Press

New members join Task Force board of directors

Date: 
January 26, 2010

MEDIA CONTACT:
Inga Sarda-Sorensen
Director of Communications
(Office) 646.358.1463
(Cell) 202.641.5592
isorensen@theTaskForce.org

Four new members to serve on board of country's oldest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights organization

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Foundation is pleased to announce the addition of new board members, which occurred at the organization's January meeting in Washington, D.C. The Task Force is the oldest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights organization and a leading progressive voice for full LGBT equality.

New Board Members

Liebe Gadinsky (Miami, Fla.)

Liebe Gadinsky is dedicated to building community through her volunteer efforts. She has distinguished herself as a strong supporter and advocate for human rights. Through her volunteer work for SAVE Dade in Florida, she worked tirelessly to help pass and defend the Miami-Dade human rights ordinance. She has served on the board of governors of the Dade Community Foundation since 2006 and is currently vice chair. She also serves on the foundation's GLBT Community Projects Fund advisory board — a collaboration with the Task Force — the grant-making initiative providing support to local organizations serving the Miami-Dade community. Gadinsky has been with her husband, Seth, for three decades, and together they have raised two daughters, Naomi and Natasha.

Kierra Johnson (Washington, D.C.)

Kierra Johnson is the executive director of Choice USA, an organization that mobilizes and provides support to the upcoming generation of leaders promoting and protecting reproductive choice. Johnson has been featured on RH Reality Check, Feministing.com, In These Times as well as the Washington Informer, Washington City Paper and the New York Times. She was the 2002 recipient of the Young Women of Achievement Award from the Women's Information Network (WIN) and served as a member of the board of Medical Students for Choice from 2003 to 2006. She is currently on WIN's advisory committee and is a member of the Women's Health Leadership Network with the Center for American Progress. Johnson served as a delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention and in 2009 was recognized in Washington Life Magazine as one of the Most Influential Washingtonians Under 40.

David Price (Miami, Fla.)

David Price has more than 15 years of international sales experience. He has traveled extensively in Asia Pacific, Europe and Latin America and lived in Colombia as an expatriate employee. He currently works in global account sales for a leading technology company based in San Jose, Calif., where he served on the leadership board of the LGBT employee resource group. Price has been involved in the local community for several years. He has served on the Miami Recognition Dinner Committee since 2006 and as co-chair of the committee in 2008 and 2009.

Ken Thompson (Seattle, Wash.)

Ken Thompson is a program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle, Wash., where he manages a portfolio of grants focusing on youth in the Pacific Northwest. He has worked in a variety of positions at the foundation since 1998, including managing the foundation's research services, and as designer and manager of its Community Access to Technology efforts in Washington state from 2001 to 2007. Thompson previously worked in libraries, in technology, and in the arts. He has master's degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Washington. He served on the Pride Foundation's Shareholder Activism Committee since 2005. He helped start Equal Rights Washington in 2005, serving on its board of directors for three years, and in his concluding year served as board president. Thompson lives in Seattle with his partner. As part of a binational couple with only temporary legal status in the U.S., he is an advocate for swift passage of the Uniting American Families Act and the needs of the more than 40,000 same-sex binational couples currently living in the U.S. fighting to have their relationships recognized for immigration purposes, as well as all the couples already in exile from the U.S.

Read the full listing of the board of directors.

To learn more about the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, follow us on Twitter: @TheTaskForce.

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The mission of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is to build the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. We do this by training activists, equipping state and local organizations with the skills needed to organize broad-based campaigns to defeat anti-LGBT referenda and advance pro-LGBT legislation, and building the organizational capacity of our movement. Our Policy Institute, the movement’s premier think tank, provides research and policy analysis to support the struggle for complete equality and to counter right-wing lies. As part of a broader social justice movement, we work to create a nation that respects the diversity of human expression and identity and creates opportunity for all. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., we also have offices in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis and Cambridge.