Syd Beane is the Coordinator of the Minnesota Community Learning Partnership which is partnering with Minneapolis Community and Technical College on designing and launching Certificate and Degree programs in the fields of Community Organizing and Community Economic Development. In addition, MCLP is developing an articulation agreement which will enable MCTC graduates to transfer into programs in which they continue developing their knowledge and skills in Community Change.

Beane was the first Native American to be trained by the Industrial Areas Foundation, went on to direct citywide Indian Centers in Phoenix and Lincoln, and served as Western Regional Director with the Center for Community Change based in San Francisco. Member Santee Sioux Tribe of South Dakota with a MSW Graduate Degree from Arizona State University. His teaching experience includes instructor of community organizing at Arizona State University and San Francisco State. Collaborator /instructor with the Community Development Degree Program at Minneapolis Community & Technical College. He also is an independent documentary filmmaker.

Denise Fairchild is Executive Director of the Emerald Cities Collaborative in Washington, D.C., which is focused on the “greening” of American cities. She has dedicated over 30 years to strengthening housing, jobs, businesses and economic opportunities for low-income residents and communities of color domestically and internationally. In 1995, Denise founded the Community and Economic Development (CED) Department at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, as well as an affiliated non-profit community development research and technical assistance organization, CDTech. She helped launch the Regional Economic Development Institute (REDI), an initiative of Los Angeles Trade-Technical College to provide inner city residents with career and technical education for high growth/high demand jobs in the L.A. region.

From 1989-1994, Denise directed the L.A. office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and is credited with raising over $100 million in equity, grants, and loans for community-based housing and commercial development projects and, generally, with building the non-profit housing and community development industry in the L.A. region.

Denise’s civic and political appointments have included the California Commission on Regionalism, the California Economic Strategy Panel, the California Local Economic Development Association, the Urban Land Institute National Inner City Advisor, the Coalition for Women’s Economic Development and the Los Angeles Environmental Quality Board. She recently served as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s special advisor for South LA Investments.

Brian Murphy is the President of De Anza College, one of the nation’s premier community colleges which serves the region from Silicon Valley to San Jose. He is also the Distinguished Urban Fellow at the San Francisco Urban Institute (SFUI) at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and an Associate Professor of Political Science at SFSU. Murphy has served SFUI’s Executive Director, SFSU’s Director of External Affairs, and as Senior Advisor to the California State University’s chancellor with special responsibility for strategic planning. Murphy earned a B.A. from Williams College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, all in political Science. He has taught political theory and American government at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara University, and San Francisco State University. He has written in the areas of democratic theory, planning, and political economy.

Brian served as the Chief Consultant to the California State Legislature’s Review of the Master Plan for Higher Education, and was the principal consultant for the Legislature’s community college reform process in the late 1980s. He also served as Research Director for Caribbean Research at the Data Center in Oakland, and was a founding member of Faculty for Human Rights in El Salvador and Central America. A resident of San Francisco, Murphy serves on San Francisco’s Human Services Commission, Workforce Investment Board, was a Board Member of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, and earlier served on the Board of Directors of the Friends of Candlestick Point Park. He is married and the father of two sons.

Hector Soto is the Director of the Center for Neighborhood Leadership, a New York City based institute for the recruitment and training of local community organizers and emerging leadership for purposes of promoting locally directed, community-based change through civic engagement, civic participation and community organizing. The Center commenced operations in September 2009. The Center is a charter member of the national Community Learning Partnership, a national network that advocates for the creation of sustainable college and university certificate and degree programs concerning community change.

Hector, who is a lawyer by profession, has served as a Senior Fellow with the National Institute for Latino Policy as well as the Director of Policy and Advocacy for the Children’s Defense Fund – New York. For most of his career however, Hector has been engaged as an advocate or attorney, or both, on matters related to police oversight, police accountability and police-community relations. He has been the Executive Director of both the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board and the Philadelphia Police Advisory Commission. He presently also serves as an Adjunct Professor for the City University of New York, the John Jay College and Hostos Community College campuses, teaching courses concerning the Puerto Rican / Latino experience with US law enforcement, the criminal justice “system” as well as courses concerning law, police science, police community relations and civilian oversight of police.

Hector is a graduate of Queens College, the City University of New York, and the New York University School of Law. He is a member of various organizations and Boards in New York City including the Bronx-based Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, La Resurreccion UMC, and the newly formed 4DSBxCoalition (For the South Bronx Coalition).

Hector was born and raised in New York City. His proudest achievements are his two (now adult) children: his daughter, Amia, and his son, Roberto. He and his wife, Gladys, live in El Bronx.

Benny Torres is the newly appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Community Development Technologies Center (CDTech). CDTech is 501 (C3) non-profit focused on addressing issues of community and economic development in low-income areas of Los Angeles through a social justice lens that empowers residents and communities to rebuild them. Benny worked side-by-side with Dr. Denise G. Fairchild (previous President/CEO) over the past eight years to (1) build the Community Planning program at Los Angeles Trade-Tech College; (2) lead CDTech’s comprehensive community initiative in Vernon-Central; and (3) provide leadership to our Working Democracy Division as Vice President. He is recognized as a major social justice leader both locally and nationally through his extensive background and work in developing grassroots and youth leadership, school and community partnerships, as well as shaping community benefits agreements. He was instrumental in bringing the Public Allies program to CDTech, to build out the leadership and nonprofit workforce development pipeline in our underserved communities.

Benny is a faculty member and Director of the Community Planning Program at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. In this capacity, he has been responsible for the strategic planning and day-to-day management of the certificate and associate degree programs in community planning. He has ten years of experience teaching, curriculum design, student and faculty development and support at LATTC and is responsible for overseeing community outreach and student community service activities. He has utilized creative solutions to bring non-traditional students into the college and developed bilingual programs to provide courses for groups like the Promotoras de Salud (Health Promoters) and other immigrant communities of South Los Angeles.

Benny’s relevant prior experience includes two years at the Multi-Cultural Education Consortium in Santa Barbara where he developed and coordinated a project to diversify public school faculty and curriculum in the secondary school district and implemented Chicano/Latino and African American studies courses. He was the Youth Leadership Director for La Casa de La Raza in Santa Barbara. A program designed to teach youth community organizing and leadership training to address issues impacting at-risk youth. Most recently, from 1997 to 2002, he served as project director for the MultiCultural Collaborative Community School Initiative program in the Watts community of Los Angeles. He developed programs in the area of community capacity building and leadership development and served as technical assistant and trainer to their community outreach efforts with an emphasis on building grass-root African American and Latino leadership cadres. Benny holds a bachelors degree from the University of California Santa Barbara and is completing his Masters degree in Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University.

Benny is committed to building leadership capacity in South Los Angeles and serves on the Board of Directors of key organizations; Strategic Action for a Just Economy (SAJE), Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE), Figueroa Community Land Trust and the For Chicana/o Studies Foundation. Benjamin lives in Echo Park, where he proudly grew up and lives with his long-time partner Juana Mora and his daughters Aurelia and Camila Valentina.

Maya Wiley is the founder and Director of the Center for Social Inclusion, a national policy advocacy intermediary organization which works to dismantle structural racism. The Center for Social Inclusion sees the roots of racial inequity in the landscape of public policy: racial injustice in its primary form is not about individual attitudes, but about collective decisions that shape how resources are allocated. CSI develops ideas, builds leadership and moves public will to promote structural transformation on racial, gender and class equity, ultimately increasing prosperity for all.

A civil rights attorney and policy advocate, Ms. Wiley graduated from Columbia University School of Law in 1989. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College in 1986. She has litigated, lobbied the US Congress and developed programs to transform structural racism in the US and in South Africa. Prior to founding the Center for Social Inclusion, Ms. Wiley was a senior advisor on race and poverty to the Director of U.S. Programs of the Open Society Institute, and helped develop and implement the Open Society Foundation -- South Africa’s Criminal Justice Initiative. She has worked for the American Civil Liberties Union National Legal Department, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. in the Poverty and Justice Program and the Civil Division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. She currently serves as Vice Chair of the Tides Network Board and has previously served on the Boards of the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota School of Law, Human Rights Watch and the Council on Foreign Relations.