Within the Pushback Network, States are Organizing Actions and Marches in Opposition to Arizona’s anti-immigrant, racial profiling law SB1070.

On July 29^th, the Arizona law SB 1070 that legalizes racial profiling, is poised to take effect. Community groups and alliances in Arizona are gearing up for a massive “Day of Non-Compliance”, to say no to racial profiling and NO! to unfair treatment of hard working immigrants and their families.

SB 1070 is not a matter for Arizona only. It is a blatant attack on fundamental freedom.

There is a growing national movement to overturn the unconstitutional law in Arizona and to challenge other anti-immigrant legislation around the country. Along with many other organizations and networks, member organizations of the Pushback Network will hold actions, marches, and engage in voter registration drives in support of the people of Arizona to protest SB1070 and unjust and inhumane immigration enforcement policies.

Pushback Network organizations plan to demonstrate our level of commitment to the struggle for full rights and respect for all immigrants.

Our Kentucky State Alliance Anchor, Kentucky Jobs with Justice, will launch a “People Not Profiles:  Kentucky Says NO to Arizona’s Unconstitutional Law” action on Thursday, July 29. The program will include presentations of support by a wide range of groups and several speakers representing the diversity of the coalition.

In Nevada, the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada will hold a mass canvass and voter registration drive in Latino neighborhoods in Nevada.  They have already trained 60-70 volunteers who will be mobilized on July 29^th to knock on doors with an anti-1070 message and the pitch to register and turn out to vote.

Our community groups in Alabama, Greater Birmingham Ministries, New York, Community Voices Heard, and Texas, Southwest Workers Union, are turning out their members to stand in solidarity with Arizona and the call for a Day Without Papers..

Pushback Network vows to stand with the immigrants of Arizona and everywhere in the U.S. to ensure that human rights don’t depend on skin color or place of birth.  Genuine democracy is inclusive of all and fully participatory. Democracy and human rights need no I-D.

Pushback Network is fired up about the US Social Forum!

From June 22-26^th, over 200 members from the 9 Pushback State Alliances are uniting in Detroit to strengthen our collective efforts and craft visions of liberation and justice.

Seeing as the time has come for us to build collective power in this milieu of massive unemployment, SB 1070, the oil spill, de-funding of public education, foreclosures and the bank bailouts, Pushback has constructed a strong program that highlights the diverse, multi-issue, multi-region, multi-constituency nature of our network.

You can catch us in Detroit sponsoring the following workshops, convention, and party:

• DTE Protest on Tuesday, June 22
• Workshop: Why Get in The Game? on Wednesday, June 23rd at 10am, Cobo Hall M3-32
• Workshop: Grassroots Participation in the Redistricting Process on Wednesday, June 23rd at 1pm, Cobo Hall D3-26
• Inter-Alliance Dialogue Convention-Grassroots Responses to the Economic Crisis and Critical Issues of our Time on Fri, June 25th at 1pm
• Grassroots Global Justice 5th Anniversary/Leftist Lounge Party on Friday, June 25th at 9pm

You can download the entire Pushback program here: Pushback Network Schedule at USSF

We eagerly look forward to the Detroit for it opens up greater possibilities for creative resistance and transformation.

As a network, we see the forum as a crucial component to building a bottom-up, sustainable movement in the US that has the teeth to fight back against the current neo-liberal system that places profits over people.

We’ll see you in the streets!

Another World is Possible. Another US is Necessary. A New Detroit is on its Way.

Sustainable Communities Organizer, Community Voices Heard

June 1, 2010

Ground Breaking Experience: Lessons from Mass Base Organizing

By visiting with our brothers and sisters in Albuquerque NM with the South West Organizing Project, I gained valuable insights into the model of organizing they call MASS BASE WORK. In preparation for our own election cycle in NY, I got to see first hand how SWOP approaches electoral work separate from ongoing campaign development, membership recruitment, and leadership development.

What they have is a separate track that acknowledges the opportunities for civic engagement that elections bring with them, while also recognizing the limitations of peoples lives that is not always conducive to becoming active members. In this sense, they have developed a whole strategy (MASS BASE), that seeks to develop shallower, but broader relations, with a much wider constituency of people that are not being engaged to be members. Rather, the goals of the mass base work seeks to build a collective of people that on some level, recognize SWOP and the image of the Campaign For A Better New Mexico, share the same progressive values, and are moveable to a small action step – usually voting, making a phone call, writing a letter, etc.

In order to effectively achieve the goals of mass base organizing work, SWOP has mastered the use of voter technology so that they can with laser like precision identify super specific constituencies to engage in a campaign cycle. They use the Voter Activation Network, and have additional layers from which to identify specific demographics of people, and fuse the data with consumer reports that they subjectively I.D in terms of political inclinations. The goal is not simply increasing voter turnout; rather it is about turnout among bases of people that share progressive values while influencing political culture towards participation and affecting outcomes around elections and policy. They limit their communications to mailings and phone calls, no face to face door knocking. By doing so, they focus capacity on a wider spread of people to engage as oppose to having fewer conversations. Over time they hope to establish themselves as a counter point to the dominant two party system by having enough recognition in their target areas to sway elections and policy.

All day Friday was spent cutting turf and prepping the California Alliance’s field packets for the Saturday Door Knock Day.  SWOP learned about how Oakland Rising coordinates with the broader California Alliance, how voters are targeted and how local organizations engage in the process.  Particularly, how local campaigns are uplifted through the broad-based civic engagement campaign’s use of a “local question”.  Something SWOP will be incorporating into it’s broad-based campaigns from now on.   SWOP reps weren’t just there to build relationships and discuss strategy.  Tomas and Michael were there to pound the pavement!  All day Saturday was spent contacting voters.  The morning was spent using the California Alliance’s predictive dialer system with the “daily team”, the Oakland Rising’s paid canvassers.  After the phones, we hit the doors for the rest of the morning and early afternoon reminding Oaklanders to make their voice heard and power felt by getting out and voting!

This Pushback Network Peer-to-Peer Exchange was extremely beneficial for both the SouthWest Organizing Project and Oakland Rising.  Sharing best practices, doing collective problem solving, and strategizing how to build a stronger movement for justice by building political power for working class communities and communities of color is what Pushback is all about, and it’s what this exchange was all about!

May 18, 2010

[New York, NY] The Pushback Network (PBN) is honored to announce it partnership with the Southwest Workers Union (SWU), a grassroots organization based in San Antonio, Texas. This brings Pushback Network’s presence into nine states, and adds new depth to the Network’s capacity for electoral outreach and mobilization. The Pushback Network has built learning and collaborating relationships among community based organizations through peer learning, resource development and technical assistance in voter turnout and civic engagement. Our mission continues to focus on uplifting the voices of marginalized communities in local and state government and connecting those voices nationally.

The Southwest Workers Union has shaped a strong and significant presence in south Texas, through neighborhood organizing and multi-issue advocacy. They are an organization of low-income workers and families, community residents, immigrants and youth, united in one organizational struggle for worker rights, environmental justice and community empowerment. As a leading presence in poor and working class Latino communities in Texas, they have exciting new strategies for civic participation and electoral organizing. They have also made connections nationally and globally, working across state and national boundaries, and drawing the connection between peoples everywhere.

“Moving Texas and SWU into Pushback is part of moving Texas out of the right-wing stronghold.  The demographics are changing and the consciousness of voters and working families is coming to life.  We are excited to learn from our Pushback partners and to create long lasting change in Texas and beyond.” stated Genaro Lopez-Rendon, Director of SWU.

“For the Pushback Network, the addition of SWU is an organic reflection of growing strength of the Latino community nationally, our existing relationships across the South and Southwest, and our ongoing mission to build civic capacity in the most marginalized corners of the country.” notes Peter Hardie, Executive Director of PBN.

Voting patterns in the country reflect historic discrimination against peoples of color in many parts of the country.  Texas is one of those places. The inclusion of Texas in the PBN offers new learning in uniquely different communities there, and a moment to build civic strength among the growing Latino population. SWU joins a powerful collection of organizations around the country committed to the full participation of all in the democratic process.

Viva la Pushback Network!

Pushback Network is a national collaboration of indigenous, grassroots organizations and networks committed to building bottom-up, state-based alliances that change both the composition and levels of participation of the electorate.

Contact:

Peter Hardie, Executive Director

Pushback Network

845-520-0253

peter@pushbacknetwork.org

Please Click on Link for Full Press Release: Texas State Expansion Press Release

From February 12-14, 2010 six Pushback Network members from California, Nevada and New York visited New Mexico to participate in the SouthWest Organizing Project’s (SWOP) census campaign. Over the weekend our members organizations, Oakland Rising and Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN), met with SWOP to discuss strategies and tactics around increasing participation in undercounted communities and participated in field work in Albuquerque’s South Valley and Southwest Mesa. This peer-to-peer exchange fostered honest and authentic dialog about the strategic significance of strengthening local census programs as a strategy for building national electoral power and movement. The goals of this exchange were to 1) deepen staff knowledge and experience about strategies and tactics to conduct an effective census program, 2) provide space for staff from different organizations to discuss how scope and scale are impacting work, and 3) lay the foundation for strong movement building relationships and partnerships.

Since the exchange, each organization has refined their individual census programs to include the lessons learned from New Mexico. They learned how to do more concentrated, effective outreach in “hard to count” precincts. They also used the canvassing experience to develop a more nuanced door-to-door plan. In particular, SWOP shared the following best practices to the participating Pushback organizations:

• SWOP’s bi-lingual field program messaging articulated the significance of participating in the Census using multiple language.
• Census outreach cleverly connected civic engagement with employment opportunities with the Census. This tactic helps to redefine the role and relationship between disenfranchised people and government. We believe that reducing anti-government sentiment and suggest a model of government where services (including employment) are projected essential function of effective government is central to generating long-term civic interest and participation.

Please read two first-hand reports from both Oakland Rising and PLAN:

“The most beautiful shift has been the increased confidence in our staff. They are simply more comfortable and confident about our field program and their knowledge of what Census work can look like. This trip was powerful.” ~ Esperanza Tervalon-Daumonte, Executive Director of Oakland Rising

“The takeaways that I have from my time in New Mexico include the need to start using a census script that includes census awareness, census participation, and persuasion based on public goods and the positive role of government. I also became inspired to try and hold a peer-to-peer exchange session in Las Vegas around our great work on a constitutional ballot initiative. I also can see strong similarities between New Mexico and Nevada as Southwestern states.” Howard Watts III, Field Organizer for Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada

Moving forward, these organizations are already planning a follow-up exchange to further consolidate and strengthen their census work. Stay tuned for those reflections!

Pushing Back, Moving Forward.
February 10, 2010

By Peter Hardie, Pushback Network

The Democratic Party is facing a dilemma, one whose definition seems to elude them. On the heels of their recent losses in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia, I am increasingly dismayed by the space that was created for such monumental defeats and demoralization. Unless the Democrats turn to the base that elected this President and remarkable majorities in the House and Senate, progressive activists in and outside the party cannot rely on the Democrats to move genuine change in this country.

The losses in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia were not solely a reflection of a reconsolidation of the Right. There is a science to voter engagement and voter turnout. Increasing civic participation is not based on guesswork. To get people to the polls, you must engage with citizens, earn buy-in, and effect action. Every serious local campaign staffer knows that success is generated one identified voter at a time, with lots of eyes, ears and feet on the ground. Recently, national (and many state) campaigns have been reduced to television ads and polling data, with little to no engagement of grassroots communities, possibly excepting Obama’s presidential campaign.

The problem: Obama’s campaign has no coattails, and his field operation has been weakened by the administration’s approach of “tack to the center”. The solution: Investment must be made by the Democrats to get out into the communities and knock on the doors of people of color, the poor and working class who came out for change in 2008. If they don’t reengage with these voters, they will stay home in 2010, and support for a progressive agenda in Congress will abate.

Five years ago, grassroots activists from AL, CA, KY, MS, NM, and NY assembled and agreed on certain basic premises:
• You can’t simply parachute campaign staff into places and expect to win presidential or any elections.
• People need more than television ads and robo-calls to persuade them to participate in elections.
• Participation in elections should be part of a long-term civic engagement strategy, and not just isolated events.
• Winning requires coalitions and alliances, diversity of ideas and perspectives and willingness to move through those differences to build a common electoral and policy agendas.

To carry out a strategy based on these principles, they formed the National Pushback Network.

Pushback Network organizers, advocates and activists were from poor and marginalized areas of the nation: urban, rural, and everything in-between. They measured their impact not only in policy change and electoral wins, but also in their ability to develop and train leaders, to elevate new voices and to organize forgotten communities. They saw themselves as movement builders, committed to long-term battles over some of the most oppressive and challenging problems in the United States: poverty, environmental degradation, quality and equality in education, fair tax and fiscal policies, public housing policy, among others.

The Network has grown to eight states (adding Massachusetts and Nevada) and continues to grow. It is a peer network, sustained by shared internal expertise, regular national convenings and meetings, and a commitment to win. These activists have been involved in school board, city council, gubernatorial and presidential elections. They are forces to be reckoned with in their states, and are shaping a new politics of participatory democracy, with an ideological framework that puts people and values first.

Democracy is a practice, not just an idea, which has meant ensuring high levels of diversity among Pushback’s member organizations, and leadership of color throughout the Network in every state. Democracy for Pushback also means conscious recognition of the value of multi-issue alliances; it means capitalizing on the learning and growth that comes when people of different backgrounds with varied policy goals and platforms talk together about shared goals and a shared future. We at Pushback don’t agree on everything; we do agree on who we serve– people of color, poor and working class communities, women, immigrants, youth– and the values we uphold, starting with participatory democracy.

While the Democrats do represent a big tent, and much more diversity than the Republicans, it regularly abandons the values by which it has gained the support of working and poor Americans. Handing the big banks money that could have kept millions of Americans in their homes is just one example. The fuzzy leadership and values of the Democratic Party in Washington is grist for a renewed backlash from their own base, and the millions of previously disaffected independents who signed on with Obama.

This is the core dilemma of the mid-term elections: what change is there to believe in? The mid-term elections this fall will be telling for Obama and the Democratic Party, and more importantly, will cement either a renewed vigor or disillusionment with civic engagement at the ballot box. Keeping voters engaged and committed to a set of values and priorities is a better recipe for sustained progress in the political arena than what we have seen. It is the essence of genuine leadership: the engagement of the individual, with an invitation to lead.

Networks like Pushback, with committed constituents and the respect of their communities and political leaders alike, have much to offer long term to national politics, and winning progressive policies and meaningful change. To ignore organizations committed to base-building and increased grassroots civic engagement is short-sighted. The White House cannot align the votes of progressives in 2010 on a platform of sustained compromise on basic values and sound policy; that does not constitute politics we can believe in, whether on coal or nuclear power or on public education or mortgage foreclosures.

Glenn Greenwald noted recently in the New York Times that the White House, and by inference, the Democratic Party, have to decide between moving further to the right, as the Republicans keep demanding, or galvanizing their base. Defining their base might be the first step. It is clear that corporate and financial institutions do not share common ground with great many Americans. The notion that the same party can serve Wall Street, corporate America, and the mainstreets and backstreets equally has been disproven over time, most recently in the massive bailout of the wealthy and corrupt.

Base-building organizations and networks like Pushback can help Congress and the White House move a more progressive agenda (peace-building, a sustainable ecology, justice on issues of race, gender and sexual orientation, health care and jobs, fair taxes, and core human rights to housing, equity and quality in education, food, and quality of life for all, including immigrants), if –and it’s a big if– they choose the right answer to Greenwald’s decision-point.

Whether they choose the base that elected them or not, the progressive agenda is at stake. Those who support that agenda will have to put their time and their resources to its success, if we are to get to scale and move progressive values through 2010 and beyond. We need to invest substantially in the people and organizations who have been championing change and hope for decades, and who can best remind voters of their power to make real change.

_____________________

On January 27th, Pushback Network conducted our first-ever webinar entitled, “The Geopolitics of an Energy Colony: Case Studies of Kentucky and New Mexico.” We used this webinar to highlight the environmental justice work within the Kentucky and New Mexico State Alliances and connect the ways in which people of color and working class communities are fighting back against environmental racism through the creation of robust, grassroots led organizing campaigns.

Presentations were made from staff and grassroots leaders of SouthWest Organizing Project, Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. In this powerful demonstration of cross state collaboration, each state linked the health and environmental effects in their own communities around uranium and coal extraction to state and federal policies based in racial and economic discrimination.

“We must look at the policy impacts with a lens that incorporates a race and class analysis to how we approach solutions for environmental justice,” said Robby Rodriguez, Executive Director of SouthWest Organizing Project.

Both Kentucky and New Mexico grounded their presentations at the local and state level. Retha Justice and Teri Blanton from Kentuckians for the Commonwealth looked at the environmental and economic impacts of the coal industry and mountain top removal. They cited the coal industry as the culprit responsible for the dire situation facing Kentucky, i.e. 25-40% of Appalachia is mined by mountain top removal, loss of union jobs, and 1,400 miles of Kentucky streams have been damaged or destroyed by valley fill practices. Moving to New Mexico, Nadine Padilla from Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment and Robby Rodriguez from the SouthWest Organizing Project examined the legacy of uranium mining and how the pressures for nuclear energy left their communities littered with hundreds of uranium mines, in a situation where mine workers had no compensation, and where communities were forced to drink polluted groundwater.

However, the webinar did not end at the local and state level. As is the work of the Pushback Network, we used this webinar as an opportunity to explore the various ways in which national coordination could strengthen campaigns rooted in community struggles. We used this moment as a way to build connection and intersection across states.

“Companies use the same tactics they have always used to divide communities. They get everyone fighting and take power when everyone seems to be their weakest. At this point it is so important for us to dig in our heels, become more organized, have people come together and find common ground,” Retha Justice, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.

And find common ground we did.

Environmental racism reflects broader patterns of marginalization and domination that traverses states and communities. Pushback Network recognizes that our environmental justice organizing has to reach a new level of scale and coordination to defeat the destructive economic and environmental policies that are based in profit and not people. Our community organizations fighting on the front lines of this struggle are prime to win in states like New Mexico and Kentucky. And yet, to transform conditions across this country, we recognize the need to create linkages in our work and create synergy across community organizations fighting similar issues.

The webinar was a powerful moment of identification for those grassroots organizers and community members who faced similar living conditions in their neighborhoods but did not have the opportunity to reach out across states and talk about their shared experiences. That is, up until the webinar. Through this technology, members from both states connected across geographical lines and identified how they struggled with the destruction of their land and livelihood due to environmental racism. From this point of unity, the webinar ended with a shared commitment on part of the state alliances to continue the conversation and find ways to support each others work.

Moving forward, we believe the webinar was a strong first step towards understanding how we could connect our state alliances around cross-cutting issues and aggregate our power for transformative social change. To see the presentations in more depth, please check out the powerpoint presentations below.

Environmental Justice from New Mexico
Retha Justice from KFTC Presentation
Teri Blanton from KFTC Presention

In partnership with Wellstone Action, KFTC organized a Candidate and Campaign training this past weekend in Hindman with 30 participants. The focus was overwhelmingly on running for office in Eastern Kentucky, but some members from other parts of the state came as well.

The goal was to encourage people to run for office or to help their friends run by providing a top-notch campaign training focusing on campaign planning and budgeting, telling your story, grassroots voter contact, fundraising, base-building, stump speeches, developing a winning message and more.

“KFTC nationally is held up as a kick-ass gold standard of community organizing,” said Ben Goldfarb, Director of Training Programs for Wellston Action. “I’m a little nervous to be training you all, but I think it will be great.”

Local members with experience in Eastern KY races joined us to add what they’ve learned locally to the Wellstone model of running for office including Mike Dixon (mayor of Blackey), Bennie Massey (Lynch City Council), Carl Shoupe, (Benham City Council) and Randy Wilson (recent candidate for his Jackson Rural Electric Co-op).

“A big part of running is getting out there and talking to your neighbors, getting to know them, and talking about issues that they care about. A lot of us are doing that anyway and we should be doing it even more.”

This is the fourth time Wellstone Action has visited Kentucky and KFTC members have participated in each of the trainings. We’re considering another training if the Voting Rights constitutional amendment gets on the ballot next year.

We’re trying to schedule a smaller candidate training based on what we learned this weekend, tentatively in October in Lexington to replicate pieces of this training. We’ll put it on the KFTC Calendar as soon as we settle on a date and location.

This post was taken directly from the KFTC Blog.

Independent Sector will honor Community Voices Heard with the 2009 American Express Building Leadership Award for empowering low-income people in New York City and State to advocate for public policy changes that improve their lives. CVH will receive its award, which includes a gift of $10,000, at the Independent Sector Annual Conference in Detroit, November 4-6.

CVH is a membership-led organization that engages low-income people, particularly women of
color, in direct action campaigns to improve workforce and welfare systems, save and expand
affordable housing, allow greater access to education and training opportunities, and ensure that
low-income residents help shape the future of their communities. It trains members to be leaders
both within the organization and at other grassroots nonprofits, and harnesses their expertise and
experience to inform, challenge, and change public policy. CVH combines education, grassroots
organizing, leadership development, and civic engagement to build the advocacy power of its
membership and advance causes that its members believe are critical to improving their
communities.

“Community Voices Heard is a model for how to integrate leadership development into policy and
advocacy work, enabling people who have been historically marginalized to help influence the
decisions that directly affect their lives,” said Diana Aviv, president and CEO of Independent
Sector. “The training and expertise they provide committed activists and emerging organizers has
enabled them to press elected officials to uphold their responsibilities to communities, creating more
effective programs that continue to improve the quality of life for so many living in New York and
beyond.”

Members of CVH, who are predominantly women of color with experience with public assistance
programs, have led efforts to advocate for public policies that benefit the nearly 2.7 million
individuals in New York State living in poverty. The organization developed the concept for — and
subsequently got the City of New York to implement — the Parks Opportunity Program, the largest
paid welfare-to-work transitional jobs program in the United States, employing over 25,000 lowincome
people since its creation. This year, CVH helped secure over $25 million in new resources
for paid jobs programs for public assistance recipients statewide. At the encouragement of CVH
members, in 2006 Mayor Bloomberg established a new position of deputy mayor for health and
human services and appointed a Commission for Economic Opportunity to recommend solutions
to reduce the number of New York City residents at or below the poverty line.

In just three years, CVH has been successful at securing over $222 million in additional resources for the NYC Housing Authority to help support the public housing stock in the city. Its Voter Power Project, which educates low-income individuals about the importance of voting and uses election cycles to insert issues involving poverty into campaign debates, has contacted and mobilized a total of more than 17,000 New York voters in over 50 election districts — in the South Bronx, East and Central Harlem, Yonkers, Newburgh, and Poughkeepsie — since its inception in 2004.

Training modules are a key element of CVH’s commitment to cultivating leadership, such as power
analysis trainings that brief members and staff about key elected officials’ strengths and policy
positions; media trainings that prepare members to speak on message about specific government
programs; and fundraising trainings that explain the budget process and how to raise resources to
sustain its work. To ensure staff is representative of its diverse membership, it operates an organizer
training program that educates people from its constituency in the theory and practice of basebuilding
and campaign development and execution. Upon completion of the program, trainees are
qualified for paid staff organizing positions at CVH and other grassroots organizations. Its newly
developed Gail Aska Policy & Research Fellowship — named for CVH’s late co-founder — will
further its commitment to being a multi-racial and multi-cultural organization by building the
presence of women of color in policy and research staff positions.

“Community Voices Heard is honored that the 2009 American Express Building Leadership Award
recognizes our work to create an organization led by our members, who are the driving force behind
the development and execution of our campaigns and programs,” said Ketny Jean-Francois, co-chair
of the Community Voices Heard board. “I hope that our example encourages other grassroots
organizations to view their constituents as leaders and to maximize their involvement in
strengthening their organizations and community.”

Formed in 1994 in response to elected officials’ efforts to eliminate aid to poor families and children
and in reaction to the negative stereotypes about individuals on welfare, Community Voices Heard
works to promote the social welfare of low income people living in New York City, New York State,
and the nation through grassroots organizing, leadership development, participatory research, public
education, and advocacy. To learn more about the organization, visit: www.CVHaction.org.
American Express Building Leadership Award, formally known as the Leadership IS Award, is
sponsored by American Express. The award, which was established in 1999, recognizes the
importance of investing in leaders of the nonprofit community by celebrating an organization that
embodies this principle in spirit and practice.

To learn more about the American Express Building Leadership Award, please visit:
www.independentsector.org/programs/leadership/organizationalaward.htm.

To learn more about the Independent Sector Annual Conference, please visit:
http://www.independentsector.org/AnnualConference/2009.