About Us

Alex Brennan (he/him)

Executive Director

Kate Brunette Kreuzer (she/her)

Director of External Affairs

Marcella Buser (she/her)

State Organizer

Brooke Frickleton (she/they)

Deputy Legal Director

Michelle Pappas

Spokane Program Manager

Millicent Rhoades

Bookkeeper

Jazmine Smith

Director of Local Advocacy

Susannah Spock

Water, Fish, and Wildlife Program Manager

Tim Trohimovich (he/him)

Director of Planning and Law

Bryce Yadon

Government Affairs (Contract)

Angela Compton (Pierce County)

President

On the board since 2020, she currently serves as President (2025) and previously Vice President (2023-2024) and External Affairs Committee Chair (2020–2021). A former Futurewise staff member (2017-2019), Angela led advocacy initiatives advancing affordable housing, transit, and environmental justice. In her current role with King County Metro Transit, Angela focuses on healthy culture change as part of the Organizational Health and Development team; and Angela has been a member of the Elections Committee for The Urbanist since 2024.  With a background in Peace Education, Public Policy, and Public Service, Angela is passionate about creating programs that build livable, inclusive communities. She believes real change happens when people tackle tough questions together to create meaningful solutions. Outside of work, Angela loves wilderness backpacking, baking treats, and taking transit. Whether at work or out exploring, she brings energy, creativity, and a love for connection to everything she does!

Alex Shannon (King County)

Vice President

Alex has been attending Futurewise events since 2016 and became involved in the Board in 2021. Alex’s passion is in protecting the natural environment and stewarding water resources, particularly making sure that communities have access to clean and safe drinking water and wastewater. Alex is an SVP and WSP’s water business line lead for its 31-state West Region. In this role he oversees a team of 200 professional engineers, a $50M revenue budget, and $60M in sales. In this role, he is responsible for driving growth, profitability, overseeing project delivery and delivering innovative client solutions, supporting team members, and managing operations in the water practice. His technical background is in water economics, finance, and capital projects. Fun fact, Alex met his husband at a Futurewise event!

Janae Huber (Thurston County)

Secretary

Janae has served on the Futurewise Board since 2021 and has been the board secretary since April 2024.

She is the co-founder of Olympians for People-Oriented Places (O-POP), an organization dedicated to making Olympia, Washington a vibrant, well-planned city. Janae has coordinated successful advocacy campaigns, community forums, and positive public discourse on challenging civic issues, including “missing middle” housing and the event series Olympia Design Month. In 2017, she served on the City of Olympia’s Downtown Strategy Stakeholders Group. She has been the chair of her neighborhood association, and was a two-term Council-appointee to the Olympia Arts Commission.

Janae is also a seasoned arts administrator. She oversees the care and conservation of the State Art Collection for the Washington State Arts Commission (ArtsWA), where she has been the collections manager since 2005.

Veronika Meiers (Columbia County)

Treasurer

Veronika is the founder and CEO of Strategy Northwest, a strategic marketing agency that helps connect local farmers with their community to strengthen our fresh food network in the PNW. Also founder of Mountain Man Sourdough, a sourdough bakery located in Eastern Washington that sources all ingredients for their sourdough products from Washington, Veronika spends a majority of time working alongside farmers and those in the local food community in this beautiful place we call home. A longtime advocate and volunteer with Futurewise, Veronika had the honor to begin to serve on our Board in 2024. An urban density and farmland preservation enthusiast, Veronika is excited by the impactful work Futurewise is doing and knows this important work will continue to improve the quality of life for all who reside in Washington for generations to come!

Maricela Sanchez (Benton County)

Past President

Maricela Sanchez, MD was born to a Mexican immigrant family in the Yakima Valley. Growing up, she worked together with her family as migrant farm laborers picking crops throughout Washington State.

After graduating from the University of Washington, she worked as a middle school teacher with the Teach for America program.

Dr. Sanchez went on to receive her degree in medicine from Stanford University and completed residency and fellowship in anesthesiology at Columbia University. She has returned to live in Eastern Washington where she practices medicine and serves on the Prosser City Council. She is passionate about safe, walkable neighborhoods and improving active transportation. Maricela served as Futurewise’s Board President 2023-2024.

Andrew Houston (King County)

Legislative Committee Chair

Ace is an architect and urban designer who is passionate about changing the way people live in cities and is focused on creating places where individuals thrive together and culture is celebrated. A mixed-race and queer individual, his appreciation of culture also expands to his interests: he loves eating all types of cuisine, enjoys foreign music and films, and speaks five languages. You can usually find him around Seattle listening to new music, coming up with a new design idea, or trying a new restaurant. Ace is a resident of Seattle, however as a 6th generation Texan also spends time in his adopted hometown of Austin.

Mark Wainwright (King County)

External Affairs Committee Chair

Mark has been engaged with land use in and out of work for over 20 years starting with neighborhood planning in his West Seattle neighborhood in the early 2000s. As a fundraising and business development professional, Mark’s focus with Futurewise is to build a sustainable and successful culture of support, generosity, and gratitude throughout the staff, board, and community of donors.

Anthony Gill (Spokane County)

Legal Committee Chair

Anthony is a Spokane native and economic development professional. In 2014, he started Spokane Rising, an urbanist blog about ways to make his hometown a better place to live, inspiring conversations around housing, transportation, and arts and culture. Over the past few years, his writing has been featured in The Urbanist, Range, The Inlander, and Spokane-Coeur d’Alene Living. While he now splits his time between Spokane and Seattle, his heart will always be in the inland Northwest. In his off time, you’re likely to find him exploring quirky neighborhood districts or skiing at Schweitzer or Crystal Mountain.

Charmila Ajmera (King County)

Charmi is an environmental justice advocate and professional based in the Duwamish Valley. After completing her MPA at the UW Evans School, she worked closely with the environmental justice coalition, Front & Centered, to help write and ultimately pass the state’s first environmental justice law of its kind – the Healthy Environment for All (HEAL Act) in 2021. Since then, she has transitioned to a role within the Washington State Department of Health leading the implementation of this law across the agency. Having lived in a number of places impacted by contamination and pollution, Charmi is passionate about the ongoing struggle for healthy and safe communities, climate resilience and adaptation work, and she is dedicated to uplifting the priorities and needs of communities on the frontlines of these changes.

Ron Davis (King County)

Ron Davis is an entrepreneur, policy wonk, political consultant, and past candidate for Seattle City Council. He is focused on making his community a place where anyone can start a career, raise a family, and age in place without breaking the bank. He has a JD from Harvard Law School and lives in Northeast Seattle with his wife — a family physician — and their two boys.

Randy Lewis (Pierce County)

A native of Tacoma, Randall served as the Government Relations Officer for the City of Tacoma for 28 years, coordinating the city’s relationships with local, regional, state, tribal, and federal agencies and legislative bodies. Randall started his career as a reporter and newscaster at several radio stations in Washington and Oregon before beginning his government relations work during 8 years as the Government Issues Director for the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce. Perhaps foreshadowing his service on the Futurewise board, Randall’s time at the chamber included working for initial passage of the Growth Management Act and then helping Tacoma’s efforts working with all the other cities in Pierce County to begin their planning efforts under the new law by establishing the first countywide planning policies.

Randall and his wife frequently vacation in Scotland.

Tianna Martinez (Pierce County)

Tianna is an advocate to the core, with experience rooted in human and social services, spanning front line case management to supervising case managers and project management experience in both supportive housing and emergency housing environments. She is inspired by the vision of a tomorrow where farm to table food, affordable housing, inclusive infrastructure for multiple modes of transportation and available transit options, and natural spaces, wildlife habitats are all an accessible reality. She currently serves as a Case Resource Manager at the Washington State Department of Social and Health Serves. Tianna joined the Futurewise board in 2024.

Rian Watt (King County)

Rian Watt is the Executive Director of the Economic Opportunity Institute, a Seattle-based public policy think tank. In addition to serving on Futurewise’s board, Rian serves on the board of The Urbanist, where he also previously served as Executive Director. Rian is also a former Seattle Planning Commissioner, and has worked on housing and homelessness issues in a number of different professional roles. He rents in Capitol Hill with his wife, son, and two cats.

Ginger Wireman (Benton County)

Ginger joined the Board in 2018. A resident of Richland (Tri-Cities) she has seen the region double in size since she moved back from college in 1993. The Tri is now the fourth largest metro in the state. Ginger helped found the Tapteal Greenway, cleaning up public lands and improving public access to the Yakima River. She regularly participates in local planning activities and fights to preserve local transit funding. In 2021, she started Tres Ríos Community Land Trust with the goal of providing affordable and missing middle homes to people with moderate incomes. In addition to volunteering, she works to protect Washington’s water and improve fish habitat. She has an MS in Environmental Studies and BA in Advertising from California State University Fullerton.