COMMUNITY STEERING COMMITTEE

COMMITTEE CO-CHAIR

Originally, from Smithville, Alta Y. Alexander has lived in Austin since she was 12-years old. Upon graduating from high school, Alta attended Huston-Tillotson University where she earned a Bachelor’s in Business and Communications, and is pursuing her MBA at her alma mater.

With over 10-years of style-setting and retail experience, Alta has held managerial position as at high-end boutiques and department stores. She’s also worked for national tech corporations, major companies and the State of Texas.

She launched her childhood dream of being a boutique owner opening the doors of Altatudes in the heart of historic East Austin on September 18, 2017; and became the first and only African American to own an upscale women’s boutique in Texas’ Capitol City.

Since the destruction of Altatudes due to the neighboring business fire on June 1, 2020 and the pandemic, Alta has remained a strong supportive fixture within the historic area as the president of the East 12th Street Merchants Association (ETSMA) and a community advocate.

COMMITTEE CO-CHAIR

Brendan is a Landscape Architect and Urban Designer and owner of Dovetail Studio. Brendan started Dovetail Studio after seven years as Principal and project manager with the transdisciplinary planning, urban design, and landscape architecture firm Asakura Robinson. He developed a fascination with nature at a young age in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Following his Masters work in architecture and urban design at Washington University in St. Louis, where he completed his thesis on highway removal, he returned to Austin and spent three years with the sustainability non-profit Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems. Brendan has built a career on the present evolution of urbanism and how the natural world can be fostered within cities to improve the lives and mobility of people within them.

He is the current chair of the North Central I-35 Neighborhood Coalition.

COMMITTEE MEMBER

Heyden Black Walker (CNU-A) is Director of Planning for Black + Vernooy Architecture and Urban Design. Together with Sinclair Black, she co-founded Reconnect Austin, a community-based call to lower the main lanes of I-35 through Austin’s urban core, creating a vision of a reconnected city fabric which provides multi-modal access to housing, jobs, medical facilities, education, and transit.

Heyden manages a variety of planning projects for Black + Vernooy, which include chairing the board of directors for Reconnect Austin and working to further mitigate freeway projects at both the state and national levels. With the goal of equity in transportation, increased safety, and access for all, Heyden also donates her time and advocacy efforts to the Congress for the New Urbanism, the City of Austin Pedestrian Advisory Council, Cap Metro’s Project Connect, Austin Outside, America Walks, and Safe Streets Austin. Heyden is a 2016 National Walking College fellow and currently mentors for both the Texas and National Walking Colleges.

COMMITTEE MEMBER

Previously an Asian Pacific American Community Archivist at the Austin History Center/Austin Public Library, Ayshea is now an Equity & Inclusion Coordinator with the City of Austin’s Equity Office.

Inspired by the Community-Driven Archives Program at Arizona State University and the work of Nancy Godoy, she has been working on designing and facilitating workshops so Asian American families can preserve their own community stories. She is invested in community-driven models of archiving and aspires to develop her facilitation and management skills so that she can help guide larger community archiving initiatives.

Ayshea proudly serves as the Board President for the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) and is a Community Steering Committee member for Texas After Violence Project (TAVP). She also serves as the Scholarships & Awards Committee Co-Chair for APALA (Asian Pacific American Library Association).

COMMITTEE MEMBER

Yung Ju is the Association for Preservation Technology International (Austin Region) Co-Director. After working ten years in the corporate consulting industry, she shifted her career to architecture where she earned degrees in Master of Architecture and Master of Science in Historic Preservation at the University of Texas at Austin.

Her interests include adaptive reuse, material conservation, and community revitalization with an emphasis on cultural preservation. She is a Fulbright Scholar whose research documented the cultural landscapes and social injustice witnessed during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic development.

Yung-Ju is employed at Lord Aeck Sargent and involved in the rehabilitation project of the county probate courthouse.

COMMITTEE MEMBER

Amy Wong Mok grew up in Hong Kong and was raised to listen rather than speak. In the United States, she found her voice speaking out on behalf of women, children, the elderly, and Asian immigrants.

She is a psychotherapist by formal education and received her Bachelor of Science in Human Services and her Master of Education in Community and Mental Health Counseling from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Amy was a psychotherapist at the South Cove Community Health Center in Boston Chinatown before moving to Austin, Texas in 1983 with her husband, Dr. Aloysius K. Mok who is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin.

In 2000, she founded the Asian American Cultural Center, which serves as a resource for Austinites from both Eastern and Western backgrounds.

Amy was appointed to serve as the Vice-chair for the 2006 Bond Election Advisory Committee for the City of Austin Bond and was appointed to serve as one of the Tri-chairs of the 2008 Citizen Advisory Committee for AISD.

Amy currently serves on Austin Arts Commission, the Board of the Austin PBS and the Board of the Austin ADL. She is a member of AARO (Austin Area Research Organization).

COMMITTEE MEMBER

Alberta Phillips is an Austin based writer and award-winning journalist. The majority of her career has been with the Austin city daily, The Austin American-Statesman, where she rose from a neighbor reporter to Editorial Writer and Columnist, taking the pulse of Austin’s Communities of Color for more than 30 years. While at the Statesman, she covered a variety of beats, including public schools, city hall, utilities, race relations, environmental issues and city, state and national politics. She was the first African American woman to serve in the Texas Capitol Press Corps, covering Gov. Ann Richards and Gov. George W. Bush.

She has won numerous awards for journalism excellence and was nominated twice for a Pulitzer Prize. Ms. Phillips left the American-Statesman in 2018 to pursue other interests, including a book project. In 2020, the board of KAZI radio, a community radio station with an African American focus, approved her proposal to launch a new, news magazine podcast, “ATX Now in Color,” which will focus on local and state issues impacting the Black Community.

She currently serves as Treasurer on the BikeTexas Board of Directors, as Commissioner on the City of Austin’s Joint Sustainability Committee, and Chairwoman of the ECHO Governing Board.

COMMITTEE MEMBER

Grady is the Park Operations Director for the Trail Foundation (A 501(c)3 dedicated to protecting, enhancing, and connecting the Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail at Lady Bird Lake for the benefit of all.).

Grady brings over 15 years of professional experience in urban horticulture—both in the public and private sector. His passion lies in delivering world class park experiences to the communities they serve. In prior roles, he’s managed daily operations, ballfields, playgrounds, tree care, conservation, events, and capital projects across several world-renowned public parks.

He holds a B.S. focused in Environmental Horticulture, Biological Sciences from Clemson University.

COMMITTEE MEMBER

Heidi is the program director for Planet Texas 2050 (within the Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors at UT), seeking solutions to make Austin resilient to climate change. She also is a member of the Austin Arts Commission.

Before moving back to Austin, she lived and worked in New Orleans where she joined the New Orleans Arts Council in 2013 as a research fellow, helping to organize what would become the Arts Council’s Youth Solutions initiative. She served as the Associate Director of Creative Placemaking and Deputy Director before taking the helm as Executive Director in 2018 until 2021.

Heidi holds a PhD in City, Culture, and Community from Tulane University, a Master’s Degree in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture as well as a Bachelor’s in Public Relations.

COMMITTEE MEMBER

Kenneth D. Thompson Sr, lifelong Austinite and former Director of East Austin Youth Foundation, served as Chair of the Austin African American Resource Advisory Commission, Former Board President of Pflugerville Independent School District, and former talk show host, KAZI 88.7 FM.

COMMITTEE MEMBER

Originally raised in Killeen Texas, Nancy moved to Austin as quickly as she could in 1980 to attend UT and received her Bachelor of Social Work in 1983. During her academic career Nancy got involved with groups focusing on advocacy and access for students with disabilities. She was integral in creating People Against Barriers (PAB), a play on words with Greek Letters. We fought for equal access and services on campus. One specific area, transportation and access to shuttle buses led to a lawsuit (Charlotte FERRIS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. The UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, et al., Defendants. Civ. A. No. A-78-CA-278.United States District Court, W.D. Texas, Austin Division. March 2, 1983.) and a rebel was born. We lost the battle but won the National war when the Americans with Disabilities was signed into law by President Bush in 1990.

In 1989, I was employed by Capital Metro. Working within every department at Capital Metro at the time of the ADA, the Transit Authority was successful in becoming the first transit authority in Texas to be 100 percent lift equipped and wheelchair accessible by 1993.The next 20 years I spent incorporating the Federal Guidelines, public outreach and training, I became woven into the core values of access in transportation, sidewalks and a plethora of causes for access in Austin. Having set the foundation of access with Capital Metro, I retired “by accident” in 2010. I could not have asked for a better business and community to be working and advocating that: access IS a civil right.

Recovered from retirement, Nancy dove into ADAPT and PACT, SAFE, Project Connect and the list goes on, and on. My objectives are to willingly volunteer/consult with agencies and organizations to lend expertise & community resources to aid the community of persons with disabilities of all ages, to maintain the rich history of disability civil rights advancement, to foster relationships with community advocates, to build on the foundations of community-based services and improve accessibility for all persons.

COMMITTEE MEMBER

Growing up bi-cultural and bilingual and attending the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York has helped shape Catalina into who she is today as she strives to be a positive influence in the Latino community and beyond. Her diverse skill set in event planning, marketing, policy change comes from her time working in radio and the nonprofit healthcare spaces. All of her work is done through an equity lens and equitable impact is crucial to the work she does.

Catalina is on several boards and committees including Con mi MADRE, the Hispanic Impact Fund, and the LEAD Summit with Austin Young Chamber. She was also a participant in the 2017 class of Leadership Austin Emerge and completed the Hispanic Austin Leadership Program in 2021 through the Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

COMITTEE MEMBER

Miguel A. Guajardo is a Professor in the Education and Community Leadership Program and a member of the doctoral faculty in School Improvement at Texas State University. His research interests include issues of community building, community youth development, leadership development, race and ethnicity, university and community partnerships, and Latino youth and families. He was a Fellow with the Kellogg International Leadership Program and the Salzburg Seminar.

He is the co-founder of the Community Learning Exchange, an emerging interdisciplinary community of practice that unites the power of place and the wisdom of people to advocate and work towards community change. Dr. Guajardo’s work has been informed by local ecology and the values of equity, dignity, and democracy in cross-cultural settings. His teaching, research and service agenda is informed by a micro-macro integrative theory that is grounded in practice. A sample of this work is highlighted in the 2016 book he published with a team of colleagues: Reframing Community Partnerships in Education: Uniting the Power of Place and Wisdom of People.