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BOARD MEMBERS

CONOR BOYLAN

PDA Board President

Conor is a native of Ireland and moved to the U.S. in 2006. After spending nearly 10 years in the high tech industry, most recently as an engineer in the semiconductor world, Conor decided to ditch machines to pursue his real passion, politics. He worked on the Obama primary campaign in Oregon and then worked as a field organizer in Ohio for the general election. Turnout in his turf increased by 800 votes, a critical swing in helping to deliver Ohio, given that Kerry lost by only 9 votes per precinct statewide. Conor lives with his “professional-trouble-making” wife Nora, who works in the labor movement.

KIMBERLY BUCHAN

PDA Board Member

Kimberly has been volunteering and working for PDA since 2004. Since moving to Arizona in 2003, Kimberly discovered her inner progressive and volunteered with the Kucinich Presidential Campaign and later the Arizona Democratic Progressive Caucus.
She is a graduate of Western Michigan University with a Bachelors’s Degree in Music Therapy, and a graduate of Grand Valley State University with a Master’s Degree in Speech and Language Pathology.

Kimberly now resides in her home state of Michigan, where she lives with her husband, Bryan, and her adorable children.

MIMI KENNEDY

PDA Board Member

Mimi Kennedy has been PDA’s Advisory Board Chair since our founding in 2004, and hosted countless PDA events, actions, and receptions. An expert on election integrity and other issues, she is a co-coordinator of PDA’s Election Issues Team. Born in Rochester, NY, Mimi has spent her life performing, writing, and working to promote peace and progress.

Mimi was a key supporter of Dennis Kucinich’s campaigns. and has traveled from coast to coast, organizing street heat and meeting elected officials with PDA. She studied Nonviolent Theory and Strategy with 60’s civil rights leader Rev. James Lawson. A founding member of Artists United to Win Without War, Mimi is a leading voice for peace and progress.

A uniquely talented and versatile actress, Mimi has appeared on stage, on television, and in feature films. Highlights include her roles as Dharma’s hippie mother on the sitcom “Dharma&Greg,” and as Ruth Sloan on “Homefront.” Her TV credits range from Night Court and Drop Dead Diva to St. Elsewhere, ER, House and Grey’s Anatomy. She appeared on stage in the Broadway and road companies of “Grease,” and in the acclaimed one-woman show “The Lady with All the Answers” as Ann Landers. Recent projects include HBO’s political comedy VEEP, Woody Allen’s romcom “Midnight In Paris,” and BBC Film’s anti-war satire “In The Loop” with the late, great James Gandolfini.

Mimi is also a talented writer. She was a story editor for the Knots Landing TV Series, and her book, “Taken To The Stage: The Education of an Actress,” was praised as “one of the great theatrical memoirs.”

MICHAEL LIGHTY

PDA Board Member

Michael Lighty, a nationally known spokesperson and expert on Medicare for All, joined the PDA National Advisory Board in 2010. He has been a pillar of PDA’s organizing, speaking at Progressive Central events, attending Progressive Round Table meetings on the Hill, joining us at PDA leadership retreats, and functioning as emcee at the memorial for PDA founder Tim Carpenter in May 2014.
 
A Medicare For All Healthcare Fellow with the Sanders Institute and a Bernie Sanders 2016 and 2020 campaign national spokesperson on Medicare For All, Michael is currently a Medicare For All consultant with National Union of Healthcare Workers and is President of Healthy California Now, the state single payer coalition. He serves on the Board of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Freedom Center in Oakland, CA, where he lives with his husband.
 
Michael Lighty was Jerry Brown’s first mayoral appointee to the Oakland Planning Commission in 1999, and was the first openly LGBTQ+ Commissioner for the Port of Oakland, appointed by Mayor Ronald Dellums in 2010. Before his work with California Nurses Association (CNA) Michael was a leader and former National Director for Democratic Socialists of America.
 
From 1994 until 2018, Michael worked for CNA/NNU as Director of Administration and Public Policy. He coordinated CNA’s successful effort to reverse then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rollback of CNA’s landmark hospital nurse-to-patient staffing law; he managed the campaign for the Prop 89 clean money initiative and coordinated campaigns nationally for a Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street; he was lead policy analyst for a single-payer bill, the Healthy California Act.

DAN O’NEAL

PDA Board Member

Joining PDA shortly after its formation in 2004, Dan became the Arizona State Coordinator for Progressive Democrats of America in 2006.
Dan is a PDA National Board member in addition to his position on our National Staff, as the National Field Organizer for Chapter Development.

He is a long-time progressive activist in the Arizona Democratic Party serving as a Precinct Committee-Person, an elected member of the ADP State Committee and he is an appointed at large delegate from CD-5 to the ADP Executive Committee.

Dan is a staunch supporter of Bernie Sanders. He was a CD-5 Bernie Delegate to the DNC in Philadelphia. First organizing PDA’s “We Want Bernie” chapters in Arizona and later serving as a volunteer adviser and Maricopa County Coordinator for the Bernie Sanders for President in 2016.

In early 2019 he helped found Arizona For Bernie Sanders Coalition, which included PDA, DSA, Our Revolution, and progressive activist in the ADP. Dan was elected as a 2020 Bernie Delegate and appointed by the Sanders campaign to the Rules Standing Committee.

RANDOLPH “RANDY” SHANNON

PDA Board Member

Randolph “Randy” Shannon, with his wife Tina, has been an integral part of PDA since 2004, as our Pennsylvania Team leader, founder of one of our longest-operating local chapters, original member of our leadership collective, and a leader for our Economic and Social Justice efforts.

A longtime advocate for peace, civil rights, labor, and environmental and racial justice, Randy and Tina excel at innovative organizing techniques focusing on the importance of human-to-human community building. They have transformed their home turf in Beaver County, PA, into a base for activism, and modeled PDA’s approach to Citizen Congressional hearings with their 2005 Congressional hearing on H.R.676 (Medicare For All) in Aliquippa, PA. Then-Rep. Dennis Kucinich presided and entered the proceedings in the Congressional Record.

As Secretary of the Board, Randy is renowned for his fine attention to detail and advocacy for well-defined and transparent processes of operation.

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