Evaluation

Dr. Boyce was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois and has been an educator since 2002. He attended Arizona State University, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree in 2001, a Master’s degree in Secondary Education in 2004 and his Doctorate in 2012. In 2005, Dr. Boyce began working in the Phoenix Union High School District as a teacher at South Mountain High School and Bioscience High School where he taught Biology, Chemistry, and Forensics. In 2012, he moved from the classroom into school level administration as Principal of Bioscience High School and later moved to Camelback High School to serve as the Principal. Dr. Boyce then held a district-level position as Executive Director of Teaching and Learning, at Phoenix Union High School District. In 2019, Dr. Boyce joined the Roosevelt School District No.66 Executive Leadership Team as the interim Chief Administrative Officer and became the eventual Superintendent. Boyce is married and has two daughters and a son. He enjoys remaining active in his community and engaging in recreational sports.

Sarah Darr is a native of Flagstaff, holds a degree in Criminal Justice with an emphasis in Social Work from Northern Arizona University and is also a Certified Public Manager through the Arizona State University Bob Ramsey School of Executive Management. After a few years working in Phoenix, Sarah returned to Flagstaff and has spent the last twenty years working for the City of Flagstaff on housing programs and issues. Currently, she continues her work toward community solutions pertaining to housing issues as the Housing Director, overseeing all the housing programs of the City, including the Housing Authority. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family or in her garden, and is a voracious reader.

C.J. Eisenbarth Hager is Director, Healthy Communities for Vitalyst Health Foundation. Vitalyst Health Foundation is on a mission to inform, connect and support efforts to improve the health of individuals and communities in Arizona. Vitalyst is an independent, non-partisan public foundation with five overarching priorities: increasing access to care and insurance coverage, working with municipal leaders to promote healthy community design, building community-based organizational capacity, promoting health and healthcare innovations and collaborations, and supporting civic health.

C.J.’s work centers on promoting public policies and strategies that support healthy people and places. As a result, her work touches a number of different specialties and policy areas, including urban planning, land use, transportation, urban design, housing, community development and sustainability. Among her accomplishments at Vitalyst, C.J. oversaw the health impact assessment and health recommendations for Reinvent PHX, a partnership with the City of Phoenix that was funded by HUD’s Sustainable Communities Planning Grant. She led a broad coalition of residents and organizations to pass a Complete Streets ordinance within the city of Phoenix. She is also a founding member of the Maricopa County Food System Coalition. Her other work at Vitalyst includes promoting transportation options that support equity, expanding the affordable housing stock, supporting the use of health in all policies and increasing the use of health impact assessments during the policy decision-making process.

Prior to Vitalyst, C.J. was a Senior Policy Analyst for Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy, where she was co-author of Dropped? Latino Education and Arizona’s Economic Future. In addition to education, her research focused on Arizona’s economy and workforce. C.J. also served as the Director of Government Relations for NeighborWorks America, a national affordable housing and community revitalization nonprofit organization. She has also worked for the Minnesota House of Representatives and the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency.

C.J. received her bachelor’s degree in economics from Marquette University and a master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning from Kansas State University, where she was given the Alumni Honoree award for her professional accomplishments. She currently serves on the boards of directors for The Funders’ and Trellis (formerly NHS of Phoenix). She also serves in an advisory role, including: Home Matters for Arizona; LISC Phoenix Local Advisory Board; the City of Phoenix Choice Neighborhoods Advisory Committee; Urban Land Institute Arizona Chapter Taskforce on Housing, Health and Equity; City of Phoenix Urban Heat, Tree and Shade Subcommittee; and the Arizona Health Improvement Plan Social Determinants of Health Work Group.

Peggy Hutchison serves as the Chief Executive Officer of The Primavera Foundation, a chartered NeighborWorks® America community development organization whose mission is to provide pathways out of poverty through safe, affordable housing, workforce development, and neighborhood revitalization. Primavera serves 7,000-8,000 people annually in Tucson and Pima County, Arizona through several lines of business including: emergency services, affordable rental housing and resident services, an alternative staffing social enterprise, financial empowerment and homeownership services, neighborhood revitalization, community building and engagement, and advocacy. The Primavera Foundation has 80 staff, 1,047 volunteers providing 44,595 volunteer hours (with a value of contribution and effort at $1,101,051), and a budget of $8 million.  Primavera’s vision is to promote social and economic justice while working to build a future in which all people are assured basic human rights, a livable income, and safe, affordable housing.

Hutchison has worked in the community development and economic justice fields in the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East for more than 25 years. Her work experience includes: community organizing, public education and advocacy, publishing, program development and evaluation, leadership development, human rights, restorative justice, grant making, fund raising, and executive administration and management.  In 2016, Hutchison successfully completed the 18 month NeighborWorks® America Achieving Excellence Executive Education Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  Hutchison serves as President of the Board of Directors of the National NeighborWorks Association. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Growth Partners Arizona, a CDFI that provides loans to help empower economically distressed communities. As a member of the Eller Social Innovation Advisory Board, an initiative of the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona, she is one of the facilitators in the Nonprofit Leadership Certificate Program. Hutchison also serves on the University of Arizona Masters of Public Administration Community Advisory Board. In 2018, Hutchison was honored to receive the Arthur Crozier Partner in Housing Brian Mickelsen Housing Hero Award from the Arizona Department of Housing.

Gloria has 38 years of experience in program design, public/private financing, housing development, real estate acquisition and management. She is the current Executive Director for the Housing Authority of Maricopa County. Her background includes leadership positions with two national non-profits as the Director of Real Estate Development for the Chavez Foundation and Regional President for Mercy Housing Inc. She began her housing career with the City of Phoenix Housing Authority.  She was appointed to lead and create the Arizona Housing Department under the Babbitt administration. In that role, she consolidated all the housing programs into one department, worked with the legislature to establish the Housing Credit Allocation Agency to allocate low income housing tax credits, she managed the state tax exempt bonds of 450 million dollars and established the State Housing Trust Fund dedicating unclaimed property deposits as the revenue source to develop housing. She was then recruited by FDIC to oversee and establish the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) Affordable Housing Disposition Program in Arizona, Nevada, California and Colorado. She spent two years in Washington DC working for FDIC providing direction to complete the disposition in all the western states in the US. She was educated at Arizona State University (ASU) and JFK School of Government at Harvard University.

Marco Antonio “Tony” Reyes is the Executive Director of Comite de Bien Estar, Inc., a nonprofit organization in San Luis, Arizona. Organized in 1981, the Comite’s mission is: Comite De Bien Estar strives to enhance the economic and social well-being of the community through cooperative land development, housing, lending, and service programs. The Comite has developed and delivered to its constituency over 3600 lots. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, it has assisted thousands of families to realize their dream of home ownership. The Comite also provides educational assistance, daycare, affordable apartments, self help housing program, transportation services and a host of cultural and social programs.

Tony is currently a Board of Supervisor District 4 where he has been a vice-chairman and Chairman since 1998. He has been a Chairman for Advisory Board (AZBREC), Empowerment/Enterprise Community, Advisory Board, Yuma Metropolitan Planning Organization, and Western Arizona Council of Governments. He has also been a member of many local, state and national committees dealing with a range of local and national issues such as member of the US/Mexico Border Counties Coalition, Fannie Mae National Housing Advisory Council, and National League of Cities & Towns: Economic Development Steering Committee, Human Development Advisory Boards. He was also the former Mayor for the City of San Luis, Arizona where he saw this tiny 2,000 resident border community grow into a young city with a population over 20,000 residents with complete infrastructure that is now in place, its own water company, streets paved and lighted, and many new businesses located in this desirable border area.

Deb Sydenham joined ULI Arizona as its Executive Director after nearly 20 years with the State of Arizona, and 9 years in the private sector. Her vast statewide experience working with local, regional, state governments, and tribal communities, and state level policy issues serves as a solid foundation to moving the ULI mission forward.  Deb is the “face of ULI Arizona” as efforts to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities in Arizona are implemented by the ULI Arizona District Council.

Immediately prior to joining ULI, Deb was Deputy Director for the Office of P3 Initiatives at ADOT and was involved in establishing the state’s program to use public-private partnerships (P3) as a tool to address Arizona’s transportation requirements. She focused on implementing Arizona’s P3 program from the ground up and identifying methods to fund the construction and enhancement of roads, transit, rail and other transportation facilities. In addition to her ADOT role, Deb worked closely with the Governor’s Office and the Governor’s Military Affairs Commission on statewide military sustainability issues and continues to be a resource to the State in this area.

From 1992 to 2009, Ms. Sydenham led the Community Development and Planning component of the Arizona Department of Commerce.  As one of the agency’s assistant deputy directors, Deb was responsible for all Community Development functions including the Arizona Office of Smart Growth, Rural Development Office, and the Regional Managers.  She maintained oversight of the Growing Smarter Planning Grant Program and the $5 million-dollar Military Installation Fund.  Deb was the agency lead in all military sustainability and Smart Growth efforts and was responsible for staffing the Rural Economic Development and Viability Sub-Committee of the Growing Smarter Commission, the Governor’s Military Facilities Task Force, and the Governor’s Growing Smarter Oversight Council.  

Deb was also director of the Smart Growth Interagency Committee, an outgrowth of the Governor’s Growth Cabinet to instill a smart growth dialogue throughout state agencies.  She was a Governor appointee to the Growing Smarter Oversight Council and staffed the Governor’s Military Affairs Commission and the Arizona Military Affairs Commission.