Based in Manchester, New Hampshire, the NH Rebellion is part of Open Democracy and works closely with reform-minded individuals and groups on both the Right and Left to stop the corrupting influence of special interest money in politics. To meet the entire Open Democracy team, click here.
Brian Beihl
Deputy Director | brian (at) opendemocracy.me
Brian Beihl joined Open Democracy as Deputy Director in June 2015. Brian has a wide range of organizational and managerial experience, including his 2014 and 2015 roles in the fight against casinos in NH as field organizer. He is the founding general manager of Concord's WNHN radio station and founded and ran a mail order company, Family on Board, from 1998 to 2009. He serves as Scoutmaster for the 102-year-old BSA Troop 2, and is a 30-year resident of New Hampshire.
Xanni Brown
Outreach & Communications Manager | xanni (at) opendemocracy.me
Growing up in Cincinnati, OH, Xanni saw plenty of campaigning, but very little follow-through. She moved out east for college and started volunteering for a social services non-profit, which drove home how devastating the effects of broken campaign promises can be. In 2013, she helped found the Harvard College Rootstrikers, hosting events on campus and raising awareness of the need for campaign finance reform. She also played rugby, led backpacking trips, and wrote for the school newspaper. Inspired by the legacy of Granny D, Xanni is thrilled to be working with Open Democracy and New Hampshire Rebellion.
Doreen Desmarais
Executive Assistant | doreen (at) opendemocracy.me
Doreen has more than 30 years experience in office administration, serving the non-profit, educational, labor union and for-profit sectors. She has been the Administrative Assistant to the NH School Principals Association and currently manages administration, finance, and event planning for the New Hampshire Rebellion and Open Democracy in Concord. In her free time Doreen enjoys gardening, volunteering and spending time with her family and pets.
Beth Grunewald
Field Manager | beth (at) opendemocracy.me
Beth grew up, and currently resides in, Merrimack, NH. She earned her Associates Degree in Peace and Social Justice Studies focusing on conflict resolution, and also completed half of her undergraduate studies in art. She has a diverse employment history, most recently working for PeaceWorks, NH and a local gardening business. Beth has been a lifelong advocate for equality and strives to find common ground with people from all backgrounds. Prior to the joining Open Democracy and the NH Rebellion campaign, Beth was involved with Occupy New Hampshire. When not involved in social and political endeavors she enjoys being outside: riding her bicycle, walking through the woods, or digging in the dirt.
Ellen Reed
Grassroots and Field Manager | ellen (at) opendemocracy.me
Ellen was born in Memphis, TN, the oldest of five children. She graduated third in her class with honors from high school, and then in 2003 graduated Vanderbilt University with a BS in Molecular Biology and minors in both Religious Studies and Japanese, before spending three years in Japan as an English teacher. She moved to New Hampshire in 2009 where she received her Master’s degree in Environmental and Socioeconomic Ethics in Policy from UNH. After graduating, she worked with several non-profit organizations, including Public Citizen on their Democracy is for People campaign. She has spent the last ten years writing, teaching, and community organizing, and has a passion for helping the world be a more equitable place. With her husband she has two big dogs, three cats, two ferrets, and a parrot, and together they hope to one day own a small, sustainable farm.
Brian Tilton
Republican Outreach Coordinator & Media Relations Specialist | btilton (at) nhrebellion.org
Brian has lived in New Hampshire since 2006 and has been very active in the media and political scene. In the 2014 election, Brian served as Communications Director for the Jim Rubens for U.S. Senate campaign. From September 2008 through January 2014, "Bulldog" Brian Tilton hosted the local radio talk show "Bulldog Live!" on WTPL 107.7FM "The Pulse" in Concord, NH. Brian worked as the co-host for a morning radio talk show in New London, NH from April 2006-November 2007. Brian has worked as a full-time radio producer since 1998 for talk radio stations AM 1090 WBAL and AM 680 WCBM in Baltimore with some the top talk show hosts in the country. Prior to 1998, Brian worked as a news reporter for WILI radio in Willimantic, Conn. and hosted his own public affairs talk show for a Connecticut Public Radio affiliate. Brian resides in Hooksett with his wife and two daughters and has a passion for bicycling and fighting to protect conservation lands from development threats.
Daniel Weeks
Executive Director | dan (at) opendemocracy.me
Raised in Temple, New Hampshire, Dan was inspired to join the democracy movement by none other than Doris “Granny D” Haddock when he was a teenager at ConVal HS. A 15-year advocate of democratic reform, Dan helped launch Americans for Campaign Reform in 2003 and served as president from 2008-11. In 2005, he led the student campaign to pass comprehensive campaign finance reform in Connecticut and in 2011 he founded the Money and Politics Project in South Africa. Dan has written on poverty and democracy issues for The Atlantic, New York Times, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, and other publications, and recently completed a book, Democracy in Poverty: A View From Below, based on poverty-line research he conducted in 30 states by Greyhound bus. A graduate of Oxford and Yale, Dan and his wife, Dr. Sindiso Mnisi Weeks, are proud residents of Nashua.
Lawrence Lessig - NH Rebellion Founder
Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and founder of Rootstrikers, a network of activists leading the fight against government corruption. He has authored numerous books, including Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Our Congress—and a Plan to Stop It, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Free Culture, and Remix.
Lessig serves on the Board of Creative Commons, AXA Research Fund, and iCommons.org, and on the Advisory Boards of the Sunlight Foundation and the Better Future Project. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Association, and has received numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, Fastcase 50 Award, and being named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries.
Lessig holds a BA in economics and a BS in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in philosophy from Cambridge, and a JD from Yale. Prior to rejoining the Harvard faculty, Lessig was a professor at Stanford Law School, where he founded the school’s Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.
Advisors
Mark Connolly
Mark Connolly is a Principal at New Castle Investment Advisors. He began his career as an officer at First Chicago. He then served as Vice President and Securities Principal at Chubb Securities Company before serving as a Corporate Vice President of Chubb Life Insurance Company where he managed the Corporate Accounts business unit. He then served as Vice President at Fleet Boston and Vice President of Institutional Accounts at Wellington Management in Boston.
His career in public service began when he served as a state representative from Bedford while still in college. He also served as assistant secretary of state from 1980–1984 and was a member of Governor Judd Gregg's transition committee in 1988, Governor Judd Gregg's Task Force on State Government Reorganization in 1992, and Governor John Lynch's Transition Committee in 2004.
Connolly was appointed Deputy Secretary of State and Director of Securities Regulation by the NH Bureau of Securities Regulation in 2002, reporting to Secretary of State William Gardner. The agency has oversight responsibility of securities regulation in New Hampshire and enforcement and oversight of thirty-five million dollar revenue budget, regulatory authority over 50,000 licensed agents and investment advisors and 1200 broker-dealers.
In Connolly's eight years at the Securities Bureau, he oversaw major securities enforcement cases, including cases against Tyco International, Ameriprise, ING, Pennichuck Corp., Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and UBS. These cases netted more than $55 million in securities fines and investor restitution. Connolly was awarded the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) Inc.'s Outstanding Service Award in 2010 "for his significant contributions to investor protection throughout New Hampshire and North America." He was also presented with the association's 2001 Enforcement Award. Connolly was elected to serve on the board of directors of NASAA and also served as treasurer. He also headed NASAA's Corporate Finance Section.
Connolly earned his B.A. in Government and Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College and received his MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
Bob Lucic
Bob Lucic is a Partner at Sheehan Phinney Bass + Green with extensive commercial litigation experience, including administrative agency proceedings, arbitrations, jury trials, and appellate practice involving both multinational corporations and small businesses. He regularly advises clients on antitrust compliance issues. His practice focus also includes environmental litigation and arbitration; patent, trademark, trade secret disputes; stockholder and partnership disputes; and investor disputes.
Lucic is the firm’s liaison with Lex Mundi, the world’s leading association of independent law firms. He is an active member of their Environmental, Litigation, Arbitration and Dispute Resolution, and Antitrust, Competition and Trade Practice Groups.
Lucic has been named one of the Best Lawyers in America in the area of commercial litigation by Woodward/White and has also been named a New England Super Lawyer in the area of environmental litigation. He is co-author of the New Hampshire Chapter in the book Brownfields: A Comprehensive Guide To Redeveloping Contaminated Property (3rd Edition).
Lucic is admitted to practice in New Hampshire, New York, and Massachusetts as well as in the First Circuit, Second Circuit, and Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal.
Lucic is a Director of the Squam Lakes Association. He was formerly a Trustee of Canterbury Shaker Village, the New Hampshire Master Chorale, and the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra. He has been a contributor to the Sandwich Historical Society Excursion. He has also been active in the Dartmouth College and University of Chicago Law School Alumni Associations and is a member of the Dartmouth College Club in New York City.
Eric MacLeish
Eric MacLeish has handled a broad spectrum of litigation, ranging from complex business and commercial disputes, education and special education law, personal injury law, and some of the most significant sexual abuses cases in the country.
He was picked as one of the top ten winning trial lawyers by the National Law Journal in 2003 and has regularly appeared as one of Boston Magazine’s “Superlawyers.” He is a graduate of Vassar College and Boston University School of Law (cum laude). He was a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro. He started the Boston offices of two national law firms and was the Co-Head of the Litigation Department of one of the firms. He was elected to senior equity partnerships in both firms.
MacLeish also founded the Massachusetts 9/11 Fund, which provided millions of dollars of financial support to surviving families. From 2001 to 2004, he was President and Chairman of the Fund and is now Chairman Emeritus. He has served on other non-profit boards and was an elected member of the Newton Board of Alderman for six years.
MacLeish has been teaching in New Hampshire for the past six years, yet continues to be well-known in the Boston legal establishment. He is a frequent speaker at conferences around the country and a prolific author. He has received numerous honors and awards, including the Frank Carrington Champion of Civil Justice Award from the National Crime Victims Bar Association.
Joe Magruder
Joe Magruder spent most of his long career in daily journalism as news editor for the Associated Press in New Hampshire, where he worked closely with reporters, assigned and edited stories, and was on call 24/7/365 for important breaking news. He led and coordinated coverage of six presidential primaries (after covering two as a reporter) and worked frequently on a range of stories with national and regional AP editors, AP’s broadcast, photo and television operations, and AP member newspapers and broadcasters.
Magruder majored in history at Princeton, has a master’s in communications from American University, and completed Certified Financial Planner training in the mid-90s for use at work and at home. He is a Navy veteran of Vietnam.
Bess Mosley
Bess Mosley relocated to the Seacoast from Long Island where she was the owner/broker of a real estate business. Since settling in Portsmouth 20 years ago she has worked in marketing and now, semi retired, is doing contract work writing and editing.
Mosley studied at Anderson University, South Carolina and Adelphi University, New York. She is a member of the Seacoast Republican Women’s Club and represents her condominium community on Portsmouth’s Neighborhood Committee.
Peter Vandermark
Peter Vandermark is a photojournalist and retired professor of journalism at Boston University’s College of Communication. He has lived in Portsmouth, NH for the last 25 years where he and his wife, Lee, have raised their two sons. He is currently engaged in the issues around creating a local, sustainable and just economy.
Celia Woolverton
Celia Woolverton is psychotherapist and family mediator licensed in the states of Tennessee, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. She graduated from the Colorado College and went on to receive a Masters in Social Work. She has a post-graduate certification in advanced psychotherapy and psychoanalysis from the Washington School of Psychiatry. She currently has a private psychotherapy and mediation practice in Nashville, TN, Plymouth, NH, and Cambridge, MA, and works as a part-time psychotherapist at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.
Woolverton has done extensive work and lectured in the areas of child development and childhood sexual abuse. She served on the board of Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee, and volunteered for the Tennessee Department of Child and Family Services, supervising cases. She also continues to supervise psychotherapy clinicians. She works extensively with individuals, couples, and families, and with adults, adolescents, and children in both her psychotherapy and mediation practices. She has been appointed by courts to serve as a Parent Coordinator in divorce cases, and as a psychotherapist for court evaluations. In addition, she has been an expert witness in many court cases involving divorce and custody. The majority of her practice has involved treating professionals in the legal, medical, business, and entertainment fields.
Woolverton also has experience treating substance abuse and dependence. She has worked as the clinical director of two chemical dependence and domestic violence treatment facilities. She continues to lecture in this area, and has taught university courses in substance abuse treatment.