Hi. I’m Kate.

That’s a professional headshot of me - I really prefer yoga pants and tennis shoes.

I’m a facilitator, coach, teacher, systems thinker, community person, question-asker, and connection-maker. Mostly, I help people figure out how to do hard things together.

I didn’t arrive at this work because I had a grand plan to become a “systems-change practitioner.” Honestly, I’m not sure I would have known what that meant when I started. I got here by paying attention - to people, to communities, to what happens in rooms, to who speaks and who doesn’t, to the difference between a group going through the motions and one where something real is happening. I became curious about the ways good people can get stuck inside systems that produce results nobody actually wants, and especially about what becomes possible when people begin to see themselves as part of something larger than themselves. That curiosity has become the work of my life.

This work is personal for me.

Community isn’t an abstract idea to me; it’s a practice. I believe we belong to one another, that the quality of our relationships shapes the quality of what we can build together, and that some of our biggest challenges persist not because people don’t care or aren’t trying hard enough, but because we keep asking individuals to solve fundamentally collective problems.

So I spend a lot of my time bringing people together. It might be a room full of leaders trying to figure out how to lead differently, people who have very different experiences of the same community, an organization that knows something needs to change but can’t quite see its way through, or people who need one another to solve a problem - and who may not particularly like, trust, or understand one another yet.

Those are some of my favorite rooms. Not because they’re easy, but because there’s something at stake.

I’m less interested in having the answer than helping us ask better questions.

I don’t believe my job is to parachute in, diagnose everyone’s problems, unveil a beautiful PowerPoint, tell people what to do, and leave. The people in the system know things I don’t. They carry history, experience, relationships, frustrations, hopes, wisdom, and perspectives that matter, and my job is to help us get more of that into the room.

I ask questions, notice patterns, connect dots, and name things that might be difficult to name. I help people listen to one another differently. I push when pushing is useful and slow us down when moving faster would mean missing something really important.

And yes, I occasionally make people do an exercise they are certain they are going to hate. They usually survive (you know who you are).

Hard and hopeful belong together.

I’ve been accused of being an optimist. I’m ok with that. But I want to be clear that I’m not the everything-will-work-out kind of optimist. My optimism comes from believing that human beings are capable of learning, changing, repairing, imagining, and choosing differently - and that we have a responsibility to practice those things.

Systems are powerful. History matters. Power matters. Structures matter. And so do agency, relationship, courage, imagination, and what a group of people decides to do next. We are the architects of these systems after all.

I want to be honest about what’s hard without collapsing into it. That’s the kind of hope I try to bring to the work.

Most of my work happens at home. That’s on purpose.

About 80% of my work happens in the community that raised me - Stanislaus County.

That isn't an accident, and it isn't because I don't work elsewhere. I do. But I have made an intentional choice to invest most deeply in the place that made me.

There is something different about doing systems-change work in a community where you have history. I know many of the people, institutions, stories, strengths, tensions, and wounds - not because I studied them in preparation for an engagement, but because I live here too. The people I work with aren't simply clients or stakeholders. They are my neighbors and my friends. I run into them at the grocery store, at community events, and in the ordinary places where a community becomes a community. That proximity changes the work. It asks more of me.

I can't swoop in, facilitate a process, hand over a report, and disappear. I live with what happens next. I get to see where change takes root, where it stalls, where relationships deepen or fracture, and where we still have work to do.

Much of what I know about change, leadership, and community has come from that kind of proximity. Long before I was a working professional, my parents and grandparents were public servants working in this county. I come from years spent alongside generations of public servants, nonprofit leaders, educators, law enforcement, community advocates, young people, families, executives, frontline staff, elected leaders, and more.

I've learned that the people closest to a problem often hold wisdom our systems have learned not to hear. I've learned that context matters, history matters, and relationships matter. And I've learned that meaningful change looks different when you're not just responsible for the process, but accountable to the place and the people who will live with what comes next.

My work takes me into lots of different rooms and sometimes to different communities, and I value what those experiences teach me. But I am deeply rooted here, and I want to be.

I don't want to study change from a distance. I want to be part of it.

A few things I’ve learned along the way.

Relationships aren't the soft stuff. They're infrastructure. Conflict isn't always a sign that something has gone wrong; sometimes it's a sign that we've finally gotten to something real. People often support change right up until change asks them to change. ;-)

Who is in the room matters, and who isn't in the room matters, too. There is almost always more wisdom in a group than we are accessing. Humor helps. Food helps, too.

And no matter how sophisticated our strategy is, we are still human beings trying to figure out how to be human beings together. There is nothing linear about any of this work.

The official-ish version.

My work lives at the intersection of leadership development, facilitation, coaching, organizational change, community engagement, and systems change. I design and facilitate leadership programs, retreats, community processes, strategic conversations, cross-sector collaborations, and long-term change initiatives. I coach individual leaders and leadership teams, and I partner with organizations and communities that are trying to change not only what they do, but how they work together.

I have a BA in Sociology from the University of California, Davis. A Master’s in Public Administration from California State University, Stanislaus. And I am certified as a Community Coach through Leadership that Works. I am a graduate of the Stanislaus New Leadership Network where I had the honor of studying Human Centered Design with staff from the Stanford d. School. And I am a colleague and life-long student of John Ott and Rose Pinard and the Center for Collective Wisdom.

Beyond the work...

I’m a mom to my daughter, Quinn, and Bonus Kids Seth and Zyan. My husband is the super famous David Rogers and yes - he drums ALL THE TIME. I am past organizer and co-founder of Modesto’s Mod Shop, Music in the Plaza, and Modesto Porchfest because I love music, I love community, and I love doing awesome random things that bring people together in all my spare time (insert sarcasm here).

If you’ve made it this far, thanks. Maybe we’ll talk soon!