Our People

Clara Cantor

Community Organizer

Clara is excited to be putting her background in programs, volunteer management, and leadership development to good use advocating for safe streets with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways. She believes in the power of grassroots organizing, the importance of equity and inclusion in our movement, and the incredible value of befriending neighbors. Clara is a natural community builder with a passion for making our home city a place in which all of us can live, move, and have fun. She lives in the Rainier Valley with her wife and 2 young kiddos.

Gordon Padelford

Executive Director

Gordon believes in the potential power of local neighborhood greenways groups to transform Seattle for the better. He got involved with SNG through volunteering with his local group, Central Seattle Greenways, where he coordinated the SR 520 campaign and organized the 2013 Livable Streets Mayoral Forum. Every week Gordon is inspired by the positive impact community members are making in their neighborhoods, and comes to work everyday excited to bolster their efforts and cultivate the safe streets movement in Seattle.

Josh Holland

Communication Director

Josh Holland has over a decade of experience using strategic communication to bring concepts to life. He loves the dynamic nature of cities and the streets that connect their vibrant neighborhoods. Josh is an urbanist and transportation wonk who loves safe pathways for people. He’s thrilled to be a part of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways. As an SNG staff member, he wants to help more Seattle residents discover how to unlock the true potential of their streets.

KL Shannon

Community Organizer

I am a longtime organizer who grew up in Seattle’s Central District and started my organizing career with Jobs with Justice and Mothers for Police Accountability. My body of organizing work includes issues that impact communities of color: Economic Justice, Housing, Immigration, Police Accountability, and Transportation. I’m helping to raise my fourteen-year-old nephew and actively support him by disrupting the school yard-to-prison pipeline that snags our black and brown boys.

Rebecca Lavigne

Development Director

Rebecca is excited to be working with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways to further her lifelong passion for connecting people and place. She has 15+ years of strategic and operational experience helping nonprofit organizations build community support and achieve greater impact, including a decade with Washington Trails Association. When not building support for the streets-for-people movement, you might find her advocating for housing justice or walking a mountain trail. Rebecca lives in Northeast Seattle, where she operates the very unofficial Twitter account for her neighborhood light rail station (@RoosieStation).

Alex Lew

Alex Lew is a bike commuter, a public transit rider, and an overall transportation geek. An urban planner by training, he has had a lifelong passion for improving multi-modal and active transportation options. Alex lives car-free in Capitol Hill, and currently works as a transportation planner at Sound Transit. His most memorable biking experience was a midnight bike ride through the streets of New York City as part of an urban history course, and since then, has been convinced that the best way to understand a city is by biking and riding its public transit system.

Barbara Gordon

Barbara has been a volunteer and supporter of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways since the organization was founded in 2011. Barbara has a Master of Public Health in maternal and child health. She is passionate about tactical urbanism, climate change, public health, and reshaping our city to be the kind of place we need it to be. Barbara is a family biker and bikes with her son Hank around Lake Union and beyond.

Barbara Wright

Vice President

Barbara is currently a healthy community advocate working on parks, transportation and community livability issues. She was previously the Deputy Director of the Environmental Health Division, Public Health – Seattle & King County. She also served as Parks Director for King County, Washington, and Parks Director for the City of Omaha. She is a former Seattle Park Board Member and in 2014, she co-chaired the Seattle Parks Citizens Committee and that championed the successful Seattle Metropolitan Parks District. She is a former board member of the The Arboretum Foundation, Transportation Choices Coalition and Seattle Audubon.

Bob Anderton

Bob Anderton is a bike lawyer who has been representing injured bicyclists and pedestrians for more than three decades. He is the founding attorney at Washington Bike Law where the four attorney firm’s motto is “Representing injured bicyclists statewide and helping make our streets safer for everyone.” Bob is a year-round bike commuter and member of West Seattle Bike Connections. He has served on SNG’s board since 2016.

Catherine Fleming

Catherine is a Seattle based attorney dedicated to advocating for pedestrians, bicyclists, and others injured on our roads. While she and her family live in Magnolia, Catherine has developed strong ties with many other Seattle neighborhoods. An outspoken and civic minded Washingtonian, Catherine is also a member of the Washington State Association for Justice PAC Board. When she isn’t visiting with a client or at a crash site in the University District/Ravenna, Pioneer Square, Queen Anne, downtown Seattle, or South Lake Union, you might find her supporting lawmakers and encouraging them to focus more on the need for safer roads.

Cathy Tuttle

Cathy Tuttle is a city planner and community organizer. After completing her Urban Design & Planning PhD at UW, Cathy worked for Seattle Parks leading the development of 40 parks and community centers. Cathy started and led several nonprofits including 350.org in Seattle and Seattle Neighborhood Greenways. Cathy now travels extensively by train, bus, and boat, consulting and exploring great public spaces for people. She has two delightful adult children.

David Goldberg

David has played a key role in developing national movements for smart growth and transportation reform. He led communications and strategy for Smart Growth America, a national nonprofit based in DC and for their spin-off, Transportation for America, which works to popularize support for walking, bicycling, transit and other options beyond the automobile. In 2003, working with national bicycle and pedestrian advocacy groups,  David coined the term “complete streets” to describe those that provide for the needs and safety of all users, and was a steering committee member of the National Complete Streets Coalition. He has written planning guides and communications for housing, health, and transportation professionals and for philanthropists and advocates. A former chair of the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board, he currently serves on the Seattle Planning Commission. He currently works at the Washington State Transportation Department, where he is the community liaison and ombudsman for Seattle mega-projects.

Dai Toyama

Dai Toyama is a resident of Pinehurst who advocates for safe streets for people of all ages and abilities. Dai currently serves as the president of Pinehurst Community Council, working to bring a safe walking/biking environment into the neighborhood. He is also a member of the organizing committee for District 5 Community Network, facilitating communication and information sharing among the neighborhood groups in District 5.

Lisa Richmond

Lisa Richmond is a climate strategy consultant and committed cyclist. She recently completed a solo ride from Seattle to the Bay Area on her trusty Bulls Crosslite, highlighting the e-bike as a fun, practical and climate-friendly travel alternative.  As former Executive Director of AIA Seattle and the Seattle Design Festival, Lisa has deep roots in city design.  She is a Senior Fellow with Architecture 2030, advancing built environment climate solutions within the UNFCCC.  She volunteers for the Southeast Seattle Design Review Board and the Climate Heritage Network, and is a Loeb Fellow with the Harvard University Graduate School of Design

Mark Ostrow

Treasurer

Mark is a CPA who runs a consulting practice specializing in process improvement at very large nonprofits like UW Medicine and Sound Transit. In a prior life, he was creative director at an ad agency. Mark’s current creative outlet is the Twitter feed for Queen Anne Greenways, where he serves as co-leader. Mark loves to travel and observe what works and what doesn’t in cities around the world.

Merlin Rainwater

After retiring in 2012 from a career as a Home Hospice nurse, Merlin unleashed her passion for sustainable transportation, with the bicycle at the center. She co-led Central Seattle Greenways, served on the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board and the Cascade Bicycle Club Board, and joined SNG’s Racial Equity team to develop SNG’s Racial Equity Action Plan before joining the SNG Board in (was that 2018? 19?). She leads SLOW Rides with Senior Ladies on Wheels, including biking and walking tours exploring Redlining and Racial Segregation.

Mike O’Brien

Governance Committee Chair

Mike O’Brien has been a daily bike commuter for nearly 20 years and, having raised both his sons in the city in a multi-modal household, he cares immensely about the safety of all transportation systems users. Mike is a former Seattle City Councilmember having chaired the transportation committee for the past four years. He also serves on the Sierra Club’s national board of directors. He lives in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood.

Shannon Nichol

FASLA, PLA, LEED AP, Hon AIA (Seattle)

Shannon Nichol is a founding partner of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN). Her designs, including Millennium Park’s Lurie Garden, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Campus, and the Burke Museum, are widely recognized for being deeply embedded in their neighborhoods and natural contexts. She and her partners received the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Landscape Architecture in 2011, and GGN is the recipient of the 2017 ASLA National Landscape Architecture Firm Award. Shannon lectures internationally, frequently juries for design awards, and serves on advisory committees for universities and nonprofits.

Troy Heerwagen

President

Troy Heerwagen is a pedestrian advocate, professional consultant, and author who has supported Seattle Neighborhood Greenways since 2013. Troy operates @WalkingSeattle on Twitter and also produces the annual “Worst Intersection in Seattle” competition for The Urbanist. He loves to solve problems as a professional consultant and is the author of Move to the Place of Your Dreams: A Relocation Handbook. Troy enjoys walking, hiking, and biking with his wife and two children.