Jeff Blodgett
Executive Director
Jeff Blodgett has over 25 years experience in community organizing and political management.
In addition to his leadership of Wellstone Action, Jeff also trains, teaches, and writes extensively on political skills, public management, and leadership. Jeff studied with Paul Wellstone at Carleton College and began his career as a community organizer, working with hard-pressed family farmers during the 1980s farm crisis. He later spent 13 years as a senior aide, advisor, and campaign manager to the late Senator (1989-2002), managing all three of his election campaigns, including the hard-fought 2002 race that was tragically cut short by a plane crash.
Jeff has served in key positions in dozens of other campaigns, including a post as Senior Advisor for Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar's 2006 race, and Get Out the Vote (GOTV) Senior Advisor for the 2004 Kerry Coordinated Campaign in Minnesota. A 1983 graduate of Carleton College, he earned his Master of Public Administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 1998.
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Jeff Blodgett is involved in: Advanced Campaign Management School • Camp Wellstone • Labor Training Program
Ben GoldFarb
Director of Training Programs
Ben Goldfarb is a seasoned campaign worker and community organizer, and former campaign manager for Minnesota US Senator Amy Klobuchar (2006), the first woman elected to the Senate in the state's history. In that capacity, he helped turn one of the most competitive U.S. Senate races in the country into a 20-point landslide. After the campaign, Ben served as strategic research and communications consultant for the main opposition party in the 2007 Irish parliamentary elections. The party made record seat gains and nearly toppled an overwhelmingly popular incumbent government and Prime Minister.
Ben has also worked as Get Out the Vote Director for the 2004 Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign, in which he directed a massive grassroots operation that played a central role in Minnesota's leading the nation in voter turnout. In that capacity, Ben managed an organization that moved more than 15,000 volunteers to talk to nearly 1 million voters in the final days of the campaign. From 2003-2005 he served as executive director of the community-based organization Progressive Minnesota (now Take Action Minnesota), which led successful grassroots efforts to raise the state's minimum wage, engage tens of thousands of new immigrants in the political process, and win dozens of ballot initiatives and local campaigns. Ben managed a Saint Paul mayoral campaign in 2001 and in 2002 helped run the electoral program for a public employee union. Ben earned his B.A. from Macalester College in 1999, majoring in urban studies with minor concentrations in history and African-American Studies.
Ben Goldfarb is involved in: Camp Wellstone • Campus Camp Wellstone • Labor Training Program
Erik Peterson
Director of Education / Labor Program Director
Erik Peterson brings 25 years experience as a community-based educator, trainer, and community and electoral organizer. He has served at all levels of campaign organizing in state and local races, most recently as the lead consultant for Mark Ritchie's successful 2006 campaign for Minnesota Secretary of State, and as the northern Minnesota Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) director for America Votes. He was a field consultant for Paul Wellstone's 1996 and 2002 U.S. Senate campaigns, has managed or served as political director for three gubernatorial races, and has directed over two dozen legislative, mayoral, city council, school board, and county commissioner races. In addition, he has helped build and lead several community coalitions, including the Duluth Living Wage Coalition and the Duluth Community Religion Labor Network, and has worked as an AFSCME union representative and organizer.
Erik serves as Assistant Professor in the University of Minnesota's masters program in advocacy and political leadership. He is a former Director of Northern Minnesota Programs for the University of Minnesota Labor Education Service and was a professor in American and Cultural Studies at the University of Minnesota for 18 years. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota. Erik lives and works out of Duluth, MN - the Midwest's "San Francisco" but with a view you can afford.
Erik Peterson is involved in: Labor Training Program
Peggy Flanagan
Director of the Native American Leadership Program / Senior Trainer
Flanagan is the Director of the Native American Leadership Program at Wellstone Action. A member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota, Peggy was elected to the Minneapolis School Board in 2004 and is the first Native American to serve on that body. She has worked as Director of Community Outreach for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), as coordinator of Urban Immersion Service Retreats for the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches, and as Project Manager for Parents Plus, a school readiness program at the Division of Indian Work in Minneapolis.
Peggy is a state director for INDN's List, the only grassroots political organization devoted to recruiting and electing Native American candidates, and was the First Americans GOTV Coordinator for the Minnesota DFL on behalf of the Barack Obama Campaign for Change and Al Franken for Senate campaigns in 2008. In 2004, she worked as the Native American Community Coordinator for the Kerry-Edwards campaign in Minnesota. Peggy has served on the boards of several community organizations, including the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Minneapolis Youth Coordinating Board, Native Vote Alliance of Minnesota, and Young Elected Officials Network (a program of People for the American Way). She received her B.A. in American Indian Studies and child psychology from the University of Minnesota in 2002.
Peggy Flanagan is involved in: Native American Leadership Program • Labor Training Program
Sarah Scanlon
Senior Labor Trainer
Sarah comes to Wellstone Action after working at the Human Rights Campaign as a Regional Field Director for the Pacific NW and the South.
Sarah began her political activism as a child growing up in Arkansas. She comes from a family that has long been involved in Texas politics, and her mother ran for the Arkansas state Legislature in the 1970s, campaigning for the equality of women. While Scanlon was growing up in Arkansas, she worked on many of Bill Clinton's campaigns for governor.
In the late 1980s, Sarah moved to the Pacific Northwest where she became involved in Queer Nation and ACT UP and helped raise money to pay for people to attend the 1993 March on Washington. She went on to help fight the anti-gay initiatives in Washington being pushed by the Washington Citizens' Alliance (an outreach of the Oregon Citizens' Alliance). Scanlon ran successful legislative campaigns in the mid-1990s when progressive candidates were being ushered out of office by the swell of the religious right.
In 1997 Sarah went to work for Service Employees International Union as a lobbyist, helping to secure raises for home care workers and fighting for increases in the minimum wage and safety. After serving as a lobbyist for SEIU she went to work for the International Union as a political organizer and worked on campaigns Washington, Illinois, Oregon, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri and Iowa.
Sarah and her wife live in Arkansas with their three dogs when she is not on the road for Wellstone Action.
Sarah Scanlon is involved in: Labor Training Program
Ryan Greenwood
Labor Program Trainer
Ryan Greenwood has 10 years of community, political, and labor organizing experience. Currently he serves as the Political Director of TakeAction Minnesota, a coalition of 32 progressive organizations and 4,000 individual members fighting for racial, economic, and social justice in Minnesota. Most recently, Ryan has been leading major campaigns for universal healthcare and voting rights.
Prior to his current position, Ryan led coalitions that passed living wage laws in Minneapolis and Saint Paul and led weeklong political organizing trainings for the DFL House and Senate Caucus in 2004 and 2006. He has extensive experience running field and fundraising canvasses, and in 2006-2007, developed and ran an electoral program that elected 61 of 68 endorsed candidates, including those in the most competitive races in the state. Ryan has served as Executive Director of Progressive Minnesota and as an organizer for Progressive Maryland and the United Electrical Workers (UE). Ryan was born and raised in Owatonna, Minnesota and attended college at Macalester in Saint Paul.
Ryan Greenwood is involved in: Labor Training Program
Sujata Tejwani
Camp Wellstone / Advanced Campaign Management School Senior Trainer
Sujata is a campaign and communications professional with 16 years of both political and issue-based campaign management, strategic communications, cause-related and corporate marketing, research, training, and event management experience.
Sujata has worked extensively managing campaigns, communications and research for a number of congressional candidates and elected officials, including the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone (1996) and Georgia Senator Max Cleland (2002). In 2006 in Tennessee, she ran the Election Protection program and Boiler room in Shelby County for the Harold Ford Jr. for Senate. In 2004, she ran the DemocraticGAIN convention training in Boston, and then was Director of Targeted Communications for the Democratic National Committee, where she managed all direct mail and phones for battleground states for Kerry-Edwards. In 2003 she was National Communications Director for America Coming Together. She was Communications Director in Virginia 4th Congressional District's 2001 special election. In 2000, she managed an upset primary win and general election campaign for a Democrat in New Jersey's 7th Congressional District.
Among the many issue advocacy and social marketing campaigns Sujata has worked on, she most recently developed and implemented the Protecting Our Health campaign for 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East - an awareness campaign for the Fund's 200,000+ members. She also designed and implemented a 10-city marketing tour for the Discovery Channel's Greatest American television series. For the past 5 years, she has also been involved in Cover the Uninsured campaigns sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, first as National Field Director in 2003.
Sujata is also an experienced trainer and facilitator, coordinating and training political strategists, activists and candidates for the Ohio Democratic Party, Wellstone Action!, EMILY's List , The White House Project, Hopefund, Campaign Corps, New Organizing Institute, Democratic GAIN, the Democratic National Committee, America Coming Together, and the Human Rights Campaign.
A first-generation Indian American, Sujata was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee and holds a B.A. in International Studies from Vassar College. She currently lives in New York City, where she enjoys all things pop culture - from TV to movies to music, books to Broadway. She believes her voracious consumption of pop culture makes her especially suited to shaping messages that connect with the wider public.
Sujata Tejwani is involved in: Advanced Campaign Management School • Camp Wellstone • Labor Training Program
Susan Savage
Labor Program Trainer
Susan Savage currently works as a Regional Political Organizer for the California Teachers Association, responsible for working with local associations on school board, school bond, and local legislative races in California's Central Valley from Yreka to Bakersfield. She has worked as a campaign consultant for decades, running campaigns for county Board of Supervisors, District Attorney, Superior Court Judge, Community College Board, and dozens of school board, parcel tax and school bond elections. In addition, she has coordinated the local field operation for coordinated Democratic campaigns in every Presidential election since 1992 and for the campaign against the voucher initiative in 1993.
Susan holds a BA in Geography from California State University East Bay and a multiple subject teaching credential from Sonoma State University. Before joining CTA, she taught U.S. History, Politics & Government for 20 years at the 8th grade level. She has been honored with the Barbara Boxer Award for Campaign Service, the CTA WHO Award, and the CTA Teacher in Politics Award for her on-going commitment to empowering teachers in the political arena. Susan believes that "the organizing skills taught in the Labor Program are crucial for those in the labor movement to build strong coalitions for the future."
Susan Savage is involved in: Labor Training Program
Anne Johnson
Camp Wellstone trainer
Anne Johnson is a Senior Fundraiser for the National Education Association in Washington, DC. Anne served as the first director of Campus Camp Wellstone and also helped organize Wellstone Action's national members around progressive issues.
Anne graduated from the University of Minnesota with degrees in political science and international relations, and soon after began working in the field of international human rights. In 2001 she received the Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship through the University of Minnesota Law School to work at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
Like so many former Minnesotans, Anne became involved in political organizing by volunteering for Paul Wellstone's 2002 senate campaign. Within a month on the campaign she went from volunteer to intern, quit her job, deferred law school, got a job on the campaign and became a political junky. A fired-up field organizer, Anne came to Wellstone Action in 2003 and worked at the organization until 2007.
Anne Johnson is involved in: Camp Wellstone • Labor Training Program
Cristina Uribe
Cristina Uribe is a veteran political strategist, manager and organizer. She is the founder and principal of Next Rung Strategies, a political consulting firm that provides strategic counsel to campaigns, major donors, PACs, unions, foundations and issue-advocacy groups.
Prior to forming Next Rung Strategies, Cristina served as the Western Regional Director of EMILY's List, where she directed the organization's political efforts in eleven western states. Prior to joining EMILY's List in 2004, Cristina served as a consultant at Kaufman Campaign Consultants where she managed several legislative and issue campaigns. Cristina also served as political director for the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council in San Jose. The driving force behind the South Bay Labor Council's political program from 1998 to 2002, Cristina helped the Council achieve a string of electoral and legislative successes. An organizer by nature, Cristina got an early lesson in the art as part of the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute, organizing low-wage hotel workers in the greater New Orleans area.
When not traveling, Cristina can be found in Noe Valley walking Ruby - her adopted lab-shep mix.
Christina Uribe is involved in: Camp Wellstone • Labor Training Program
Mary Theurer
Mary Theurer currently works as the Midwest National Political Coordinator for the AFL-CIO, where she coordinates the organizing efforts to elect pro-labor candidates and pass universal health care and the Employee Free Choice Act. Mary brings to Wellstone Action! over 30 years of political and labor organizing experience. Before working for the AFL-CIO, she worked for AFSCME for 20 years as Executive Director of Council 96, and prior to that for HERE Local 17 (now UNITE HERE!) organizing hotel and restaurant employees in the Twin Cities. She has worked on innumerable political campaigns at the state and local levels. When Mary is not on the road organizing, she lives in Duluth, Minnesota. She says Wellstone Action!'s Labor Program "serves a dynamic cause in the labor movement by providing essential grass roots training programs which will train leaders, both present and future, in order to strengthen labor unions across the country."
Mary Theurer is involved in: Labor Training Program
Pam Costain
Pam Costain has been a grassroots organizer for more than thirty years, working on issues as diverse as international human rights, immigrant rights, high quality public education, social, racial and economic justice. She was the Executive Director of the Resource Center of the Americas for fourteen years, an organization dedicated to human rights in the era of globalization. The Resource Center worked to defend workers rights in international trade agreements and built projects of cross-border labor solidarity.
Pam was a long time friend of Senator Wellstone and helped to found and lead Wellstone Action during its first five years. As the organization's training director, Pam helped to create Camp Wellstone, Campus Camp Wellstone, Voter Engagement Schools and the Wellstone Fellows program. She was a contributing author of "Politics the Wellstone Way".
In 2006 Pam was elected to the Minneapolis School Board and since 2008 she has worked full time to raise student achievement and improve outcomes in the Minneapolis schools. She served as chair of the school board and helped to organize a successful voter-approved $60 million levy referendum in 2008.
Pam Costain is involved in: Labor Training Program
Sarah Greenfield
Sarah Greenfield currently serves as the Health Care Community Organizer for Take Action Minnesota, a non-profit organization which works to unite diverse individuals, communities, and organizations in active grassroots efforts to promote social, racial, and economic justice. Her current focus is on winning universal health care for all. Sarah has over five years of labor organizing experience, beginning with organizing hotel workers for UNITE HERE in 2003. Before moving to her new position she was the Community Organizer for SEIU Local 284 where she helped organize campaigns in support of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride. Sarah grew up in South Minneapolis before attending Hampshire College in Massachusetts where she received her undergraduate degree. She has been an adjunct trainer with the Wellstone Action! Labor Program since 2005 and says that "Wellstone Action!'s Labor Program provides an incredible opportunity to see, support, and learn about people from all across the country and build coalitions in the ongoing efforts to strengthen the labor movement."
Sarah Greenfield is involved in: Labor Training Program