Our Leaders
Fueling the Movement
Volunteers
Volunteers are the Grassroots Engine of Braver Angels!
Braver Angels National Team
Kira Barone
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Kira Barone joined Braver Angels in August of 2021. She leads the finance team and oversees budgeting, audits and strategic financial forecasting. She has worked most of her career with non-profits especially start up non-profits or those in phases of rapid growth. She grew up in Iowa and now lives in Vermont with her husband and two daughters.
Maggie Bayless
MODERATOR TRAINING COORDINATOR
Yvonne Boyd
ORGANIZER CALL COORDINATOR
Bill Doherty
CO-FOUNDER
Elizabeth Doll
DIRECTOR OF BRAVER POLITICS
Wendi Dressen
DIRECTOR OF VOLUNTEER ENGAGEMENT
Wendi Dressen has nearly 30 years of experience leading volunteer engagement in mission-driven, national, and multi-site organizations, with a focus on building inclusive, relationship-based systems that help volunteers feel valued, connected, and effective.
She holds a Master of Liberal Studies in Aging Studies from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Gustavus Adolphus College. Outside of work, Wendi enjoys new experiences, travel, great food, and life with her three adult children and one beloved pup.
Nicole Garzino
CHIEF DEVELOPMENT & MARKETING OFFICER
Across her 20+ year career, Nicole has helped both social impact and for-profit organizations launch new initiatives, mobilize volunteers, and design strategies for growth and engagement, drawing on tools from human-centered design and strategic foresight. Nicole lives near the Sierra foothills of Northern California and loves exploring the outdoors and history of the nearby Gold Country. As a mother of three young adults and a middle-schooler still at home, she enjoys traveling across the United States, especially with her youngest to teach him about our country’s history and communities.
Maury Giles
Chief Executive Officer
Maury Giles is a husband, a father of ten in a blended family, and a Red who now lives in Salt Lake City, UT. For two decades, Maury started and scaled mission-driven organizations and built high-trust teams across partisan divides. He also volunteered with Braver Angels for five years, moderating Red/Blue workshops and leading bipartisan legislative initiatives through Braver Politics. Now, he’s the CEO of Braver Angels.
Eliza Hawkins
EVALUATION TEAM COORDINATOR
Eliza Hawkins started volunteering with Braver Angels in 2019 and quickly got involved in the evaluation team to help out with the feedback forms. She moved into the coordinator position in January 2022. She holds a Ph.D. in journalism and mass communication and teaches media ethics at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. As an adjunct faculty member at BYU, she also conducts research on depolarization when she is not taking care of her four children, dog, cat, and chickens.
Martin Hunke
WORKSHOP DELIVERY MANAGER
Casey Jorgensen
Strategic Projects &
Events Coordinator
David Lapp
Director of National Initiatives
David spent several years interviewing working-class Ohioans about their life experiences and families before helping to start Braver Angels. David lives with his wife Amber and six children in South Lebanon, Ohio, the home of the first-ever Braver Angels workshop in December 2016.
Natalie Laroche
Program Manager of Debates
Natalie Laroche is Program Manager for the Braver Angels Debate Team. She began at Braver Angels as an intern, later joining staff in 2022. In her current role, Natalie oversees the National and Local Debate Leadership teams. develops and facilitates training for field leaders, and manages the debate internship program. Natalie holds a B.A. in Government from Smith College, where she also completed a concentration in Community Engagement and Social Change. She grew up in Maine and currently lives outside Washington D.C., where she enjoys spending time outdoors and reading.
Stan Levine
DEV TEAM
LEADER
Stan Levine leads the DEV Team that ensures that all of our workshops are properly developed and maintained. He is also a member of the National Tech Team, the Training Team, the Help Desk Team, and the Event Development & Delivery Team. Stan spent over 30 years working for the Department of Defense as a member of the Senior Executive Service. He grew up in New Jersey, spent 12 years in the Pentagon, and now lives with his wife in North Carolina.
Jessica Lowe-Minor
DIRECTOR OF
DEBATES
Jessica Lowe-Minor came to Braver Angels in February of 2026 after years of work in the civic engagement sector. She has served in both staff and volunteer leadership roles with the League of Women Voters, and she worked for over a decade in nonprofit capacity building, first as the Executive Director of the Institute for Nonprofit Innovation and Excellence and later as the Co-Founder of a nonprofit consulting firm called Capacityworks. Based in Tallahassee, Florida, Jessica lives with her husband, two daughters, and multiple pets.
Mark Metzger
CONVENTION DIRECTOR
AND ARTS COORDINATOR
Mark Metzger joined Braver Angels in 2022. In 2023, he oversaw operations and logistics for the Braver Angels National Convention in Gettysburg, PA, led the arts initiatives Four Score: A Memory Play and Braver Lens: Amateur Photography to Heal American Divides, and managed day-to-day operations of the National office.
Charles Naumer
Chief Programs Officer
Charles Naumer serves as Chief Programs Officer for Braver Angels, helping the organization strengthen and scale the programs that bring Americans together across political divides. He has spent much of his career working with civic and social-sector organizations, with a focus on systems, technology, and organizational capacity. He brings to Braver Angels a blend of organizational leadership, research, strategy, and operational experience. In this role, Charles is focused on supporting staff and volunteers as they help make courageous citizenship a lived practice in communities across the country. He holds a Masters degree in Public Policy and Ph.D. in Information Science.
Sam Rechek
DIRECTOR OF
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
Sam Rechek came to Braver Angels in January 2025 as a program coordinator on the Debate Team. In May 2025, he transitioned to the Director of Strategic Partnerships role. Sam spent his college years advocating for civil discourse and free expression on campus, and it was his student leadership that first put him in touch with Braver Angels. He has worked with national nonprofits such as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and Heterodox Academy. Sam is a Wisconsinite whose hobbies include eating, gormandizing, and noshing.
Steve Saltwick
INAUGURAL
SENIOR FELLOW
Mary Beth Stibbins
DIRECTOR OF
EVENT COORDINATION
Mary Beth Stibbins is the Director of Event Coordination at Braver Angels, where she leads the national team responsible for organizing and supporting hundreds of workshops, skills trainings, and public events each year. She has a passion for creating meaningful spaces for dialogue and works with volunteers across the country to host events that foster connection and reflect Braver Angels’ mission to bridge the partisan divide. Mary Beth is also trained as a psychotherapist and life coach. She lives in Washington state.
Andrew Stillman
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY
OFFICER
Barbara Thomas
CHIEF OPERATING
OFFICER
Barbara Thomas is a retired U.S. diplomat with 20 years of experience in strategic planning, operational oversight, personnel development, crisis management, cross-cultural communication, policy advocacy, and organizational reform. A native Minnesotan, she and her husband have five children and three grandchildren.
Mary Thomas-Vallens
MODERATOR FORUM
COORDINATOR & BRAVER ED LEADER
Mary Thomas-Vallens is a lifelong educator with extensive experience in curriculum and staff development. She taught in public schools for 41 years, as well as graduate-level courses at Chapman and Concordia Universities. She led workshops exploring the teacher behaviors and questions that best foster students’ intrinsic motivation, critical and creative thinking, and academic and interpersonal success.
Today, she co-facilitates the Moderator Forums and leads the BA Education Community Network. Mary loves engaging others through workshops and encouraging high schoolers to be “Braver Teens.
Kacee Van Horn
Director of
Foundation Relations
Kacee Van Horn is a development specialist certified in Nonprofit Executive Leadership, with over 15 years of experience strategically developing fundraising initiatives and leading high-performance teams. As Director of Foundation Relations at Braver Angels, Kacee manages the grants program, building and stewarding relationships to ensure the mission and work of Braver Angels is fully funded and always growing. Kacee also serves on the board of a national nonprofit in the disaster response sector and is a writer, avid reader, and artist. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband, three daughters, and three grandchildren.
Wilk Wilkinson
DIRECTOR OF
MEDIA SYSTEMS & OPERATIONS
Wilk’s journey from adversity to success in his career, marriage, and parenting exemplifies the transformative power of perseverance and self-improvement. As the Director of Media Systems and Operations, Wilk plays a pivotal role in shaping national dialogue through conversations, storytelling and strategic media. His podcast, Derate The Hate, complements this mission by offering practical tools and authentic conversations that inspire personal growth and civil engagement.
John Wood, Jr.
NATIONAL AMBASSADOR &
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
John Wood, Jr. is a national leader for Braver Angels. A 2014 Republican nominee for congress in the 43rd district of California, a former Vice-Chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, an opinion columnist for USA Today, host of The Reconstruction Project on KBLA 1580 in Los Angeles, and a noted writer and speaker on philosophical nonviolence, philosophical conservatism and race relations in American society, Wood has been a leading public voice in the movement to bridge the divide for nearly a decade.
He also serves as an ambassador to The American Project (an initiative of the Pepperine School of Public Policy), is a member of the Progress Network (an initiative of the New America Foundation), is a field builder with New Pluralists and a scholar and activist with the 1776 Unites project (an initiative of the Woodson Center). Wood is also a singer and jazz trumpet player, with a storied family background in American popular music.
Board of Directors
Maury Giles
CEO OF BRAVER ANGELS
Sandra D. Kresch
CEO & PRESIDENT,
PSD International Inc.
Manu Meel
Co-Founder & CEO of BRIDGE USA
Glenn T. Stanton
Director of Global Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family
Thomas K. Sylvester
General Counsel, Hedera; Chairman,
Braver Angels Board of Directors
Anne Ferrell Tata
Delegate, Virginia House of Delegates
Advisory Council
Meet the leaders from across the ideological spectrum who are helping Braver Angels make courageous citizenship the honored norm of American civic life.
Melody Barnes
Founding executive director of the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy
Mónica Guzmán
Bridge Builder, Journalist, and Author
Gov. Spencer Cox
Governor of Utah
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick
Pennsylvania Congressman
Dean Phillips
Former Rep. for Minnesota's 3rd congressional district
Rep. Tom Suozzi
New York Congressman
Cornel West
Union Theological Seminary
Pete Peterson
Dean of Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy
Jonathan Haidt
Author & Social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business
Tim Shriver
Chairman of Special Olympics and UNITE
Yuval Levin
Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute
Amanda Ripley
Author, Journalist, and Co-founder of Good Conflict
David Blankenhorn
Founding president of Civic Life and Co-Founder of Braver Angels
Jonathan Rauch
Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer for The Atlantic
Alvin Wang Graylin
Global Technology Strategist
Keith Allred
Executive Director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse
Donna Hicks
Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University
Paul Edwards
Director of the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University
Layla Zaidane
President & CEO of Future Caucus
Vince Stango
President and CEO of the National Constitution Center
R. Scott Stephenson
President & CEO Museum of the American Revolution
Jim Ferrell
Founder of Withiii Leadership
