Co-President

Sondra Cosgrove is a thirty-four-year Las Vegas resident. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with areas of specialization in the U.S. West, Native American History, and Latin America. Currently, Sondra is a full-time history professor at the College of Southern Nevada and is actively involved in college and community service. This includes chairing the CSN Native American Alliance, serving as a past chair of the CSN Women’s Alliance, and serving as the President of the League of Women Voters of Nevada. Sondra is Secretary on the Board of the Nevada Center for Civic Engagement. As the President of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Nevada Sondra engages in community and civic empowerment as well as advocacy for important civil rights priorities. Education, health care, sustainable living, and the protection of all civil rights are foundational issues that form the basis of League’s work.

Co-President

Shane is the manager of public policy for the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. Shane ‘s prior professional experience working for former U.S. Senator Richard Bryan and is a former Democratic Party Chair. Shane’s involvement with the Nevada Center for Civic Engagement reaches back to 1990 when Center for Civic Education programs were brought to Nevada. He is a former District Coordinator for Northern Nevada and has been a program coordinator for Project Citizen. Shane is a 4th generation Nevadan, is occasionally funny, has questionable photography skills, and has a passion for most snow related sports.

Treasurer

Andrew “Andy” MacKay is a 4th generation Nevada native & University of Nevada alumnus. Executive Director, Nevada Franchised Auto Dealers Association. Andy has also served the State of Nevada as the Grants Coordinator for Congressman Jim Gibbons office and as the Chairman for the Nevada Transportation Authority.

Secretary

Doreen Spears Hartwell formed Hartwell Thalacker, Ltd. in 2014 with Laura Thalacker, a friend and accomplished attorney with whom she worked for over 14 years at Nevada’s largest local law firm. Doreen has practiced in the area of business and commercial litigation in Nevada since 2000.

Doreen is listed in the 2016 edition of The Best Lawyers in America for Commercial Litigation (Las Vegas). Doreen, who has an AV Preeminent rating by Martindale-Hubbell, has been recognized by her peers as one of Nevada’s Legal Elite every year since 2012. In December 2014, Doreen received the “Pro Bono Attorney of the Year” Award from the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada.

One of Doreen’s first appearances in court as a new attorney was representing an 18 month old child through the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada’s (previously known as the Clark County Legal Aid Center) Children’s Attorney Project (“CAP”). This experience, which demonstrated to her the dire need for children to have a voice in the legal system, cemented her commitment to providing pro bono services. Since taking that first pro bono case in 2000, Doreen has continued to provide pro bono legal services to deserving individuals who otherwise would not have access to our legal system. It’s her policy to always be working on at least one active pro bono case at all times. She often exceeds this and, in 2014, she had six active pro bono cases.

Source: HartwellThalacker.com

Attorney

Ashley C. Nikkel is a member of the Litigation, Trials & Appeals and Environmental and Natural Resources practice groups at Parsons Behle & Latimer.

Prior to joining Parsons Behle & Latimer, Ms. Nikkel excelled at the William S. Boyd School of Law, graduating summa cum laude, serving as an articles editor for the Nevada Law Journal, participating in the appellate clinic, where she argued a direct criminal appeal on a drug trafficking case at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, and competing on Boyd’s moot court team (Society of Advocates). Before law school, Ms. Nikkel attended the University of Nevada, Reno, where she received her bachelor’s degree in political science and history.

Ms. Nikkel is passionate about supporting the Center for Civic Education’s “We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution” program, and has coached a number of nationally-qualified teams from Incline High School. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the local chapter of Dress for Success, which seeks to empower working women by providing resources and a professional network of support and expertise.

Mr. Speed received his bachelor's degree in English from Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1996. He was the Dillard University Student Marshal for the spring commencement ceremony - an honor given to the male graduate with the highest grade point average - and the recipient of the Benjamin E. Mays & Samuel DuBois Cook Presidential Scholarship Award. Kevin earned his Juris Doctorate from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio in 1999 and received the Topper Eagle Award for outstanding achievement and service in the moot court and lawyering skills program at the college of law. Mr. Speed moved to the Las Vegas area with his wife Melanie and their three daughters, twins - Paige and Simone, now 26, and 21 year old Jaden, in 2002 and served as a volunteer law clerk for the Clark County District Attorney's Office. He was selected to work as Judge Stewart L. Bell's judicial law clerk in 2003 after Bell's election to the Eighth Judicial District Court and remained in Department VII until 2004. After a short time in private practice at a local construction defect firm, Kevin joined the office of Public Defender Phillip J. Kohn and became a member of the Sexual Assault Defense specialty unit in 2008. Along with Ohio and Nevada bar memberships, Mr. Speed is admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court, he has first-chaired twenty-five felony criminal trials, attended the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia, argued (albeit unsuccessfully) the often-cited Witzenberg case before the full Nevada Supreme Court, and secured a not-guilty verdict in his first trial as member of the SADU. Recently, Kevin has appeared again before the Nevada Supreme Court where he argued successfully in two cases Sanchez v. State in 2014, and Williams v. State, the Williams case resulting in a published unanimous decision this year by the Court sitting en banc. Kevin is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated, and he enjoys college and professional football, power lifting, IFBB bodybuilding, tennis, military history, reading and studying the Bible.

Kimberly Maxson-Rushton is known as one of the premier administrative attorneys in Nevada. Active in the U.S. gaming industry, Kimberly is also the Executive Director and General Counsel for the Livery Operator’s Association of Las Vegas and a leader in Nevada’s marijuana industry. Casinos, gaming suppliers and businesses related to the gaming industry all depend on Kimberly’s guidance in this rapidly changing field of law. She also has a long and distinguished career in the areas of commercial transportation, cannabis, and other state licensing and regulatory matters.

Kimberly began her career in the Clark County District Attorney’s Office from 1993 to 1998 before moving to the Nevada Attorney General’s Office where she served as Chief of the Las Vegas office and Counsel to the Nevada Gaming Control Board and Nevada Gaming Commission from 1998 to 2003. In 2003 Kimberly was appointed by former Nevada Governor to serve as a Commission and later Chairman of the Nevada Transportation Services Authority from 2003 to 2007. Kimberly was selected for inclusion among The Best Lawyers in America® in the area of Administrative/Regulatory Law in Nevada each year from 2013-2019, and in the area of Gaming Law in Nevada from 2016 – 2019. Kimberly was recognized by her alma mater, University of Nevada, Reno with the 2017 Alumni Professional Achievement Award.