Casey Harvey began her work as an Information Referral Specialist with the 211 Texas Helpline through the United Way of Greater Houston during the pandemic of 2020. Before relocating to Texas, Casey worked for a variety of charitable organizations in the state of Hawaii. She served a year with Aloha United Way 211 and worked for over 2 years helping the homeless and those with mental illness connect with programs that offered help and solutions. Casey has fought hard to return to work after 9 years on disability. To help raise suicide awareness, she presented her personal story at the Out of Darkness Suicide Awareness Walk two years in a row. During her downtime, you can find Casey playing fetch with her cat – Mr. Fred Rogers, painting and working towards earning her associate degree in communication.

Nancy Weatherall is a Certified Resources Specialist in Aging and Disabilities, who joined 211 Texas United Way of Greater Houston in 2019. She serves as the Liaison between the United Way and partnering senior service agencies. Prior to moving to Texas, Nancy worked for over 6 years as an Information Referral Specialist at Delaware 211, a United Way helpline. She became a Child Development Specialist under the Help Me Grow program and advocated for parents as a Family Support Provider through Champions for Children’s Mental Health. Although her degree is in multimedia design, Nancy has spent over a decade working in social services. She is passionate about helping others, particularly older adults and those with disabilities. Nancy is a native Spanish speaker, fluent in both English and Spanish. When she is not working, she enjoys spending time with her family who originated from Uruguay, her children, and her local friends.

Shondria Criss is a Certified Information and Referral Specialist and has worked at the United Way of Greater Houston for the past 6 years. Shondria has experience in crisis intervention, disaster recovery, human services, community investment and community resources. She holds an associate degree in Human Service Technology and is a certified Chemical Dependency Counselor.

Chiara Cameron-Wood is graduated with an Associates Degree in Business,  Bachelors in Psychology, and a Masters in Human Services with a specialization in Social and Community Resources. She has served her community in several nonprofit roles, including volunteer coordination with United Way of Northwest Ohio and Hannah's Socks, before moving to Utah and becoming part of the 211 program there. She started as a lead and quickly became the Program Director and then the Managing Director of 211 Utah. She held that position for 5 years before becoming a part of AIRS and now serves as the Executive Director. Chiara lives in Lehi, Utah, with her husband Jeff, near their 7 children and the stunning natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains and national forests. She enjoys traveling, writing, meditation, baking shows, musicals, shallow high school comedies, singing, and playing the piano whenever she can. 

Gabriela Cano (they/them) is a Service Navigator at the Community Service Council in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They obtained a BA in Sociology from UC Berkeley and has also worked with LGBTQ+ youth, families recovering from child abuse & institutional marginalization, as well as survivors of domestic and sexual violence. They work to ensure all marginalized and institutionally oppressed communities have a seat at every social work agency's table.

Julie Nurmi is the Team Lead of the 211 Program - Canadian Mental Health Association – Edmonton. She has 9+ years of experience in answering 211, both front line and in a supervisory capacity. She is AIRS and CCW Certified and is the Lead Trainer for the 211 Program. She has a BA in Psychology (cum Laude) and has experience presenting on 211, further educating the public on the services offered.

Dagr Fjell (they/them) is an experienced 211 Community Resource Specialist who is both CRS and Crisis Worker Certified. After working for the Canadian Mental Health Association – Edmonton Region for several years in an administrative role, Dagr was drawn to the Distress Line program and became a volunteer in January 2017. When a role as a 211 CRS came up in January 2018, Dagr, being passionate about social justice and working with those in need, quickly applied for and was hired as a Permanent 211 CRS. Dagr has plenty of experience presenting in the past and is currently volunteering as a SMART Recovery group facilitator. In addition to these roles, in their spare time, Dagr is working on a book to help bring light to the struggles facing the homelessness population in Edmonton, Alberta. They enjoy writing, reading, walks in nature and have recently taken up cooking.

Sara Tribe Clark is the Director of the Eldercare Locator within USAging. In this role, Sara oversees the operation of the Eldercare Locator Call Center, ensuring the responsive connection of people to community resources. Sara has nearly 20 years of experience in aging and disability services. Before joining USAging, she helped build the District of Columbia’s Aging and Disability Resource Center; was Director of the National Information and Referral Support Center at the ADvancing States; and spent 8+ years working within the aging and disability networks in Massachusetts. Sara’s time outside of work is spent on the other end of the age spectrum with a 3-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter.

Ken Thompson is currently the Training and Technical Assistance Coordinator for the National Aging and Disability Transportation Center. He supports the NADTC by providing technical assistance, training and information to customers on a variety of issues including accessible transportation, the ADA, veterans' issues, building partnerships, and service planning. He responds to customers seeking information on a variety of issues related to accessible transportation. His over twenty years' experience working in human services includes managing a human service transportation system that followed a U.S. Navy stint working in aviation. Ken holds a Masters in Public Affairs and B.A. from Hood College in Maryland. He has completed the ADA Coordinator's Training Certification Program, University of Missouri College of Human Environmental Sciences and is a Community Resource Specialist (CRS).

Heather Edmonds is the Program Associate for the National Aging and Disability Transportation Center (NADTC) in USAging. Heather has more than 10 years in information and referral working with various agencies within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Heather holds Master of Science in Community Health from Towson University and is CRS-A/D certified. In addition, she provides technical assistance to transportation professionals on accessible transportation addressing the needs of older adults and people with disabilities and grants management support. She enjoys exercising, live music, and spending time with family and friends in her spare time.

Greg Bloom is the founder of the Open Referral Initiative, a community of practice that fosters open access to information about the health, human, and social services available to people in need. He is a visiting scholar at Indiana University’s Ostrom Workshop on the Commons. He also sits on the Technology Advisory Committee for the Gravity Project, which is facilitating the development of interoperability for client information exchange among healthcare and human service providers. Previously, Greg managed communications for Bread for the City in DC.

Tim Sullivan is the statewide director for Washington 211, the lead organization that administers the 211 information and referral system for the State of Washington. Tim received his Bachelors of Science degree from Central Washington University in 1992 and shortly after started his career in social services working for the Yakima County Gang Prevention Intervention Coalition as a program manager.  In 1995, Tim was hired by the United Way of Central Washington, where he worked as the Community Impact Director for 15 years. 

In 2004, Tim became involved in the issue of homelessness and helped establish the Homeless Network of Yakima County, a coalition that developed and implemented Yakima County’s first 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness. In 2006, Tim was contracted by Yakima County to develop the County’s first housing and homeless programs and later became a Senior Manager for Yakima County Human Services. In August 2016, Tim became the Statewide Director for Washington 211. 

Tim is a member of the 2-1-1 National Steering Committee and chairs the SDOH Taskforce. Tim is also a founding board member of Justice Housing Yakima, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to building permanent housing for chronically homeless individuals using tiny homes. Tim makes his home in Yakima, WA with his wife Michelle of 27 years and his two children, Jessica age 22 and Ian age 13. 

Kate Lambacher has been providing software development services to Information and Referral providers and Volunteer Centres in Canada since 1997, most notably as the developer of the software behind the OpenCIOC I&R and Volunteer Matching software project since 2002. For more than 15 years she has been assisting I&R providers to navigate successful data exchanges across systems, develop multi-tenant data maintenance systems, and create and manage data sharing agreements between many sizes and types of organizations. In addition to her work with the I&R and Volunteer Services sectors, Kate serves as a board member for the Canadian Mental Health Association Halton Region branch.

Hannah Newton is the Resource Center Manager for King County 211 and the statewide database coordinator for Washington state. She has been a certified database curator since 2006. She maintains the knowledge base for the COVID-19 hotline in Washington state and is an AIRS database reviewer.  Currently, she is trying not to kill all the flowers she planted since COVID as well as taking care of three cats and two children.

Program Development Manager at 211 LA, Ana comes from a background in providing direct services and training for various nonprofit organizations. Ana currently leads professional development workshops with a focus on leadership skills and challenging one's own assumptions and bias. In her spare time she enjoys cuddling her dog, Buffy and reading.

Vanessa Gentle was recently promoted to the Learning Development role at 211 LA. She previously filled the role as a Performance Coach exclusively for COVID-19 response. 

In her spare time, she enjoys cooking vegan dishes, listening to various music genres, and exploring fun adventures with her 2 children. 

Dr. W. Douglas Zimmerman is the President and CEO of Visionlink, one of the leading providers of community services, disaster relief, and data exchange solutions. His staff deploy systems that move 100's of millions of pieces of data every week, between different systems, using different standards, different technology, and different security standards. Zimmerman is most passionate about building systems of systems, and when done well, helping leaders and stakeholders create interoperable networks of data flows that reduce workloads, and leverage better outcomes. Zimmerman hails from Colorado, loves the mountains and skiing, and is happy his two kids are finally out of college!

Laura James is the Director or Resource Strategy and Technology Integration for United Way of North Carolina. She has previously been the Resource Director for 211LA and holds both the Certified Community Resource Specialist and Database Curator certifications. She holds an MBA and Masters or Human Resources from Keller Graduate School of Management. She is a self-proclaimed resource nerd and after time spent as in the payments industry as well as corporate training, she has found her niche in the resource world, particularly in helping other people learn about tools and topics around all things resource.

Kathy previously worked as a Resource Specialist for the United Way for Southeastern Michigan in Detroit, before moving to her current position as the Statewide Quality Assurance Manager for Michigan 2-1-1. With over 15 years in the field of Information and Referral services, Kathy is a Certified Resource Database Curator and holds a Master’s in Public Administration.

Sherrard Crespo is an LMSW currently under BACS supervision to obtain her LCSW license. She graduated with her Master's Degree from the LSU School of Social Work in May of 2017. Her professional background is highlighted by her work with suicide education, prevention, intervention, and postvention. Sherrard is currently employed with VIALINK in the position of Outreach and Traumatic Loss Coordinator where her current duties include: clinical oversight of VIA LINK's 24/7 call center, VIA LINK internal training on suicide risk assessment, community outreach and education on VIA LINK services as well as specialized skills and information on suicide, and facilitation of VIA LINK's three support groups: Survivors of Suicide Loss, NOLA Survivors, and “Real Talk” a support group for teens with suicide ideation.