ideas. He has facilitated design sprints to develop products, services, and strategic plans to effectively implement the clients’ vision within scope, budget, and timeline. This process incorporates devising strategies for sustainable, long-term value and growth for our clients by building, leveraging, and managing vital innovation ecosystems. Gabe previously worked with District Representative, U.S. Congressman Eric Swalwell’s Office between 2013 – 2015 to create collaboration with nonprofit and private sector organizations to host awareness campaigns, discuss policy concerns, and draft Federal legislation like the Main Street Revival Act.
Chris Berendes has broad experience in both information technology and citizen engagement and has served as a project manager and consultant for a range of government agencies and private organizations. He has helped to design social media strategies for numerous online campaigns and done research on the best ways to integrate the news media, public engagement and digital platforms to involve citizens who have dropped out of the political process.
David Campt is a well-known facilitator who has worked across the country leading large scale programs for dozens of different national organizations. He has worked as a consultant to numerous universities, foundations, and institutions that seek to improve how they interact with their constituents. He has a national reputation as a skilled facilitator of inter-racial dialogues and is also particularly skilled at utilizing audience response devices in the work he does with group of all sizes.
Daniel Clark has over 16 years of experience managing stakeholder and citizen engagement in government planning and policy making. Most recently he served for five years first as senior associate, then deputy director at AmericaSpeaks. Prior to that, he worked for the Northern Illinois Planning Commission for five years and ran his own urban planning consulting firm, All Together Planning serving the Chicago metropolitan area. He has managed large-scale citizen and stakeholder engagements at the national, regional, and local level throughout the country.
Laura Gramling has had a successful career as an organizational development consultant and has broad experience helping to organize and facilitate a wide range of public meetings. As president of EnSpark Consulting, she provides interactive meeting technology to help transform meetings and make them more productive. She is also a past president of the Chesapeake Bay Organizational Development Network.
Hala Harik Hayes has more than ten years of experience working in the public and nonprofit sector with particular focus on designing, facilitating and managing large-scale interactive meetings. She began her work doing citizen engagement with the Neighborhood Empowerment Initiative started by Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams. She then joined AmericaSpeaks as a staff member and for seven years (and as a senior consultant for four more) helped to organize and produce a wide range of town meetings and other innovative engagement activities in Washington, DC and around the U.S.
Melvin Moore has over 15 years of experience as a project and event planner, coordinating and implementing small- and large-scale meetings, conferences, and summits. He has been the cornerstone of online and virtual meeting implementation. He is a dedicated and technically skilled business professional with a versatile administrative support skill set developed through experience as an office manager, meeting & event planning, secretary, administrative assistant and office clerk.
Vickey Wilcher is a certified executive coach and member of the International Coach Federation. She has over twenty years of experience with citizen engagement in the Washington, DC area. She has worked in all eight wards of the city to coordinate outreach for numerous political campaigns, ballot propositions and large scale town meetings. She has also worked as a senior associate with AmericaSpeaks to help organize programs throughout the Washington metropolitan area. She is an experienced community outreach professional and facilitator who works effectively in a variety of small and large group formats.