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DFA Campaign Academy Agenda

Brick, NJ June 26th -- 27th    

Saturday

Sunday      

Please complete evaluations and remember to turn them in at the end of the day. 

Training Presenters

Nick Passanante – Field, Targeting, and Leadership Development

Nick is the Deputy National Field Director at Democracy for America.  Nick got his start in electoral politics in 2006, when he was inspired by Colorado gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter’s message of education reform and joined his successful campaign as a campus organizer and GOTV coordinator.  More recently, Nick was a vagabond campaigner during the 2008 cycle who worked in 8 different states (NH, CO, TX, WY, PA, OR, MT, CA), first as a Regional Director and Youth Voter Outreach Coordinator for Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign, and then as the Deputy Director for Field Operations on Lt. Col. Charlie Brown’s campaign for Congress in CA-04.  While working for Lt. Col. Brown, Nick supervised what was considered to be the largest congressional field program in the nation during the 2008 cycle, making an average of 30K+ voter contacts per week.

Prior to 2008, Nick worked for President Bill Clinton as a personal aide and liaison, as well as short stints with the Boys and Girls Harbor of E. Harlem NYC and the Prague Society for International Cooperation.  He is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Don Weigel- Communications, Finance

Don Weigel began organizing in college, running a non-partisan voter registration drive and founding the College Democrats.  After college, he helped coordinate the first-ever full-ticket campaign for city council, efforts which elected only the second Democrat in over twenty-five years.  In 2006 Don served as deputy executive director and then in 2007 and 2008 as the executive director for the Democratic house caucus in Colorado helping expand their majority by four seats and organizing their incumbency protection program. Don has served as a press secretary, communications director, and campaign manager to a handful of congressional candidates in New York and Alabama.

Kendra-Sue Derby- Field

Over her career, Kendra-Sue Derby has fought for progressive causes and candidates. She focuses her work on administrative and field activities. Most recently she was Senior Consultant to the Jon Tester for Senate and Montana Democratic Party. She also worked at Alliance for Justice from 2001 through 2006 as the Director of Field Operations. She trained thousands of activists and campaign employees when she worked for The Ron Brown - Paul Tully Institute for Political Action and as an independent contractor. Kendra has worked on campaigns of all sizes, ranging from City Council to Presidential, including the 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 Democratic presidential campaigns. In 2004 she ran the Democratic Party of Oregon’s coordinated campaign. Kendra currently resides in Denver.

Dan Mulligan- Base-building

Dan is a National Field Organizer for the Northeast region at Democracy for America. Dan started his political action work during his college years as the President of the SUNY Plattsburgh College Democrats / Progressives. Dan continued on after graduating and ended up going to work on the Eric Massa for Congress 2008 campaign in New York’s 29^th Congressional District. He worked point for volunteer and field operations in 4 counties in the southern tier of NY-29 in 2008. Dan helped to shore up record levels of democratic turnout in the heavily conservative southern tier which helped bring Eric Massa to victory in 2008.

After his work on the congressional race Dan went to work with the Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation AFL-CIO. Dan worked to organize AFL-CIO affiliate membership in the 11 country region they operated in. Soon thereafter Dan made the trip from Rochester, NY to Bangor, ME to work for Change that Works (SEIU). For several months Dan organized activists in north central MaineNew York State. to put pressure on Maine Senators and Congressmen/ women to support health care reform. Dan is a graduate of SUNY Plattsburgh in northern