Speakers

Commissioner Marion Greene represents Hennepin County’s Third District, and serves as Board Chair. District 3 includes much of Downtown Minneapolis, Southwest Minneapolis, and the entirety of the city of St. Louis Park. Marion was elected for her second term in 2018. At 2019’s first board convening she was unanimously elected Board Chair by her colleagues.

A former State Representative, Marion Greene was chief author of legislation to fully fund all-day kindergarten in Minnesota, and co-author of legislation to establish the Minnesota Health Exchange, now MNSure.

Marion leads on innovative local policies at Hennepin County that have immediate impact on the community, including funding for permanent staff to pursue and prevent sex trafficking of young people and to provide services to victims, a fund for county residents who are facing removal proceedings to access legal aid, and phase-out of Hennepin County carbon-emitting fleet vehicles to be replaced with electric vehicles. Looking to the future, Marion is focused on the Met Council’s successful completion of Southwest Light Rail, financial inclusion, justice reform, and continuing the shift towards being a carbon-neutral county.

Peggy is the Executive Director of the ConnectME Authority, Maine’s program to expand broadband to unserved areas of the state.  As Director, Peggy does all the normal things a director does including budgets, grant processes and public outreach.  Critical to Maine’s program is understanding the continually changing landscape of broadband and creating strategies to meet those challenges.  State programs are a continuous process improvement effort. This past year Peggy has led ConnectMaine in developing a Verification and Validation process for infrastructure grants, a Broadband Intelligence Platform, and a structure to support communities in the development of Broadband Utility Districts and a successful application to the NTIA Broadband Infrastructure Program.   

Prior to joining ConnectME,Peggy was the Small Business Advocate in the Secretary of State's office and served as the Co-chair for the Maine Broadband Coalition.  Using her 20 years of political work from serving as the lobbyist for the Department of Economic and Community Development as well as Chief of Staff in the Maine State Senate, Peggy brings an understanding that this work requires multiple strategies to be successful, including a good sense of humor.

Ellory leads city engagement in addition to product design and development at The Atlas. She has extensive experience working directly with local government officials to identify and implement strategies that solve complex infrastructure problems. Previously, Ellory was a Partner at re:focus partners, where she worked with cities and utilities to design and finance innovative stormwater management projects. Before that, Ellory held a fellowship at the Science and Technology Policy Institute, where she acted as the executive secretary of the Obama Administration’s Climate Data and Tools Initiative, and more broadly, provided analytical and technical support to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) on a wide range of infrastructure, energy and environment issues. She frequently contributes to the ongoing conversation about cities, infrastructure and innovation in outlets like Architect Magazine and the Brookings Institution. Ellory is a USMC spouse and dog-mom to Gidget. She can be found hiking and gardening during her free time.

Ellory has a B.A. in Civil & Environmental Engineering and Public Policy with a minor in Water and Energy Sustainability from Rice University.

Bill Lucia is the Executive Editor for Government Executive’s Route Fifty. He previously served as a Senior Editor for Route Fifty. Prior to that, Bill covered Seattle city government for Crosscut.com and holds a master’s in public administration from the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Affairs.