Karen Royster, Executive Director
kroyster@wisconsinsfuture.org
Karen Royster is a local and national activist involved in efforts to strengthen public sector investment, K-12 education and economic policies that support working families.
Over a 24-year period, she has been Executive Director of a county-wide anti-hunger organization, a low-income neighborhood development group and the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future. She has played a key role in establishing a congregation-based community organizing system in Milwaukee, a youth center for Latino and African-American young people involved in gang activity, coordinating state and national efforts to promote increased funding for public education and efforts to fight for fair and adequate state tax systems that ensure effective public sector services.
Karen has conducted national training workshops on school funding for groups including ACORN, the National Council of Education Activists, and the National School Funding Network. She has also presented sessions on public investment for the EARN Network, ACCESS and the National Council of State Legislators State Issues Forum.
Karen earned her degree in Community Education from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Gina Palazzari, Associate Director
gina@wisconsinsfuture.org
Gina has been the Associate Director for the Institute since 1997. She oversees the administrative and financial operations of IWF, co-directs fund development and planning activities, and assists with research projects.
Gina has worked in the non-profit sector throughout her 24 year career. She has worked on a variety of issues, including hunger, poverty, housing and community development, youth intervention and grassroots organizing. Gina has designed systems for improved emergency food delivery at pantries in southeast Wisconsin and carried out a study of the extent of hunger in the Milwaukee area. Gina secured funding for a pilot program to establish medical and dental clinics and social services in three inner city Milwaukee schools.
An active volunteer on the state and local level, Gina chaired a local referendum committee and has been President of her community’s PTA. She was elected to serve on the School District of Menomonee Falls Board of Directors in 2008.
Gina received her degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and worked as a research associate in the School of Social Welfare.
Jack Norman, Ph.D., Research Director
jnorman@wisconsinsfuture.org
Dr. Jack Norman has been Research Director at the Institute for Wisconsin's Future since 2000. He oversees policy research and development, especially in the areas of school finance and taxes. Jack is a frequent speaker at events statewide, and is the author of several major reports, includingWisconsin's Revenue Gap: An analysis of corporate tax avoidance (2007), Exposing the Wisconsin ‘Tax Hell’ Hoax (2005), Funding Our Future: An Adequacy Model for Wisconsin School Finance (2002) and Wisconsin Atlas of School Finance (2004). Through his writing and speaking, he has developed a reputation as one of the most recognized experts on Wisconsin school finance.
Before joining IWF, Jack was a business and local news reporter at Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Milwaukee Journal. His news reporting won local and national journalism awards, including a Gerald Loeb award for the best business journalism in the U.S. for coverage of Wisconsin-based maquiladora factories in Mexico. Jack also organized a newsroom union and served seven terms as president of the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild and four terms as an international vice president of the Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America AFL-CIO. He has also been a public school teacher in Pennsylvania and a university professor in Wisconsin.
Jack has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh, a B.A. from Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, and was a post-doctoral fellow in philosophy at Princeton University. He lives in Milwaukee.
Dennis Collier, Research Consultant
dcollier@wisconsinsfuture.org
Dennis Collier joined IWF as a research consultant in 2008. He worked for the Wisconsin Department of Revenue’s Division of Research and Policy for 19 years, 6 as an economist analyzing income, sales and other taxes and 13 as director of the Bureau of Tax and Fiscal Policy. He retired from Revenue in 2005. He has also conducted policy analysis for the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families and the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, and was a newspaper reporter and editor in Hartford, Beloit and Beaver Dam.
Dennis has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English from Marquette University, a master’s in public policy and administration from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s in religious studies from Edgewood College. He lives in Madison.
Vickie Strattner, Database & Technical
Specialist
vstrattner@wisconsinsfuture.org
Database and technology specialist Vickie Strattner started at the Institute for Wisconsin's Future in September 1996. Although Vickie received her undergraduate degree in nursing from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, her continuing education training has been in Microsoft Access databases and web design and maintenance. She maintains the database with over 10,000 contacts and manages two websites for IWF.
During her transition from nursing to computer technology, Vickie sat on the advisory committee for a video project with the Hunger Task Force of Milwaukee, was the Commissioner of the Lake Park Little League, helped out with installations at both the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Milwaukee Public Museum, served on the board of a local food co-op, was a regular volunteer at Riveredge Nature Center and the Urban Ecology Center, and is currently on the Riverside University High School’s governance council.
Joe Fahey, Organizer
jfahey@wisconsinsfuture.org
Joe Fahey has worked as an organizing consultant with the Institute for Wisconsin's future since the summer of 2006. In that role, Joe has helped build community support for statewide tax reform by traveling the state and making public presentations to a wide variety of citizen groups.
Joe moved with his daughter to Cudahy, Wisconsin from California in 2004. Prior to working with Institute for Wisconsin's Future, Joe spent the previous 27 years as a union leader and activist. He educated and organized Teamster members in Spanish and English in Watsonville, California where he was elected president of his local for five terms. Joe also worked nationally as the Food Processing Representative for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and for three years with Teamsters Local 200 in Milwaukee. Joe was the national co-chair for a Teamsters reform group.
Joe received his undergraduate degree in psychology in 1979 from the University of California-Santa Cruz.
Summer 2009 Staff at IWF
Over the last several months IWF has been fortunate to have a team of young people working with us on various projects. Jamal Hagler, an economics major and intern from the Economic Policy Institute in DC, worked on analyzing Wisconsin banks that received TARP money and the impact of stimulus funding. Long-time activist Corinne Rosen was hired by the Food and Water Watch and placed at IWF to lead the effort to oppose a proposal to privatize Milwaukee’s Water Works. Working with Corinne were UWM students Kate Schaefer and Julio Guerrero, who received internships through Midwest Academy to work on a community organizing project. As summer waned and they returned to school, Todd Sprewer joined the project through the Wisconsin Apprentice Organizers Project and is working to gauge public opinion on water privatization in Milwaukee. Finally, Saptadwipa Kundu spent several months at IWF improving our web site, assisting with teacher retention research and carrying out a myriad of technical assignments.
We thank them for their energy, hard work and dedication to working for change.