Staff & Network Members

CJI's approach to staffing begins by matching the project management expertise and technical experience of staff and network members with client site needs. We then strategically build a team for each initiative with appropriate expertise related to performance objectives. CJI staff has substantial experience working with diverse interest groups on complex issues that require a full understanding of policy and practice, research, community impact, fiscal constraints, and political hurdles. Our team includes individuals with backgrounds in human services, corrections management, public policy, research and evaluation, business administration, prosecution, defense, and social sciences.

Nancy Campbell helps develop better leaders. Believing that leadership demands the kind of relationships that inspire individuals and groups to strive for greatness, Nancy teaches skills and practices that cultivate leadership among individuals, teams, and organizations. With 20 years of experience as an executive with both public and non-profit agencies, she knows the challenges that leaders and their organizations face.

As an Associate Affiliate Professor for the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, Nancy provides leadership development for the professionals in the Executive Masters Program as well as the Hubert Humphrey Program for international mid-career professionals. She also teaches leadership in the Global Health Department in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington. As a consultant to government and non-profit organizations, she uses training, facilitation, coaching, and assessment to help individuals and groups increase self-awareness and self-management, lead high-impact change, align organizational practice with mission, and plan for succession and transition.

Ms. Campbell served as the Director of Community Corrections for both the Colorado and Washington State Departments of Corrections. She also served as the Director of the King County Department of Youth Services and The Community Responsibility Center, a non-profit residential community corrections program. A graduate of the School of Criminal Justice, State University of New York at Albany, Ms. Campbell is a well known speaker and lecturer in the field of criminal justice and leadership.

Michael Connelly is currently partner in JCO, an LLC focused on corrections and sentencing performance. He was previously Administrator of the Evaluation & Analysis Unit of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and also served as executive director of sentencing commissions in Maryland and Wisconsin. Prior to that, he was research director for the Oklahoma Criminal Justice Resource Center, which staffed the state sentencing commission and allowed him to serve as state Statistical Analysis Center director. He has also managed grant projects for the Justice Research and Statistics Association and been an associate professor of public policy and administration for Southwestern Oklahoma State University as well as adjuncting for the University of Maryland, Norwich University, and the University of Oklahoma. His research has appeared in policy, political science, education, criminal justice, and sentencing journals as well as in professional and government publications. He previously served on the executive board of the National Association of Sentencing Commissions. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Missouri.

Jennifer Fahey brings an extensive background in public safety and policy development experience to CJI’s network. Ms. Fahey holds a law degree from Hamline University School of Law and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. Her legal areas of expertise include Indian law, specifically working on Native American issues in Minnesota involving everything from treaty rights to the Indian Child Welfare Act; and criminal law, having worked as both an assistant and elected county attorney in Minnesota. As County Attorney she developed an innovative, alternative sentencing program in coordination with the judiciary, the Department of Corrections, the Mille Lacs Band of Indians, and the community, successfully working to prevent recidivism and keep individuals from entering the criminal justice system.

Ms. Fahey has also worked as the Director of Policy and Planning for the Division of Prevention and Community Partnerships, in the Department of Human Services in New Jersey. This position involved creating a new division dedicated to the prevention of child abuse and neglect, throughout the state, in partnership with local communities using evidence-based practices.

Bill Farver has worked with CJI on the Justice Reinvestment project for the Public Safety Reset Team under then Governor Ted Kulongoski and is currently part of the team working on reinvestment projects. His specialty is constructing data driven budget processes that help pose transparent policy tradeoffs for policy makers.

Bill Farver has worked in state and local government for more than twenty five years. He has served as the Chief Operating Officer at Multnomah County (Portland) for two County Chairs and the Executive Assistant to two Portland School Superintendents. He is currently the Interim Vice President for Administrative Services for Mt. Hood Community College.

Mr. Farver has a law degree, a Master of Arts in Teaching, and years of practical experience in policy development, budgeting, facilitation, team building, and performance evaluation in local government.

Joanne Fuller currently serves as the Director of the Multnomah County Oregon Department of County Human Services in this role she leads the primary social services agency for Portland, Oregon. Previously she served for five years as the Director of Multnomah County's Department of Community Justice which is a combined juvenile justice and adult probation and parole agency. Joanne is a leader in both the implementation of Evidence Based Practices in adult community corrections and juvenile justice detention reform. In 2006, she was named as the National Association of Probation Executives Probation Chief of the Year. She has worked as a consultant for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Vera Institute and National Institute of Corrections. Joanne has a Masters Degree in Social Work from Portland State University.

Dr. Hoffman has been a trainer and educator in the public sector for more than 30 years. She began her career as a parole and probation agent and held several other positions with the Maryland Division of Parole and Probation, including training specialist, acting training manager, and field supervisor. She has previously served as Executive Director of the Professional Development and Training Division, Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services and Chief, Training Services Division, Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In these positions, Dr. Hoffman provided leadership for the professional and organizational development functions of two of the largest State departments. Currently, she has a private consulting practice providing training and development services to a variety of clients. Dr. Hoffman is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor.

Dr. Hoffman has a Bachelors Degree in English from the University of Maryland, a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology from Loyola College, and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland College Park with an emphasis in Organizational Behavior and Development. As an adjunct faculty member at Towson University and the University of Baltimore, she has taught Adolescent Psychology and various graduate level classes in human resource development. As an adjunct faculty member at Stevenson University, she designs and teaches online courses in Psychology, Sociology and Criminal Justice.

Dana Hunt, Principal Scientist is a widely recognized expert with 30 years of experience in research in alcohol and drug abuse, drug treatment, and methodological issues in these fields. She has 22 years of experience as a principal investigator and senior scientist at Abt Associates. During that time, she has managed large multi-site research projects for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the National Institute of Justice, including evaluation of criminal justice programming. She directed the 35 site Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) system for NIJ from 1997-2001, a program in which over 20,000 arrestees were interviewed each year regarding their drug and alcohol use and history, employment, housing and treatment needs and currently runs the 10 county version of ADAM for ONDCP. Dr. Hunt has created research designs for program evaluation for NIJ and BJA. She earned her Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1977 and is a regular reviewer of government grants and contracts dealing with drug and alcohol use. She is currently assisting CJI on the development of the evaluation of Roca, a community based program for high risk youth.

Jim Austin, President
Wendy Naro-Ware, Vice President
The JFA Institute is a multi-disciplinary research center whose mission is to conduct theoretical and applied research on the causes of crime and the justice system's responses to crime and offenders. The organization is directed by Dr. James Austin, former Director of the Institute on Crime, Justice and Corrections at George Washington University in Washington, DC. The JFA Institute disseminates its studies and policy recommendations through research reports, criminal justice and criminology periodicals, books, and seminars.

JFA serves as a research partner to CJI on selected Justice Reinvestment Sites. JFA’s approach is designed to educate county officials in developing quality research data and in developing and operating a correctional simulation model. The model developed gives sites the ability to assist in the production of jail population forecasts in the future and to generate informative and useful planning statistics.

During the past 45 years George Keiser has worked in or with every level and type of corrections position in the United States. Since beginning as a correctional officer in 1966, he has held positions of officer, counselor and superintendent in institutions ranging from minimum to maximum security with both male and female populations. He also served as Bureau Chief for both the Institution and Community Branches of state corrections in Iowa. During the last 28 years of his public career he served as the Community Corrections Chief for the National Institute of Corrections, US Department of Justice George is commonly thought of as a change agent. While Community Corrections Bureau Chief in Iowa, he created a multi-county regional community corrections structure with public agencies governed by Boards of Directors. In doing so, he moved the supervision of probation and parole from state to local control.

While at NIC he introduced the concept of Intermediate Sanctions, and since the early 1990s, George and his staff were responsible for advancing the implementation of research supported evidence based practices in public and private, federal, state and local corrections agencies throughout the United States. Much of the work promoted by Mr. Keiser has focused on bringing the key decision makers, within the criminal justice system, together in order to understand the impact, intended or unintended, they have on each other.

The last initiative Mr. Keiser sponsored at NIC brought local decision makers together to attempt to define what, in measurable terms, they want their criminal justice system to produce - a focus on outcome and not merely activity. Some of the awards received by Mr. Keiser include: 1996 the Margaret Mead Award from the International Community Corrections Association; 1998 Outstanding Recognition from the American Probation and Parole Association; 1999 the Vincent O'Leary Award from the Paroling Authorities International; 2002 the Maud Booth Award from the Volunteers of America, and 2009 the Director's Special Recognition Award from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Since leaving his public service career the end of 2010, George has created Keiser and Associates LLC "bringing people and ideas together for change" and works regularly with CJI as a network member, advisor, and technical assistance provider.

Ginger Martin is currently an assistant director in the Oregon Department of Corrections and head of the Transitional Services Division. This Division includes community corrections, institutional programs such as addictions treatment and cognitive programs, inmate education, religious services, as well several other related functions. Ginger Martin has 30 years experience in state-level corrections policy and in addictions treatment. She has consulted on issues related to corrections policy and offender treatment programs at the county, state, and federal levels.

She has a Masters degree from Arizona State University and a Bachelors degree from Northern Arizona University. She currently serves on the boards of the International Community Corrections Association and the Womens' Commission on Alcohol and Drug Issues of Oregon. She has served on the Institute of Addictions Studies Board and as chair of the state licensing board for social workers.

Greg Mitchell, Principal of The Mitchell Firm, got his start in politics and government in 1991. After graduating from California State University, Northridge, with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science, Mr. Mitchell helped Congressman Carlos J. Moorhead win his last two reelection campaigns, as Campaign Coordinator in 1992 and Campaign Manager in 1994. In 1995, he served as District Administrator until Moorhead announced he would retire. Mr. Mitchell then went to work as Chief of Staff to James E. Rogan, who was then the Majority Leader of the California State Assembly. Mr. Mitchell also managed Rogan's successful campaign for Congress in 1996 and moved to Washington, D.C., to serve as his Chief of Staff on Capitol Hill. While in Congress, Rogan served on the Judiciary Committee.

In early 2000, Mr. Mitchell became one of the co-founders of Digital Campaigns, Inc., a software company that offered online database solutions for political and grassroots campaigns. Digital Campaigns was a pioneer company that helped to redefine online applications for campaign databases. Mr. Mitchell served as the Internet Campaign Director for Draper's Prop 38 Yes, School Vouchers 2000 statewide campaign in California, which was the first to field-test the Digital Campaigns software. In 2001, Mr. Mitchell traveled to Arkansas to put the Digital Campaigns software to a second big test, this time for the special election campaign of John Boozman for Congress in Arkansas' 3rd Congressional District. The client in this case was the Republican National Committee (RNC), which used the results as a case study to see what was possible as they were designing programs that empowered supporters to communicate deep into communities, spread good word-of-mouth and collect data that could be used to effectively target messages. In the spring of 2002, Mr. Mitchell left Digital Campaigns to become Vice President of Keelen Communications, a political consulting and fundraising firm headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. Mr. Mitchell served as the business manager of the firm for its founder, Matt Keelen, and also raised money for the campaigns of several members of Congress. In search of a higher purpose, Mr. Mitchell decided to focus on promoting ideas and issues, and in the summer of 2003 founded The Mitchell Firm. He has been lobbying for criminal justice reform ever since, and helped to pass two reforms into law: the Second Chance Act of 2007, and the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010.

Jessica Nickel represents businesses, associations and nonprofit organizations on Capitol Hill, and before federal, state and local government agencies. She has substantial experience in representing clients on appropriations and policy issues. Her experience includes criminal justice policies, appropriations for federal, state and local grant programs, and developing grassroots initiatives.

Ms. Nickel has worked closely with officials in the White House, the Justice Department, the Department of Labor, and state and local governments. For the last four years, Ms. Nickel served as the Director of Government Affairs for the Council of State Governments Justice Center ("CSG"). During her tenure, Ms. Nickel elevated the national priorities of CSG, the nation's only organization serving all three branches of state government, and represented CSG before Congress and the Executive Branch.

Ms. Nickel acted as liaison between states and the federal government on a number of criminal justice issues, including corrections, substance abuse, prisoner reentry and federal grant programs. Specifically, Ms. Nickel coordinated efforts to pass and fund the Second Chance Act, increase funding and reauthorize the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act, and other legislative measures such as the Safe Prisons Communication Act and the Justice Reinvestment Act.

Previously Ms. Nickel worked in the office of former U.S. Representative Rob Portman, developing policy strategies in several issue areas including Social Security, substance abuse, and crime. She handled a variety of key issues for Portman, including the Second Chance Act, the Speaker's Drug Task Force, the Drug Free Communities Act, the Drug Impaired Driving Act, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, and the Drug-Free Workplace bill.

In 1998, Ms. Nickel was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve on the Drug-Free Communities Commission that helped guide the implementation of the Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997, where she also went on to serve as co-chair. She received her B.A. from Princeton University.

Mr. Ozanne has devoted his 35-year career to trial and appellate litigation, including criminal defense and prosecution; teaching and training law students, lawyers, judges and allied professionals in criminal, sentencing and corrections law and policy and trial practice; and acting as a consultant to public officials across the country on criminal justice and public safety policy. He has served as a senior policy advisor to three Oregon governors, the first chair of Oregon's Sentencing Guidelines Commission, vice-chair of the Oregon Investment Council, chief counsel to the U.S. Attorney in Oregon, and executive director of Multnomah County's Local Public Safety Coordinating Council, and the Oregon's Office of Public Defense Services. Most recently, Mr. Ozanne has been responsible for advising the Multnomah County Chair and Board of Commissioners on public safety policies, budget priorities, crime reduction strategies and evidence-based practices. Mr. Ozanne has been a CJI network member since 2009 and works regularly with CJI project teams on local site-based initiatives with the Pew Public Safety Performance Project and the BJA Justice Reinvestment Initiative.

Wayne J. Pitts is an Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Memphis. Dr. Pitts began working with CJI in 2008 as a member of the Cultural Competency Team as part of the project to examine risk assessment and responsivity with Hispanic and Native American corrections populations funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. His primary area of specialization is adult corrections and he has significant experience in correctional administration, offender information systems, classification and risk assessment instruments, discharge planning, and community corrections.

Besides his experiences in the United States, Dr. Pitts has studied corrections and other aspects of the criminal justice system in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Mexico where he visited and conducted research in several prisons. Dr. Pitts has made more than 30 presentations at national conferences and has written over 40 journal articles, book chapters and technical reports including works in the American Journal of Criminal Justice, the Journal of Criminal Justice Research, Justice System Journal, the Loyola Journal of Public Interest Law, the Corrections Compendium, and the Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice. Dr. Pitts completed his Ph.D. at the University of New Mexico in 2003.

Donna Reback, is a Social Policy Consultant, based in Stowe, Vermont and a Senior Partner in Flint Springs Associates, a consulting firm specializing in social policy planning, development and system assessment and evaluation research. Her work aims to help multi-disciplinary task forces develop and implement collaborative, strategic, consensus-based approaches focused on issues such as: expanding community punishments for non-violent offenders; managing sex offenders in the community; enhancing responses to victims of crime; managing correctional resources; and enabling successful offender transition from prison to the community.

Ms. Reback began her career in 1974 as a VISTA volunteer for the Vermont Department of Corrections and continued to work with adult and juvenile offenders in community supervision and prison settings in Vermont and Massachusetts into the next decade. After earning a Masters Degree in Social Work in 1981 and teaching in an undergraduate Social Work program, she entered the doctoral program in Social Welfare Policy at the Florence Heller School at Brandeis University. In 1987 she became the Associate Director of the National Institute for Sentencing Alternatives, a criminal justice policy center at Brandeis. From the Institute, she went on to the Justice Program at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation where for seven years she worked intensively with policy makers in four states to design and implement strategic approaches to reduce their jurisdictions' reliance on harsh punishments and incarceration of non-violent offenders. She has provided system assessment, strategic planning, research and training services to state and county governments in more than 30 jurisdictions under contracts with organizations including the National Institute of Corrections (NIC), the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the Center for Effective Public Policy (CEPP), the Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM), the Vera Institute of Justice, and the JEHT Foundation.

Ms. Reback is extremely knowledgeable about New York's county and state criminal justice systems, having spent the past thirteen years providing long-term technical assistance on a range of federally and locally funded initiatives. In 1997 she assumed the role of site coordinator to NIC's Criminal Justice System Project in St. Lawrence and Duchess Counties. Subsequently she became the technical assistance provider to: two New York counties seeking to improve their probation violation policies under NIC's Probation and Parole Responses project: nine New York counties and the State of New York, which each received BJA-CSOM technical assistance grants focused on managing sex offenders in the community; and to the New York State Transition from Prison to Community Initiative (TPC), again funded by NIC. Under contract to the Vera Institute of Justice she facilitated the deliberations of a Division of Parole work group charged with developing a system of graduated responses to violations. Finally, she's developed and conducted numerous trainings around the state on Evidence-Based Practices in Reentry.

Her experience and expertise in assessment and evaluation research, strategic planning and training extends beyond criminal and juvenile justice into the policy arenas of mental health, aging and disabilities. More detailed information is available at Flint Springs Associates.

Charlene Rhyne received her doctoral degree in Public Administration and Policy from Portland State University. She currently supervises the Quality Systems Management and Evaluation Unit of the Department of Community Justice 9 DCJ) in Multnomah county, Oregon and has been with the Department since 1997. Her Unit provides program evaluation-both process and outcome, management reporting and performance measurement to support departmental decision- making. Prior to coming to DCJ, Dr. Rhyne was Co- Principal Investigator on a federal welfare reform evaluation at Portland State University.

Michelle Webster has focused on the impact of crime and violence on individuals, families and communities for over a decade as a policy analyst, project manager, activist and volunteer. Ms. Webster began her professional career as project manager for the Victims of Crime Act funding program for the State of Illinois. After receiving her Masters degree in public policy, she served as a research associate with the Urban Institute, working to link the research activities of the Justice Policy Center to policy and practice arenas in the field. She managed a national policy conference on the impact of incarceration and reentry on children and families, and co-edited a book on the topic. Michelle returned to crime victim issues as director of special projects for the National Center for Victims of Crime, where she managed the development of several policy and practice initiatives, including the National Roundtable on Victim Compensation and a three-city Parallel Justice demonstration project. Ms. Webster received her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.

With 10 years of legal experience in the New Hampshire Seacoast Area, including Dover, Rochester, and Portsmouth, Ms. Weibrecht has tried and negotiated hundreds of civil and criminal cases. Her work has spanned District, Juvenile, and Superior courts and includes dozens of jury trials and bench trials, including high-stakes, complex felony jury trials. Ms. Weibrecht has also held several positions in the NH Judicial Branch and with Strafford County, and has worked as a national justice systems consultant and facilitator.

Mr. Woodward is a faculty member at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (2002-Present). Prior to this he was a Senior Project Manager at Center for Effective Public Policy. At CEPP he managed the National Resource Center for Collaboration in the Criminal Justice System and the resource sites for the Center for Sex Offender Management. Mr. Woodward also has extensive consulting experience. His consulting clients include: Center for Effective Public Policy (CEPP) in Silver Spring, MD, the National Institute of Corrections, US Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; the Hawaii Interagency Council on Intermediate Sanctions, and US Federal Probation and Parole in the Hawaii, Central Ohio, and South Dakota Districts.