CPI Staff
Clare Crawford, President and Executive Director
Clare Crawford joined CPI as Organizing Director in 2010, bringing over 17 years of experience working with disenfranchised and impoverished communities as an organizer and advocate. In San Diego as well as in Texas, Oregon and the South Bronx, Clare has been a leader in efforts to advance the rights of workers, immigrants and low-income communities through organizing, voter engagement, leadership development, coalition building and grassroots campaigns. She has led campaigns for public school reform, renters’ rights, affordable housing, electoral reform and the rights of homeowners throughout the country. She was named CPI Executive Director as of January 2011, replacing Donald Cohen, who moved on to head two national projects.
Susan Duerksen, Communications Director
A journalism graduate of Indiana University, Susan Duerksen was a reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune for 17 years, covering healthcare and medical news during most of that time. Before joining CPI in 2006, she received a Master in Public Health degree from San Diego State University. She worked as a public health researcher at SDSU for four years, with a focus on policy and community changes to prevent childhood obesity. Susan also served as volunteer co-director of the San Diego chapter of Health Care for All, a group supporting state legislation for single-payer health care.
Christie Hill, Senior Legal and Policy Analyst
Christie Hill joined CPI as the Senior Legal and Policy Analyst in 2011, after having worked in California, Washington, DC and New York advocating for the rights of women, children, and low-income communities. Christie earned her bachelors degree from the School of Social Welfare at Berkeley, and a juris doctorate from Columbia Law School, where she served for two years as an adjunct faculty member. Previously employed by Advocates for Children of New York, Christie led a project to produce a public service announcement on student educational rights, published several policy briefings, and spearheaded an effort to reform alternative diploma options for students in the state of New York.Christie is admitted to the bars of New York State and the District of Columbia (inactive). She is not admitted to the bar of California.
Trinh Le, Organizer
Trinh Le graduated from UCLA with a BA in Sociology and Asian American Studies. Soon after college, she moved to the Mississippi Gulf Coast where she spent three years working with the local community to rebuild and organize after Hurricane Katrina. Trinh worked for Hope Community Development Agency, organizing local residents to identify key neighborhood issues and empowering them to address those issues. She supported newly formed Asian American organizations by pushing to advance their local initiatives. On her return to California, Trinh worked with the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties, San Diego Asian Film Foundation, and Little Saigon Foundation before joining CPI.
Xavier Leonard, Media and Communications Specialist
A graduate of Columbia University, Xavier has worked in multimedia arts for the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a variety of international organizations. He taught graphic design, multimedia design and Internet technologies at UCSD, Mesa College and Palomar College. He is the founder and former director of a multimedia marketing and communications collective called Wirehead Multimedia and a community program called Heads on Fire that is dedicated to equitable access to digital technologies for social change. He has opened a digital design laboratory in City Heights that is one of 25 such Fab Labs created by MIT with community partners around the world.
Quynh Nguyen, Membership and Grassroots Fundraising
Quynh Nguyen started at CPI in 1998 as an organizer and is now focused on building CPI’s membership and grassroots fundraising. She is a board member of the Southwest Center for Asian Pacific American Law. Quynh graduated from UCLA with B.A.s in Sociology and Asian American Studies.
Barbara Obrzut, Finance and Development Director
Barbara Obrzut has a Master’s degree in Polish Literature and Language from Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. She worked in children’s theater in Kraków before moving to the United States in 1998. In the fall of 2008, Barbara also earned a Master’s degree in Sociology in 2008 from San Diego State University, where her research focused on immigration and specifically local ordinances directed at undocumented immigrants. She joined the CPI staff in May 2008.
Norma Rodriguez, Organizer
Norma Rodriguez worked for Justice Overcoming Boundaries before joining CPI and currently serves on the JOB board. A native of Porterville, California, Norma earned a BA from UC Irvine in Studio Art with minors in Education and Chicano Latino Studies, and a Masters’ degree from UC San Diego In Latin American Studies with an International Migration emphasis. She has previous experience as an art and Spanish teacher in addition to community organizing on immigration reform and other social justice issues.
Corinne Wilson, Research and Policy Lead/ Construction Campaigns Director
Corinne Wilson holds graduate degrees in Public Policy from the University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs and in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego. Her professional experience has focused on affordable housing development and providing business and leadership assistance to cooperatives and nonprofits.
Judy Zambrano, Office Manager
Judy Zambrano is a native San Diegan. She earned a BA from San Diego State University in Psychology with a minor in Marketing. Judy’s professional background consists of over 10 years of office management and accounting experience. Additionally, Judy looks forward to applying her event planning expertise to the benefit of CPI’s campaigns.
