The Team
Gloria Rubio-Cortés
NCL President Gloria Rubio-Cortés has devoted her career to promoting good government, civil rights, community building, civic engagement and social justice issues. Before joining NCL, she held senior management positions at the Community Technology Foundation of California and Levi Strauss Foundation and worked for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and National Council of La Raza.
She has served on numerous boards, including as Board Chair of the National Center for Community Education and member of the Council on Foundations’ Film and Video Festival Awards committee. She is co-author of The Civic Index: Measuring Your Community’s Civic Health, 2nd ed. (Denver: National Civic League, 1999) and “Questions to Ask: Components of the Civic Index,” National Civic Review 88 (Winter 1999): 271-292.
She has an M.S. from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a B.S. from the University of Colorado at Boulder in Journalism.
Derek Okubo
Derek Okubo, Senior Vice President of the National Civic League, has helped to design and implement dozens of community planning processes around the country and assisted local governments, school districts and communities in long-range planning, economic development, conflict resolution, apprenticeships, race relations, program development, collaborative problem-solving, consensus building, substance abuse prevention and health care. He was actively involved in the Model City Charter Revision Committee, which produced the 8th Edition of the Model City Charter.
Before joining the National Civic League, he served as Colorado Governor Roy Romer’s liaison to communities in northeastern Colorado. He is primary author of NCL publications such as Governance and Diversity: Findings from Los Angeles and Governance and Diversity: Findings from Oakland and The Community Visioning and Strategic Planning Handbook. He managed the process to develop the revised version of the Civic Index – a self assessment tool for communities to measure their civic infrastructure. His Bachelors degree in Psychology is from University of Northern Colorado.
Michael McGrath
As Senior Editor of the National Civic League, Michael McGrath edits the award-winning National Civic Review, a 99-year-old quarterly civic affairs journal, and is the organization’s chief blogger. Before joining NCL, he was a reporter and feature writer for Westword newspaper in Colorado and an associate editor of the East Bay Express in Berkeley/Oakland California, covering environmental policy and local and state government. His free-lance articles have appeared in magazines, newspapers and online publications. Recently, he researched and authored a report on local government and civic engagement for PACE: Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement. He has a Master’s degree is from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and a Bachelor’s degree (General and Comparative Studies) from the University of Texas, Austin.
Kristin Seavey
As the All-America City Awards Program Coordinator at the National Civic League, Kristin Seavey helps communities prepare to compete for the award and coordinates the logistics of the annual awards event. Kristin was born and raised in the All-America City of Delta, Colorado. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Northern Illinois University and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Public Administration at the University of Colorado at Denver. She is also actively involved with local animal welfare organizations and is passionate about public libraries.
The National Civic League: Meet the Staff from Jeffrey Hatcher on Vimeo.
