Tony Willis -
Board President

Tony Willis is a professional resource charter and economic development strategist. Over the past decade, Tony has been deeply involved with economic development; specifically, when it comes to developing an entrepreneurial ecosystem for the greater Lansing region to foster increased company formation, Seed and VC investment, resources to enhance the connection between entrepreneurial support organizations, and a culture where people and ideas can move rapidly to the market. Tony is currently the Director of New Economy at the Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP) and is also the President of PROTO Accelerator, the region’s first startup accelerator program.

Suban Nur Cooley - Board Vice President

Suban is a researcher and teacher of issues pertaining to the cultural and digital, global and local. She is most interested in how all these elements intersect to impact and inform us individually, and how we then interact as parts of larger communities within and across the world. Suban cares about the micro and macro. Her dissertation research was a multi-location geographic comparative study which focused on elder women of the Somali diaspora and how migration and displacement can initiate a rhetorical inquiry of one’s culture and identity, manifesting in temporal and spatial constructions of a nation.

Joseph Mole - Board Treasurer

Joseph believes it is his mission is to help everyday people develop strategies for financial success. With two decades of leadership and service in the nonprofit social services sector, he has witnessed first-hand the struggles good people faced as a result of poverty and lack of access to financial resources. With a foundation built on trust, his goal is to partner with people from all walks of life to become forward-thinking about their finances, develop sound retirement plans and prepare for the big moments in life, both expected and unexpected.

Dan Wolford - Board Secretary

Dan has spent the last five years creating student-driven learning experiences that elevate student voices in his Detroit high school classroom. He engineers educational systems centered around student expression, creativity, and high performance, such as his extracurricular hip-hop program Lyrical Crusaders. Dan brings a passion for merging hip-hop and student achievement and valuable insight on educational accountability to the Board of Directors.

Matinga Ragatz - Director

Matinga Ragatz is a multiple-award winning educator, keynote speaker and consultant using education for positive social change. Her experience as teacher and instructional innovator has led her to redefine learning and has developed a trusted voice through which she strives to revolutionize the way children learn and the way teachers teach. Matinga's international background inspires a unique perspective on classroom instruction, learning and innovation. Her passion for teaching has led her to work to inspire, support, and influence creative educators worldwide. In 2017, she founded a school in rural Tanzania for Masai children as well as other education projects in West Africa. Among many accolades, Matinga has served as Michigan Teacher of the Year and has been inducted in the US National Teacher Hall of Fame.

Rashad Muhammad - Director

Rashad comes to the organization with a long history of community service and employment in Lansing area. Rashad has over 20 years of experience working in course development, instructional design, and training and works at MSU as a Learning Experience Designer. As a lifelong participant in the hip hop community, Rashad is passionate about the capacity of hip hop to lead culture change, job creation, and activism.

Clara Martinez - Director

With a passion for community building and a foundation based in dance, Clara sees the world through the lens of movement and connectivity. She enjoys bringing people together by providing opportunities for dance, creativity, and shared experiences. Through her various personal, professional, creative, and leadership roles, she early on sparked an interest in how community is formed and how we function within it. Making her way as a current Dance Educator, Choreographer, Director, and Leader, Clara bases much of her pedagogical and facilitation intent not only on how to better connect the group to one another, but also how to serve the individuals in the room through an equity, justice, and trauma-informed approach. Clara also enjoys serving her communities through various boards, commissions, and councils.

Paul Schmidt - Director

Paul is a storyteller, business owner and community member that is extremely active in ventures that bring about positive impacts. His video storytelling agency has spent the past twenty years visually depicting the journeys of non-profit organizations and the people they serve. He brings to the board of directors his vast experience in helping to shape the narrative that dynamically shares the mission to a wider audience.

Cristian Lambaren Sanchez - Director

Born in King City, California, but raised across Mexicali, B.C., Mexico, Lakeland, Florida, and Oxnard, California before going to undergrad at UC Berkeley, Cristian moved to the mitten state in 2016. He currently works as a Community Engagement teacher and specialist in the Residential College of Arts and Humanities (RCAH) at Michigan State University (MSU). The same institution where he earned his master’s degree and is now gently advancing with his PhD program.

A longtime lover and advocate of Hip-Hop culture and community, Cristian has taught a Hip-Hop and Community Engagement class for over three years while partnering with All of the Above (AOTA) Hip Hop Academy. Cristian says that thanks to hip-hop music, he found the confidence to learn and speak English when he first moved to Florida as an 11-year-old boy who only knew Spanish. Back then, he was too shy to hold a conversation but would joyfully rap along to hip-hop songs in English.

Cristian lives with his beautiful partner, Maria (Founder of Capital Area Latina Youth), her two daughters, and Mony (Mexican Chuhuahua from Sinaloa, Mexico). He is always happy to talk about family, soccer, education, travel, food, music, and/or supporting the younger generations’ dreams and life aspirations.