Staff

Eric Altman

Executive Director

ealtman@occord.org

Before joining OCCORD as its founding Executive Director, Eric spent fifteen years as a leader of UNITE HERE's Strategic Affairs Department, working to build one of the labor movement's most respected research and strategic campaign operations. At UNITE HERE, he co-directed the comprehensive campaign to organize hotel workers in Santa Monica and played a leadership role in the effort to win improved working conditions for hotel housekeepers in Las Vegas. From 1997 to 1999, Eric worked with UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm to engage casino workers in the national public policy debate over gambling regulation and to make sure their voices were heard by decision makers. Eric received his BA in Political Science from Yale University.

Robert Nothoff

Policy Analyst

rnothoff@occord.org

Rob attended Michigan State University, where he received his Bachelor's degree in Urban and Regional Planning. While at MSU, Rob became a student leader and was very vocal in bringing a Chicano/Latino Studies program to the University, implementing a Cesar Chavez library, and served as a liason between Chicano/Latino students and the University to ensure that their needs were being met. Upon graduation, Rob moved to California and attended the University of California, Irvine, and received his Master's in Urban and Regional Planning.

Alejandra Ponce de León

Community Organizer

aponcedeleon@occord.org

Alejandra gained much of her organizing experience with UNITE HERE! Local 11 in L.A. There she organized food and retail service workers in LAX and Ontario Airports for two years. She graduated from UCLA with a major in International Development Studies, and a minor on Chicana/o Studies and Political Science. While an undergrad, she was a coordinator for Project Day-Laborers, in which they taught English to day-laborers in Los Angeles. Through conciencia libre, she organized forums on maquiladora working conditions in Tijuana, the displacement of Afro-Colombians in Colombia, and the negative effects of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. She is originally from the City of Orange and planning to pursue a master's degree in Public Policy.

Ana Urzua

Community Organizer

aurzua@occord.org

Ana graduated from UC Irvine with a BA in Socio-cultural Anthropology. She has developed research on gentrification and displacement in the city of Santa Ana through an ethnography of the life stories of working families. She held an internship on affordable housing preservation in Washington DC, where she worked on tenant organizing, coalition building, and advocacy around tenants' rights. She is a Galbraith Scholar, having participated in the program of Inequality and Social Policy of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Locally, she interned with SEIU-UHW and has worked for years as a volunteer, teacher, and organizer of El Centro Cultural de Mexico in Santa Ana.

Erica Valenica

Workplace & Immigrant Rights Program Coordinator

evalencia@occord.org

Erica graduated from UCSD with a major in International Studies: Political Science and a minor in International Immigration Studies. After working closely with battered immigrant women at Casa Cornelia Law Center in San Diego, she conducted research in both Jalisco and Oaxaca to study the impacts of immigration on sending communities. Her most recent publications include, "Outsiders in Their Own Town: The Process of Dissimilation." In Four Generations of Norteños: New Research from the Cradle of Mexican Migration and El paso del centroamericano por México.