Our Team

Our Mission
To keep Gabe Vasquez as NM's Congressional District 2 Representative.
To hold that seat for Democrats into the future.
To support Democrats up and down the ballot with data analytics and messaging
that motivates the base and persuades the middle.

A volunteer organization with professional capabilities

Blue CD2 New Mexico is made up of a team of seasoned professionals who believe in the need to make, and then keep the district blue. Our capabilities span the gamut from business owners to marketing and communications professionals to data analysts. Our skill sets have enabled us to create sophisticated data collection and analysis and in-depth marketing and content creation. Our focus is ultra-local. We demonstrate how the actions of Democrats improve the lives of people living in New Mexico's Congressional District 2.

Rochelle Williams, Founder and Co-chair
Rochelle Williams has had a life-long love affair with words. A former nurse and entrepreneur, she has always been a writer first. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Desert Exposure, Earthships: A New Mecca Poetry Collection, The MacGuffin, Menacing Hedge and other journals. Her fiction has won several awards from Southwest Writers Workshop, and her story, “That Day” won first prize in Women on Writing’s 2020 Flash Fiction Contest.

Rochelle holds an MFA in fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is a board member of Otero Arts, Inc. and founder and organizer of the Otero Arts Reading Series, which has hosted such literary luminaries as JJ Amaworo Wilson, NM Poet Laureate Lauren Camp, and bestselling author Michael McGarrity.

From 2008 to 2020, she was owner and chief executive of a Southwestern US construction data publishing company. Under her guidance, the company doubled revenue in two years and instituted a minimum wage of $42,000.

She is the founder and co-chair of Blue CD2 New Mexico, a grassroots political organization dedicated to engaging infrequent voters and making activism in support of democracy easily accessible to all.

Sally Davis, Chair, Messaging Committee
Sally is a former Director of Common Cause New Mexico, and a former K-12 educator. Sally was the co-chair of Swing Left New Mexico from 2017 -2020, focused on New Mexico's second district.

Marti Burt, Ph.D
Marti (Martha R.) Burt received her Ph.D in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1972. She taught at the University of Minnesota, worked for the Minnesota state legislature, and went to work at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC in 1978. She served as Director of the Social Services Research Program there until 2009, directing research projects on programs and policies affecting vulnerable populations.

Burt is recognized as a national expert on homelessness, having directed the only two national studies to use representative samples capable of estimating the size of the homeless population, plus numerous studies on programs serving homeless people. She is the author of nine books, close to 100 published reports, and many invited book chapters plus articles in peer reviewed journals. She has served on several nonprofit organization boards.

Since moving to New Mexico 10 years ago, Burt has been deeply involved in local and state politics as a Democratic Party ward chair, CCC and SCC member, and canvasser, texter, phone banker, volunteer recruiter, and fundraiser for numerous campaigns. Burt began working with Blue CD2 during summer 2021 and has been responsible for managing many of its very successful postcard campaigns.

Harold (Hal) Gershenson, Ph.D
Hal Gershenson received his Ph.D in Human Development from The University of Chicago. He has lived in Albuquerque since 1995, and until his retirement worked first for The Center for Development and Disability of UNMH and then Albuquerque Public Schools on diagnostic teams assisting children with special needs.

As a freelance writer he wrote parenting advice articles as well as children's fiction for Kindermusik, Leapfrog, and Click Magazine. In retirement he has enjoyed developing a pollinator friendly garden, hiking The Sandia Mountains and The Grand Canyon, as well as traveling. Every election cycle he can be found canvassing for both national and local candidates.

Kimberly Melton
Kimberly Melton serves on the Steering Committee and has previously served as Secretary. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology from Southern Illinois University and is retired from a 40-year career in the healthcare industry, serving as a pathology manager and
technologist in both clinical hospital labs as well as cancer and academic research labs. Her expertise is in immunohistochemistry, digital imaging, and image analysis.

Kimberly has co-authored several scientific publications. She also has a strong background in statistics and photography. She has spent her entire career interacting with other healthcare professionals, principal
investigators, administrators, and patients and is very skilled at critical thinking and creative and nimble problem-solving. She is very interested in both local and national politics and is an active member of several Democratic political organizations.

Lynn Trojahn
Thrive Consulting's founder & CEO, Lynn Trojahn, has committed her life to philanthropy and working with individuals to have the resources they need to grow so that people and organizations thrive. She has happily been a fundraiser and coach for over 3 decades, helping to raise almost $210 million for nonprofit causes in her home state of New Mexico where she now trains and consults to create sustainable, joyous fundraising and revenue streams so that organizations have all the money they need to propel their missions.

Since creating Thrive Consulting in 2016, Lynn has worked with 53 NM social profit organizations supporting them in raising over $81 million above their operating budgets for capital campaigns and greater capacity to meet their missions and goals.

Lynn comes from a long line of democratic leaders in New Mexico and is dedicated to continuing this tradition of values and integrity for its citizens through Blue CD2.

Glenn Melton
After a two-year stint in the Navy, Glenn attended the University of Puget Sound majoring in Physics, then transferred to DeVry University and graduated with honors with a BS degree in Electrical Engineering. Subsequently, Glenn attended the University of Washington and received Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and Data Visualization certifications among others.

Glenn worked at Sandia Labs where he focused on computing software and hardware, moving into upper level management. Glenn has also founded 4 hardware/software based companies. His latest, Data Value, LLC, focuses on Lean Six Sigma and the integration of statistical computing. He has also worked for Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, Pemco Insurance Co, B-Line, LLC, Hewlett-Packard and others. Glenn has written full accounting system software packages customized for a variety of business models. Glenn has been a life-long Democrat.

Constance Mussells, Co-chair
Constance has a long career in marketing, advertising and branding. She founded several marketing companies in Rhode Island with numerous clients in the biotech, technical and scientific fields including PerkinElmer, a $2 billion life sciences company.

Constance also has extensive experience in political marketing, having designed the logo and promotional materials for the Vietnam Moratorium and has been involved in many election campaigns since. Her marketing firm was instrumental in defeating an anti-abortion law in Rhode Island.

Constance has a BFA with distinction from the Rhode Island School of Design where she served as a trustee for 15 years, part of which as Chair of the Education Committee.

After moving to New Mexico four years ago, Constance became a member of the local Swing Left chapter and then joined Blue CD2 New Mexico in early 2021. She is also a member of the SOS Indivisible Group in Santa Fe.

Leora Jaeger-Siegal
Leora holds an MS City and Regional Planning (1977) Graduate School of Design. Harvard University, a BA in Sociology (1975). Univ. of California, Los Angeles and a University of New Mexico Masters in Public Health, Independent Study Community Based Participatory Research, Spring 2008.

Leora has extensive experience in public health and public transportation planning, development, marketing, evaluation, and grant writing. She is the Principal of LJS Consulting, Inc.

Leora's background includes: planning, program development, grant writing, and digital specialist. Her community and public health consulting services include planning, grant writing, survey development and analysis, data collection, and program development, implementation, and evaluation. She has an extensive background in marketing and planning for the Albuquerque Transit Department and the Massachusetts MBTA.
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Leora's many volunteer activities include: Water Resources Action Project - 2012 to present, Board Member, Co-Director, Board Member and Program Development and Digital Engagement Lead, Swing Left New Mexico - 2016 to 2020, Lead Team, Blue CD2 New Mexico 2021 – present, Organizing Committee Member and Chair, Data and Evaluation Committee

Earle N. Buckley, Ph.D
Dr. Buckley (BSc Biological Science, FSU; MSc and Ph. D, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) is a biological oceanographer and environmental scientist with expertise in the design and implementation of marine technology. Dr. Buckley has over 25 years of experience conducting coastal, oceanic, and climate research, and working with federal, state and local governmental organizations, universities, and non-profits in the U.S. and abroad, including USAID, UNESCO, and FAO.

He has organized and coordinated interdisciplinary panels of academic and government scientists focused on integrating ocean and climate information into coastal management and development planning, and effective communication and knowledge transfer of ocean and climate science for decision support and policy.

Dr. Buckley served as a member of the team of scientists that contributed to Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Buckley is a member of Blue CD2 New Mexico's Messaging Committee and is responsible for the in-depth research our organization provides.

Debbie Hands
Debbie Hands has lived in Las Cruces since 1973. She worked at NMSU from 1974 to 2007, primarily as an academic adviser, helping freshmen, undecided students and many others
navigate their way through the system. While working full time she completed a bachelor’s degree in anthropology with a minor in art, and a master’s in higher education administration.

Post retirement, Debbie earned an associate’s degree in digital graphic design and started her second career as a freelance designer.

Debbie was uninvolved in politics until the 2016 presidential election, when she attended the Las Cruces version of the Women’s March. There, she met people she knew who were starting up an Indivisible group, and decided it was time to start showing up.

She is now on the Messaging Committee with Blue CD2 New Mexico and contributes her creative and technical skills by helping with the group’s website, and designing graphics, postcards, billboards and bumper stickers. Perhaps her greatest accomplishment has been the creation of the “badass” blue donkey with aviator glasses that has become the unofficial mascot of Blue CD2 NM.

Dimid (D.A.) Hayes
Born a midwesterner, Dimid Hayes has called New Mexico home for over forty-two years. SInce his early twenties he has been a community organizer and activist in the LGBTQI+ community.

For twenty five years, his professional life as a Certified Medical Herbalist had him traveling all across New Mexico. These travels instilled a deep appreciation for all the ways this state holds its differing peoples. From north to south, east to west, the ancient with the “post-modern”, New Mexicans continue to influence each other in profound ways.
Trained at a rape crisis center he counseled male survivors of rape and sexual assault. During the early days of the AIDS epidemic he offered hospice support to many people.
Father of two and grandfather of two New Mexicans, he hopes to leave this world a better place when he’s done. Of particular interest is uplifting young people, for example, as the program director of the New Mexico Indivisible Young Artists Fellowship.
Hayes is a board member of the Geronimo Springs Museum in Truth or Consequences, NM and as a self-taught historian has created historical walking tours and lectures about the history of T or C and Sierra County.
He has organized conferences, retreats, workshops, salons, lectures, field trips, canvassers, political campaigns and bake-offs. Dimid is one of the early members of Blue CD2 New Mexico.