GetEQUAL Staff Members

Heather Cronk, Managing Director

Heather joined GetEQUAL in May 2010. Prior to GetEQUAL, Heather was the Chief Operating Officer at the New Organizing Institute, overseeing operations and expanding programs. Heather has also worked with organizations such as mySociety in the U.K. and with Idealist.org in the U.S., always focused on building community and pushing for tangible social change. A native of Lexington, KY, Heather holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in religion/philosophy from Berry College in Rome, GA, and a Master of Divinity degree from Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, NC. You can reach Heather by emailing her at heather at getequal dot org.

Robin McGehee, Director and Co-Founder

Robin is a transplant from Jackson, Mississippi, who received her M.A. in human communication, with an emphasis on public speaking, interpersonal and intercultural communication, from California State University, Fresno. She is on sabbatical as an instructor at College of the Sequoias and believes strongly that “When we speak, we shape the world!” In 2001, Robin was honored with the Martin Luther King, Jr. award for her work with Youth Empowerment, and worked for four years with the Gay-Straight Alliance Network and Fresno’s REEL Pride Gay and Lesbian film festival. Robin helped organize Meet in the Middle for Equality in Fresno, CA, a statewide reaction to the passage of Prop 8. She then was asked to co-direct the largely successful National Equality March in October 2009 in Washington, DC. Those experiences led to her co-founding GetEQUAL with Kip Williams in March 2010. In her free time she enjoys traveling and spending time with her family. You can reach Robin by emailing her at robin at getequal dot org.

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GetEQUAL Board Members

Dr. Jillian T. Weiss (board chair)

Dr. Jillian T. Weiss has a J.D. and a Ph.D. in Law, Policy & Society. Currently Associate Professor of Law and Society at Ramapo College of New Jersey, she has conducted research involving hundreds of companies and public agencies that have adopted “gender identity” policies. She publishes a popular blog on the subject of Transgender Workplace Diversity, and has numerous research publications on the subject of gender identity.

Dr. Weiss is also Principal Consultant for Jillian T. Weiss & Associates, a consulting firm that works with organizations on transgender workplace diversity issues. She has trained hundreds of employees at corporations, law firms, universities and governmental organizations, including Harvard University, Boeing, HSBC, KPMG, Viacom, and the New York City Department of Homeless Services. Her work has been featured in news stories by the New York Times, Associated Press, Fortune Small Business Magazine, the Society for Human Resource Management, Workforce Management Magazine, and HR Executive Magazine.

Richard Aviles

Richard is a 19 year old queer Latino; born and raised in Los Angeles. Richard first began his activism during his freshman year of high school by attending the 2006 student walkouts in Los Angeles. Since that day, Richard has become a street community organizer and is known for his chants. He then went on to organize with the Bus Riders Union and GSA Network, both in Southern California. Richard is now a sophomore at St.Olaf College in Northfield, MN. He’s a double major in Social Work and Queer Studies. He plans to start his own nonprofit organization that addresses harassment and discrimination towards LGBTQ youth in Minnesotan Public Schools. After college, he plans to run for state senate in Minnesota.

John Blake

John started in GLBTQI activism soon after he came out. He was fifteen in FL, and was lucky enough to get started with an organization called True Expressions, a nonprofit youth service organization focused on creating a safe space for the St. Petersburg metro area LGBTQI youth to come out, grow, learn, and get empowered. Through this organization, he got involved with Safe Schools work for Equality Florida. He co-founded Montana Equality Now, a direct political action organization dedicated to the full equality and inclusion of the GLBTIQ community in Montana, out of the momentum of the National Equality March (2009). He is a senior studying political science at the University of Montana. He served as the past Board Co-Chair of the Western Montana Community Center, and volunteers his time to various projects as they spring up. Doing this work is what makes his life worthwhile.

Tanya Domi

Tanya Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, who teaches human rights in Eurasia. Domi served 15 years in the U.S. Army enlisting in 1974 as a Private and rose to the rank of Captain, before her honorable discharge in 1990. Prior to joining Columbia, Domi worked more than a decade in a dozen countries on democratic and economic transitional development, political and media development, human rights and gender issues. Domi became a nationally known LGBT rights activist in the early 1990s as director of military freedom initiative at the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce, where she worked to repeal the ban on lesbians and gays serving in the military. Domi is a widely published author and blogger on human rights for LGBT persons and women. She has appeared on hundreds of media outlets in the United States and throughout the world, speaking about human rights and current affairs.

Father Geoff Farrow

Father Geoffrey Farrow was born in the city of Camaguey in the Republic of Cuba in 1957. His family moved to the United States in August of 1961. He entered St. John’s College in the fall of 1978 and received a BA in Philosophy in 1981. He received a Master of Divinity degree from St. John’s Seminary in 1985 and was ordained a Catholic priest on June 1st of that same year. He served various churches, campuses, and the U.S. Air Force from 1987 to 2008. On October 5, 2008 Fr. Geoff delivered a statement at the end of the 11 AM Mass at the Newman Center at CSUF, explaining that he could not comply with a directive from his bishop to direct parishioners to vote “yes” on Proposition 8 in California. Later that week, Fr. Geoff was removed as pastor of  St. Paul’s by his bishop and suspended as a priest. He worked throughout the month of October with the “No on Prop. 8” campaign.Currently, Fr. Geoff is engaged in public speaking to advance the cause of LGBT rights, and has received commendations both from the City of West Hollywood and the California State Assembly for his civil rights work on behalf of the LGBT community.

Aj Kruth

Aj Kruth and his husband of 18 years, Aaron, live in Fresno, CA, and are helping raise their 2 young children. Aj became involved in activism over 20 years ago as a board member and media spokesperson for the Fresno chapter of the ACLU. Aj also served as Treasurer and then President on the Board of Fresno REEL Pride, the 6th oldest LGBT film festival in the US. In 2009, Aj managed security for Meet in the Middle for Equality in Fresno, CA, a statewide reaction to the passage of Prop 8. He also assisted later that year with backstage operations at the National Equality March in Washington, DC. A vice president for JPMorgan Chase for the past 9 years, Aj is also serving a two-year appointment as a member of Chase’s Diversity Council.

Eric Nakano

Eric Nakano was born and raised in a conservative Christian family in Southern California. His father worked for Focus on the Family and Eric himself was a rising youth leader at his Christian school and church. After graduating from high school, he went on to study Political Science at Penn State Mont Alto and was elected Student Government President his sophomore year. But after experiencing bullying and antigay harassment from other students, he transferred to the George Washington University and graduated cum laude with a BA in Political Science and Public Policy. In 2007, Eric relocated back to Los Angeles where he worked in fundraising and development at UCLA and volunteered for LGBT causes in his spare time. It was on the campaign trial to defeat Proposition 8 that he found his true calling and decided to pursue a career in public service. He is currently earning his Masters in Public Policy at Duke University in preparation for a career that will enable him to one day establish and grow an LGBT service center and work on policy issues that affect the LGBT community. Eric is proud to serve on the board of GetEQUAL and believes the organization represents grassroots action at its best.

Mark Reed

Mark Reed and his partner, Dante Walkup, are owners of Wiedamark LLC, a specialty LED lighting business in Dallas, Texas. Mark served on the Executive Steering Committee for the National Equality March. He was responsible for the social networking efforts that were successfully deployed to promote the march.  Mark was an early active supporter of GetEQUAL and participated in several Washington D.C. actions including getting arrested at the May 5th DADT protest at the White House. In addition to activism, he also recently served as Vice President for the Cedars Neighborhood Association in south Dallas. Mark attended the University of Pittsburgh on a debating scholarship and received a master’s degree in communication in 1984. He and his partner live in Irving, Texas, and have been together 10 years. They married on 10/10/2010 via Skype with their feet firmly planted on Texas soil with an officiant in DC. After their marriage was annulled by DC, Mark and Dante made the trip to DC to be married in person, but continue to advocate for “e-marriage” as a way for same-sex couples to be recognized as full American citizens.

Autumn Sandeen

Autumn Sandeen is a transgender activist living in San Diego, born in Northridge, CA, as the son of a motion picture/television industry costume supervisor and a homemaker, and raised in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley. At fourteen a flashbulb seemed to go off in her head, and the reason she’d felt “off” for most of her childhood became clear: her body started to develop in a manner that didn’t match her female gender identity. Like many “late transitioning” (midlife transitioning) transsexuals, she gravitated to a “testosterone driven” career; she served in the U.S. Navy from 1980 to 2000 as a Fire Controlman, retiring as a First Class Petty Officer. After retiring from the U.S. Navy, she was awarded a Veteran’s Administration Disability rating. She explored her gender dysphoria with counselors in the San Diego’s Veterans Administration (VA) medical system, and began transitioning as a male-to-female transsexual on February 6, 2003. Autumn is currently retired from the military, and disability retired as well. So, to fill her days she writes, and does other activism work. Besides serving on multiple boards and steering committees, Autumn is a barista on Pam’s House Blend, which means she’s a “front page” new media reporter/blogger there.