Bob Blum After 20+ years living in Boston, Massachusetts, Bob relocated to Cincinnati in late 2007. His years of traveling to Cincinnati for work and conferences opened his eyes to the many positives of Ohio and the southwestern portion of the state. However, leaving behind Massachusetts, a state with substantial protections and support for its LGBT residents, has inspired Bob to take greater action for change in his new home.

Bob was active in the LGBT choral movement for over a decade, holding board leadership positions with both GALA Choruses and the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus. He witnessed the power of LGBT choruses to create community, break down barriers and build bridges of understanding.

Bob is a graduate of Dartmouth College, and he has been employed as a project manager for The Gillette Company and Procter & Gamble. Bob’s home is in the Clifton neighborhood of Cincinnati. He is currently a Trustee of Clifton Town Meeting (a neighborhood council) and active with Clifton United Methodist Church, a reconciling congregation. When it is not winter, he can often be found in the outfield playing in LBGT softball leagues

Jennette Caden (please note the unique spelling) is called Jenny by her friends. She is a divorced 58 year old male-to-female post-operative transsexual and currently lives in the south Dayton, Ohio area, albeit currently unemployed. Her family (parents and two kids and a 2-year old granddaughter) are supportive, but has not spoken to her sister in over 2 years.

While testing the then still-maturing Internet in late 1995, she found out she was not alone in her gender confusion and soon afterward joined CrossPort, a Cincinnati-area transgender support group. In the spring of 1996, she was asked to be their newsletter editor, a post she held for the next 6½ years.

In mid-2004, she was diagnosed with Gender Identity Dysphoria and soon after began cross-gender hormone replacement therapy. She has been living as Jenny since July 23, 2007 and received her gender confirmation surgery from Dr. Christine McGinn in Philadelphia in November 2008.

From 2006 to 2008, she was the Dayton Chapter Representative for League@NCR, their employee resource group (ERG) for LGBT employees. In late 2006, with help from the Human Rights Campaign’s Workplace Project, she wrote a set of Transgender Employee Workplace Transition Guidelines for NCR and then tested them the following year. As part of the League@NCR delegation at the September 2006 Out & Equal conference in Chicago, Jenny presented a workshop on dealing with transgender employees. In early 2008, Jenny was invited to join the Out & Equal Workplace Advocates Transgender Advisory Committee and is still a member today.

In November 2006, Jenny joined the board of directors for the Greater Dayton LGBT Center and was the first transgender speaker in the 25-year history of the Dayton Pride Dinner in June 2007. Jenny left the Center board at the end of 2008, but still serves as a resource on transgender issues and continues to work with the Dayton Pride Partnership to help produce their annual LGBT Resource Guide.

In August of 2007, she was elected to the Equality Ohio board of directors. In July 2008, she was elected board vice-chair. She was a speaker at the Dayton-area National Coming Out Day rally in October 2007 and speaks on transgender issues at area mental health, social work, and physical health care classes, plus at various other events. She also works with LGBT student support groups at Sinclair Community College and Wright State University.

Lynn Calloway relocated to Ohio in 2005 from Charlotte, North Carolina where she resided for 17 years. While in North Carolina she was active in volunteering for the Charlotte Gay and Lesbian Switchboard, as well as the annual Alzheimer’s Association Memory Walk. Upon relocating to Columbus, she quickly became involved with volunteerism with Columbus HRC, Stonewall Columbus and Equality Ohio. Lynn is passionate about equality and hopes to continue to work towards making Ohio become more accepting of its residents who happen to be gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender.

Lynn is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte where she earned a Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice while working full time at a large law firm. She is currently a paralegal at a private equity firm where she works closely with her attorneys in land acquisitions and hotel real estate development across the United States.

In her spare time she enjoys cooking, reading, playing golf and spending time with her partner, Anita. They reside in Blacklick, Ohio.

Chris Dunlap

John Farina has more than 20 years of experience in management, fundraising, marketing, public policy, banking, and sales - as well as working with nonprofit organizations as a volunteer, board member and staff person. In November 2006, he played a key role in the campaign to pass Issue 18, the tobacco levy passed by voters to support arts and culture in Cuyahoga County. Farina has managed successful levy campaigns for the Cuyahoga County Public Library and the Cuyahoga County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities along with work on the effort to reform Cuyahoga County government in 2009. John has also held crucial positions in many individual campaigns, including running on his own.

John Farina currently works as the Assistant Director for Individual Giving at the Cleveland Museum of Art and manages a donor portfolio of more than $2 million. He was most recently the Executive Director of Red {an orchestra} from June of 2007 until the organization’s closing in March of 2008. In 2005, Farina joined the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood as Director of Development. While there he managed a comprehensive development program that raised more than $1 million for the Center’s educational and performing arts programming. For nearly five years, prior to the Beck, Farina was the Director of Public Policy for the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland. There, he trained countless advocates in how to lobby and played an essential role in HIV/AIDS policy and funding. John has also served as a consultant to many small and mid-size nonprofit organizations.

Born and raised on Long Island in New York, Farina came to Cleveland in 1991 and now resides in Lakewood with his partner, Adam Tully and their two cats, Emma Peel and Hex. They are avid art collectors with more than 100 objects in their collection. John is a graduate of the Cleveland Bridge Builder’s Flagship Program (2002) and currently Executive Vice President of the Board of Directors for SPACES Gallery, Executive Vice President and PAC Treasurer for the Cleveland Stonewall Democrats and a board member of the Cleveland Artists Foundation and Equality Ohio. He is an active participant in many area organizations including the Print Club of Cleveland, the Cleveland Film Society and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender Community Center of Greater Cleveland.

Lee Gibson PHR is happy to have returned to his home in Northwest Ohio in 2009 after spending three years in Washington, DC working as Operations Coordinator for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT civil-rights organization.

Lee studied Human Resource Management at The University of Findlay for three years before moving to Washington, DC and completing his B.S. in the field at Franklin University. Currently an MBA candidate at the University of Toledo, specializing in Human Resource Management, Lee is active with the Society for Human Resource Management and earned PHR certification in 2009. Lee works as an HR Consultant specializing in diversity recruiting & employee development with clients throughout the Midwest and is a regular contributor to the popular HR blog, [un]Balanced Scorecard.

In addition to working with Equality Ohio to create an Ohio where everyone feels at home, Lee works with the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, to help elect LGBT candidates across the country, as a member of Victory Fund’s Victory Campaign Board.

Lee lives in Hardin County with his Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Troy.

Kate Lockhart is a resident of Mount Vernon, Ohio located in beautiful Knox County. Kate was raised in a large, loving and supportive family – she’s one of five children – and spent most of her childhood living in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

Kate received an A.B. in political science from The University of Chicago in 2001. While in school she worked for the Cook County Public Defender’s office and the city of Chicago’s law department. Shortly after graduating, Kate moved to New York City and worked as a bankruptcy paralegal on such cases as Enron, WorldCom and Asia Global Crossing, Ltd. It didn’t take her too long to realize she didn’t want to be a lawyer, so she decided to head to business school instead. In 2005, Kate received an M.B.A. in marketing with a minor in finance from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. After graduating from business school she moved with her partner to Mount Vernon, which has been her home ever since.

Kate was one of the more than 400 participants at Equality Ohio’s first lobby day in 2006, and has been working for equality for the GLBT community in Ohio ever since. She was a founding member of the North Central Alliance for Equality (“NCAFE”), a regional advocacy group that worked to bring visibility to the GLBT community in north central Ohio. She is also a founding member of the Knox County Gay-Straight Alliance (“Knox County GSA”). The Knox County GSA was founded to support the local gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and allied community, to educate its neighbors about GLBT issues, and to bring visibility to the GLBT community in Knox County, Ohio.

Kate feels as if she has been called to be an advocate for the GLBT community. She is committed to working to create the change she wants to see in this state and is excited to be working with Equality Ohio to create a state that is welcoming to all people.

An author and documentary director whose research focuses on struggles for power, equality and justice for women, racial and sexual minorities, Molly has published one book: Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II (New York University Press, 1998/2001), and numerous articles and book chapters. She has also produced and directed several documentaries, which have aired on regional PBS and screened internationally: Country Crush (2009), Invisible Struggles: Stories of Northern Segregation (2007), Women Who Flew (1994) and Queens of Columbus: Performance and the Art of Illusion (1992). Molly Merryman is the vice president of the Alliance Area Domestic Violence Shelter Advisory Board.

Molly lives on a 10-acre farm near Homeworth, in northeast Ohio, where she grows vegetables and raises chickens (which benefit from her vegetarian lifestyle).

KD Miller

Janica Pierce-Tucker After graduation from the University of Tennessee summa cum laude in 1999, and graduation from The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law, in 2002, Janica A. Pierce Tucker worked as a practicing lawyer with Frank A. Ray Co., L.P.A., and now is an associate at Chester, Willcox & Saxbe, LLP, concentrating in litigation in the area of labor and employment.

Ms. Tucker is presently on the Board of Directors for the Central Ohio Attorneys for Justice and serves as Treasurer. Ms. Tucker sat on the Board and is past President of the American Diabetes Association. She is a 2006 graduate of Leadership Columbus and the African-American Leadership Academy.

Ms. Tucker is immediate past President of Women Lawyers of Franklin County. She was recently appointed by the Ohio Supreme Court for the Board of Commissioners for Grievances and Disciplines.

In 2006, Ms. Tucker was recognized by Business First by receiving their “Forty Under 40” award. For the past four years, Ms. Tucker has been recognized by Ohio Super Lawyers as a Rising Star. The Columbus Bar Association recently awarded Ms. Tucker the Community Service Award. Ms. Tucker has had articles published in numerous publications.

A native of Dayton, Ohio, Ms. Tucker now resides in Grove City with her husband, Anthony Tucker, and their four boys ages 20, 14, 8, and 5. She enjoys spending time with her family and friends.

Zach Ruppel

Michelle Wilson grew up in Korea as the daughter of a missionary. At 35, she came out as a lesbian. She became politically active in the movement after experiencing discrimination in her personal life. She is currently volunteering as a court appointed special advocate for children, a rape crisis advocate, a campaign treasurer and is on the board of three organizations. She is also planning to run for local office this year.

Michelle is a graduate of Thomas More College where she earned a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration while working full time as a licensed bank manager. She is currently laid off and is planning to go back to school to earn her CPA.

In her spare time she enjoys meeting diverse people, learning, eating spicy ethnic foods, volunteering, reading, and spending time with her two beautiful children.