Volunteer Spotlight

Dina Yazdani

Bus Project Board

Bus Foundation Board

Bus Project Staff

Caitlin Baggott, The Deep Thinker
(Education & Strategic Director)
caitlin [at] busproject [dot] org

Caitlin is a Reed College graduate, but don’t worry, she’s very well-adjusted. She has a super-cute baby daughter named Augusta and a super-tall baby daddy named Rich. Over her auspicious, somewhat confusing career, she has been a consultant, a teacher of disadvantaged yutes and a no-limit poker champion. Now she runs PolitiCorps and speaks on hoity-toity panels about ethics. She grew a rat tail before they were popular (which will be in 2025, give or take six years). She’s a leader of leaders, but is ironically uncomfortable when people stand behind her.

Ryan Joseph Davis Christensen, Master of Scare-imonies
(Trick or Vote National Director )
ryanjdc [at] busproject [dot] org

Best known for starting and fostering the nationally-renown, award-winning, classy-and-comfy clothing company, Sameunderneath, Ryan was the first person in America to look cool wearing a fanny pack. Forever motivated by his need to make the world better, more egalitarian and simply sweeter, Ryan is the grandmaster of guerilla marketing. He doesn’t like to brag, but since we do, we don’t mind telling you that he was picked by the Oregonian as one of Portland’s 25 most creative thinkers and was named one the “40 under 40″ by the Portland Business Journal. Now he’s turned his sights on Trick or Vote, and we’ve already received meeting requests from Frankenstein, the Wolfman and Oprah Winfrey.

Scott Duncombe, Dr HTMLove
(Tech Manager)
scott [at] busproject [dot] org

Scott’s first language was binary code. His second language was kicking ass. He grew up in Corvallis, then zapped over to University of Chicago, where he became Student Body President (hail to the chief, etc. etc.). In his post-President, pre-Bus life, Scott was an organizer for Obama for America in New Hampshire and a field & online organizer for the Millennial clean-energy group Focus the Nation. He has giant hands, which he uses to fight evil and build websites (Corvallis High School & Rep. Lew Frederick’s, for example). He rounds out his tech-savviness with skying, backpacking & doing little things like running the Chicago Marathon. He also has an ominously gravely voice, but only uses it for good.

Ian Greenfield, The Iron Fist
(Managing Director)
ian [at] busproject [dot] org

Ian used to be very theatrical. He went to fancy schools like Bennington College, The British American Drama Academy and Some super-impressive non-profit grad school at Stanford. He founded the award-winning theatre company Lightbox Studio in Portland. Audiences once wept at his very presence onstage, but he gave it all away to save the world. He became Communications Director for Compassion & Choices, where he helped lay the smack down on John Ashcroft’s challenge to Oregon’s Death with Dignity law. He’s spent a lifetime doing viral marketing like “frankscubicle.com” for fancy-pants clients, for which he won two big PR awards. These days, Ian keeps the Bus brand beautiful and makes sure nobody drives the Bus off a cliff. In addition to all the directing and snarking, Ian is a “foodie” and enjoys eating food that doesn’t look like food.

Elizabeth Jane Good, $pecial Agent
(Development Associate)
elizabeth [at] busproject [dot] org

Elizabeth is the Bus’s resident Jane-of-all-trades. She brings in the dollars, throws better house parties than Kid ‘n Play ever could, brews the BrewHaHas and tweets like nobody’s bizniz. She does all this largely to make up for the fact that she’s not a Kennedy and probably never will be. A master of extremes, she went to the oldest high school in the nation, is the shortest development team member in Bus history and is inarguably the scrappiest Rugby player in the nation. Her loves include her PolitiCorps, the Red Sox, L.L. Bean, lighthouses and Wellesley College. Her hates include wax museums, inactive credit cards and the Yankees. Her “no-opinions” include nothing.

Chris Hewitt, Champion Democracizer
(Outreach Coordinator)
chris [at] busproject [dot] org

Chris (better known as Chewitt) remembers his first words as “soccer” and “vote”. Now that he’s gotten older, he’s gotten a bit better at soccer and a lot better at voting. Since he graduated from PolitiCorps, he’s spent his days getting people on the Bus and spent his nights dreaming of 100% youth voter turnout. In the rare moments Chris isn’t getting people to volunteer, he watches movies (just ask him to list the filmography of Keanu Reeves in alphabetical order); eats, sleeps and breathes Duck football; and reminisces about the ’90s. He basically is “Saved By the Bell”s Zach Morris, if you’re wondering.

Henry Kraemer, Politicus Maximus
(Political Director)
henry [at] busproject [dot] org

Henry’s political obsession borders on unhealthy. His biggest turn-on is redistricting and he sleeps in Barack Obama-themed pajamas. After working for Students for Barack Obama and Steve Novick’s U.S. Senate campaign, he found himself in a series of goofy hats helping Bus volunteers hit over 60,000 doors through Bus Trips. He then put on a few discount-rack suits, headed to the Oregon Legislature and became the youngest lobbyist in Oregon. He’s pretty dang proud of helping to pass online voter registration and won’t rest until Oregon’s next generation is politically strong like bull. To that end, he expects you to volunteer tomorrow. Ok cool, see you then.

Mariana Lindsay, Funding Fiend
(Development Associate)
mariana [at] busproject [dot] org

Mariana started volunteering with the Bus back in 2006, when she was just a wee one. She went AWOL after that (apparently for college or something), but PolitiCorps brought her back and now she’s pulling in the dollars. If you want a cross section of Mariana’s activities since babyhood, it’d go something like this: theatre, flute, piano, track, gymnastics, flower arranging, fencing, basketball, volleyball, sign language, salsa dancing, figure skating, swimming, painting, pottery, study abroad in Chile & Mexico, jewelry collection and tripping over things. In other news, she would like you to be a monthly member. Or to give her a puppy. Or both?

Reyna Lopez, Volunteer Magnet
(Outreach Coordinator)
reyna [at] busproject [dot] org

A lifelong politico, Reyna met the Bus when she worked for then Sen. Ben Westlund, and couldn’t get enough of the delicious democracy. So after she graduated from Willamette University, she left her hometown of Salem to join the PolitiCorps class and then hopped on the Bus for serious. When Reyna isn’t out in the world, getting peeps excited about democracy, she’s mostly in the club, poppin’ and lockin’. You may know Reyna by her many nicknames (the Nail or Ms. Nasty, to name just a few). If you’re curious about her other interests (and we know you are) she’s all about soccer, music, and just hanging out with her friends and family when she gets a spare minute! Some day she wants to be the Queen of the world, but until then, being the queen of outreach will have to do.

Hannah Lowen, Operations Operator
(Operations Manager)
hannah [at] busproject [dot] org

Through a delicious mix of carrots and sticks, Hannah keeps the Bus moving – both in metaphor and in real life. Like a mother bear, Hannah will maul anybody who tries to steal her Bus cubs. Hannah was a 2008 PolitiCorps Fellow who the Bus Project grabbed upon her graduation and will never let go (ever ever ever). In her spare time, she plays sport-type things (soccer and volleyball, if you’re curious), squeezes her adorable French Bulldog and drinks beer on her porch. When she grows up, she wants to be a sports agent. More specifically, she wants to be Jay Mohr’s character in Jerry Maguire.

Noah Manger, Street Frightin’ Man
(Trick or Vote Portland Coordinator)
noah [at] busproject [dot] org

Known for his impeccably fitting pants and Mussolini-like ability to make the trains run on time, Noah Manger is to Bus events what Chuck Norris is to internet phenomena. He was the 2008 Bus Trips logistics guru, the wizard of the Wheelies and ran the rockinest Rebooting Democracy of your life. An academic at heart, he has a smug appreciation for most things post-modern and periodically enjoys the New York Times Magazine (also smuggly). His recent obsessions are 30 Rock, looking for the perfect pair of shoes, yellow legal pads, winter bike commuting and drinking entire french presses of coffee.