Staff

Kate Atkins, Executive Director
GANE Executive Director Kate Atkins, has many years of experience as a community organizer.  She was head organizer of New Jersey ACORN, where she worked for ten years.  She has also worked with SEIU 32BJ and with the Philadelphia-based Kensington Joint Action Council (KJAC).  She has a degree in sociology from Swarthmore College and is fluent in Spanish.    

Wayne Richardson, Organizer
GANE organizer Wayne Richardson, a lifelong Newark resident, has worked with the Laborers union for many years, first as a business agent, then as an organizer.  He has also worked for the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, helping coordinate their program to increase African-American access to careers in construction trades.

Larry Tilley, Organizer
GANE organizer Larry Tilley has more than ten years of community and labor organizing experience.  He was the coordinator of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union’s campaign to build community and clergy support for workers organizing at a major Brooklyn department store chain.  He worked as an environmental justice organizer with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.  He was a community organizer with Abyssinian Development Corporation in Harlem, and was a lead organizer with New York ACORN’s campaign to organize workfare workers.

Reinaldo Aviles, Organizer
GANE organizer Reinaldo Aviles has done social service, counseling, and organizing work with students and faith and Latino communities for the past fifteen years.  Most recently, he directed youth ministry and Latino outreach for a large Catholic parish.  He has also been actively involved in civic life in his hometown of Perth Amboy for many years, most recently supporting grassroots activist Wilda Diaz in her successful off-line challenge of the incumbent mayor.

Samonne Montgomery, Strategic Researcher
GANE strategic researcher Samonne Montgomery is a graduate student at Rutgers University’s Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, where she is writing a doctoral dissertation on community engagement in the development process.

Rich Cunningham, Community Co-Chair
GANE Community Co-Chair Rich Cunningham, is the founding director of New Labor.  He formerly worked as a researcher for the New Jersey Industrial Unions Council.  He has a degree in Labor and Employment Relations from Rutgers University, where he also served as an adjunct professor, teaching classes on Latino workers in the US and on nonstandard work arrangements

Milly Silva, Labor Co-Chair
GANE Labor Co-Chair Milly Silva, president of SEIU Local 1199NJ, which represents home health care aides and nursing home employees.  Silva spent many years as a community organizer, first with the Northwest Bronx Community Clergy Coalition and New York ACORN.