Team
Paul Getsos
PROJECT DIRECTOR
Paul is an experienced organizer who has worked on economic, racial, and climate justice issues over the course of his organizing career. He has experience building organizations, winning campaigns that have delivered concrete improvements in people’s lives, and is the author of the book, Tools for Radical Democracy – How to Organize for Power in Your Community.
Matthew Montelongo
WRITING / DEVELOPMENT
Matthew is a professional freelance writer and development consultant. With more than two decades of experience he has helped dozens of non- and for-profit-projects fine-tune their messaging, draft internal and external communications, and secure millions of dollars in funding.
Nemo C
DIGITAL DIRECTOR
Nemo is an artist and digital strategist with experience working with progressive organizations developing digital programs, campaigns, leading trainings on everything from web design to data management to ads. He has worked in food and environmental justice, tenant rights, anti-corruption, music for social justice, and electoral organizing. He holds two Math degrees and is a Music Producer.
Micayla Ter Wee
NATIONAL ORGANIZER
An Iowa native, Micayla has organized college students for reproductive rights and education and helped organize around local and regional issues across the midwest and farther afield. She was part of the effort to win South Dakota’s first local mask mandate in response to Covid-19; she organized meetings between community members and elected officials in South Dakota, Iowa, and Utah; and she has organized to provide basic services for local immigrant and refugee populations.
Dave Bushaw
IOWA ORGANIZER
Dave is a rural organizer who has worked with unions, on Get Out the Vote campaigns, and most recently with Senator Sanders’ presidential campaign. Dave is an Iowa resident who, as proprietor of Solidarity Fields, is one of the youngest first generation farmers in the country.
Olivia Thomas
DIGITAL ORGANIZER
Olivia graduated from Fort Lewis College with degrees in political science and Spanish. She’s run 2 city council campaigns in Durango, Colorado and most recently managed HD 59 State Representative Barbara McLachlan’s winning campaign. She’s lived in Colombia and Mexico working with Indigenous communities reclaiming their land and migrant folks heading North. She plans on returning to Colombia before settling back down in the US to continue organizing and abolition work.
Leanette Galaz
MONTANA ORGANIZER
Leanette Galaz is our Montana organizer and lives in the Flathead Valley. She has her B.A. in Sociology from Stanford University and is trained as a facilitator and a facilitative mediator. She has previous experience working in after school programming in historically oppressed communities in Boston and Portland. Leanette is raising two girls, and recently produced and acted in a local play parodying small town problems in Whitefish, MT. By day she gardens and gathers plants in the forest and by night she transforms into a karaoke queen.
Drew Cooper
UTAH ORGANIZER
Drew’s a community organizer passionate about increasing working people’s power to make decisions in their communities. Before UTST, he was the Program Director at the Rural Utah Project where he built and ran voter registration and civic campaigns that mobilized thousands of voters across Utah. He lives and works from his home in San Juan County in southern Utah. Find him floating down the San Juan or admiring a desert sunset when he’s not talking to Utahns about winning funds for their communities from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or the Inflation Reduction Act.