Andrew Solomon got his first taste of political activism in the short-lived Wes Clark primary campaign, organizing volunteer cell phone banks in New York and doing his darndest to hold up a 10-foot Clark sign at a highway off-ramp in frigid Manchester, New Hampshire.

Chris Asta got into politics by becoming an obsessive political blog-reader. Like many fellow “bloggers”, this led him to Ned Lamont’s senate campaign, on which he worked as a volunteer coordinator during both the insurgent primary and subsequent general election efforts in 2006.

Heather Roberson came to ACT NOW by way of the 2004 election, during which she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to work as a volunteer for America Coming Together (ACT). She connected with ACT NOW before the 2006 mid-term elections with the aim to, once again, experience the gratification (both instant and long-term, as it turned out) of a good old-fashioned, on-the-ground voter contact campaign.

Born and raised in New York City, Keith Powers first got interested in social and political issues while in high school. Formerly the Vice President of the Manhattan Young Democrats, Keith worked with ACT NOW on numerous federal and state level campaigns before joining the Board in 2009.

Kenan’s first failure in his lifelong ambition of political apathy occurred in the fall of 2004 when he became entangled with America Coming Together in Pennsylvania. This slippery slope led to the Hell’s Kitchen / Hudson Yards Alliance, a coalition of New York’s tenant’s rights and housing advocacy groups for whom Kenan helped organize and stage a number of media-seducing rallies and protests.

Lenny Braman has enjoyed talking politics with family, friends, and perfect strangers for as long as he can remember, and is glad to be talking politics as a member of ACT NOW’s Board of Directors. As a law student and now as a practicing lawyer, he has been involved with attorney political groups such as NY Lawyers for Obama, and did volunteer voter protection work in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections.

Margot Albert first became politically active in the 2004 campaign, during which she traveled on weekends to Las Vegas to canvass with America Coming Together and was inspired upon discovering a groundswell of activism by people from all walks of life. After moving to New York in 2006, Margot began volunteering with ACT NOW, where she happily found the same enthusiasm and commitment she experienced in Nevada.

Rebecca Schrag is a native Manhattanite who is fiercely loyal to the bluest part of this great blue state. She spent much of the summer and fall of 2004 attempting to spread blue-ness by phone banking to swing states and leading bus trips to Pennsylvania.

Andrew joined the nascent ACT New York in spring ‘04 as a volunteer focused on voter registration. He quickly became deeply involved as a Co-Director and was proud to be a founding Co-Director of ACT NOW in early ‘06.

Rachel Burd can only put her wildly diverse background under the heading of “freelance troublemaker.” She has been an organizer, a publicist, an advocate, and a grantwriter for unions, community groups, and labor-community coalitions, and the campaigns she has worked on have included health care, social services, workplace organizing drives, and the arts.