Our Leadership

Founder and President: Tico Almeida launched Freedom to Work in the fall of 2011. He has extensive experience advocating for workplace fairness as a civil rights litigator in private practice and a legislative attorney in the U.S. Congress. From 2007 to 2010, Almeida served as lead counsel on the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) for the Committee on Education and Labor of the U.S. House of Representatives. He drafted several portions of the bill, organized Committee hearings in support of ENDA, and built a thorough Congressional record necessary to apply ENDA to State government employers. He has provided media commentary on ENDA to publications including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Congressional Quarterly, the Hill, Huffington Post, the Washington Blade, MetroWeekly, Bilerico, TowleRoad and the Michelangelo Signorile Show on Sirius XM Satellite Radio.

The National LGBT Bar Association recently named Tico Almeida to its list of the Top 40 LGBT Lawyers Under the Age of 40. He has served as Chairman of the Employment and Labor Law Section of the Hispanic National Bar Association. Almeida received his J.D. from Yale Law School and his B.A. from Duke University.

NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD:

Dr. Dana Beyer, Executive Director of Gender Rights Maryland

Donna Cartwright, Co-President of Pride at Work, AFL-CIO

Jarrod Chlapowski, former Field and Development Director at Servicemembers United

Becky Dansky, civil rights lobbyist and former lead ENDA lobbyist for The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Edward Feighan, former Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-OH)

Bill Hendrix, DOW Chemical

Darren Hutchinson, Professor at American University’s Washington College of Law

Kevin Kish, Director of the Employment Rights Project at Bet Tzedek Legal Service

Ari Lipman, Industrial Areas Foundation

Seth Marnin, Co-Chair of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Committee of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA)

Daniel Penchina, Principal at the Raben Group

Joe Racalto, Executive Director of Fairness West Virginia

Skip Roberts, the Service Employees International Union

Renee Rosenfeld, President of Reverberate Media

Meghan Stabler, Business Executive, Transgender Advocate and National LGBT Activist