Robin Harkless, MS
Director
(503) 725-9099
hrobin@pdx.edu
Robin joined the Oregon Consensus team in May 2016 after 15 years in private practice with DS Consulting in Portland, Oregon. She brings extensive experience assessing, designing and facilitating collaborative processes on complex natural resource and public health public policy issues. With a background in communication and conflict engagement, Robin helps people engage in challenging conversations toward positive, sustainable relationships and sound public policy decisions.
Robin has worked extensively in the region on contentious water and land use issues which intersect multiple governments, species, and socioeconomic needs, providing impartial facilitation and coaching support to help dynamic groups work toward durable agreements. She served as a senior facilitator for the Columbia River Regional Forum, a sovereign to sovereign negotiating body focused on management of the federal hydroelectric system in the Columbia Basin, from 2007 to 2016. She has a bachelor’s degree in communications from Portland State University and a master’s degree in negotiation and conflict resolution from Creighton University’s Werner Institute. In 2012, she received the Sid Lezak Award for Excellence for Outstanding Service to Oregon from the Oregon Mediation Association.
Turner Odell, JD
Senior Project Manager
(503) 725-8200
todell@pdx.edu
Turner conducts assessments of public policy situations to gauge the potential for collaborative problem solving. He provides skilled facilitation to help groups negotiate complex policy issues. And he teaches collaborative governance to university students and professionals.
Before joining Oregon Consensus, Turner Odell worked as senior mediator for RESOLVE in Portland focusing on public policy mediation. He served as senior attorney with the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C., counsel to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, senior project attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and as an associate with the Fried Frank law firm in New York. Turner earned a JD from the Rutgers School of Law in Newark, and a bachelor’s degree in resource economics from Cornell University.
Bobby Cochran, PhD
Senior Project Manager
(503) 334-6872
jcochran@pdx.edu
To Bobby, community means places where families and food grow, kids and rivers run,
and people know and look out for each other. Bobby has been supporting community-based collaboration for 20 years across natural resources, health, and economic opportunity.
Prior to Oregon Consensus, Bobby worked for the Rural Community Assistance
Partnership’s national office advancing its strategy and vision to work with rural and
tribal communities across the United States and with the Willamette Partnership building successful nonprofits and collaboratives. Bobby is skilled in linking research, collaborative process, policy, and innovation that help coalitions thrive. He received his PhD and MA from Portland State University, specializing in public policy
and conflict resolution, and is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Leader.
Jennah Kiefer
Project Manager
(530) 680-8668
jennah@pdx.edu
Between growing up in Paradise, California, and living in various communities around Oregon for the last 15 years, Jennah has cultivated a deep appreciation for the natural environment and diverse human perspectives. Jennah draws from her experience in community outreach, science communications, project coordination, external partner relations, development planning, and facilitation. She roots her work in a passion for collaborative problem-solving.
Jennah previously worked at the OSU College of Forestry, and before that, a place-based environmental nonprofit organization. She studied International Development at the University of Oregon with a focus on public policy, community health, and sustainability and also conducted research in Morocco on rural and urban healthcare capacity development. A large portion of her life and work has been dedicated to the agricultural realm ranging from on-the-ground farming, to local food-focused business development, and global commodity supply chain management with an emphasis on beekeeping and honey.
Sofía Castellanos, PhD
Project Associate
(503) 572-7398
acastel2@pdx.edu
Sofía is a political scientist with an MA in comparative politics, focusing on democracy. She holds a PhD in public affairs and public policy from PSU. Her dissertation delves into policy analysis, specifically developing a data governance framework for the agriculture sector in the United States. Previously, Sofía served as a research associate at PSU’s Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, contributing to the USAID Strengthening Provincial Capacity Program for Vietnam. She also worked as a research analyst for special projects at the Center for Public Service and the College of Urban and Public Affairs. In this role, she aided in creating accessible, usable, and inclusive mechanisms to facilitate adult learning and foster collaboration in virtual environments.
Katie Pearmine
Senior Project Manager
(503) 572-7398
pearmine@pdx.edu
Katie Pearmine is a senior project manager on the Oregon Consensus team at the National Policy Consensus. Katie brings extensive Oregon experience and a deep commitment to collaborative governance. She takes a deep listening and facilitative approach to leadership and is passionate about supporting community-led collaboration. Katie believes that communities thrive when people know their voices matter.
Katie has lived, played, and built connections across Oregon throughout her life. She has a long history of building strategic partnerships in her leadership roles in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors in local, regional, and international contexts. Katie grew up on a family farm in the northern Willamette Valley, attended college in Eugene, worked in rangeland ecology and outdoor education in Oregon’s high desert and on the coast, and supported businesses and nonprofits in the Portland metro area and across the state.
Before joining Oregon Consensus, Katie worked in sustainability, business development and food systems. Over the past ten years, she has worked for domestic and international nonprofits focused on community food security. Before that, Katie worked for several years at the Oregon Department of Agriculture, where she led a USDA grant program and helped food, beverage, and agricultural companies grow their businesses. Katie began her career working with a publishing and marketing firm focused on sustainable business.
Katie received her bachelor of science degree in biology from the University of Oregon and has a certificate in Applied Compassion from Stanford School of Medicine Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education.
Tony Salvador, PhD
Executive Director, National Policy Consensus Center
(503) 725-8224
tony.salvador@pdx.edu
Tony is an applied ethnographer with a passion for listening. He has had a long career as an organizational strategist at Intel and as a consultant leading efforts on the ground to identify and implement collaborative solutions for communities and governments locally and worldwide.
As an ethnographer and strategist, Tony has identified what makes communities, customer groups, governments, and institutions tick. And he has applied that knowledge of people and their experience of place to solving community problems. He recognizes that, in many ways, ethnographic practice is closely aligned with NPCC’s work assessing the cultural, historical, political, and place-based forces at work in communities and designing collaborative processes that help people understand each other’s needs and interests and find solutions all can support.
Tony is also nimble in an academic setting, having served as a senior fellow for PSU’s Center for Public Service. He is also widely published on strategies to resolve real world challenges.
Tony has been a deeply-rooted Oregonian since 1993. On his way to a meeting during his first visit to Oregon, he fell instantly and hopelessly in love with the state. Since that time, Tony has embraced Oregon from Astoria to the Alvord and from Flora to Brookings. He feels that Oregon is all about its unforgettable places and the people who love them and that, by understanding this, NPCC is spreading the promise of collaboration and progress in Oregon.
Tony has a PhD in experimental psychology from Tufts University and a BA from Franklin and Marshall College.