Local committee co-chairs appointed for 2012 National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change in Baltimore, Md.

The Task Force has appointed a four-person team of leaders to head up the 2012 Creating Change Host Committee. The 24th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change will be held in Baltimore, Md., Jan. 25-29, 2012. More than 3,000 participants are expected to attend the five-day leadership, training and strategy-making event, produced each year to build the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.

Sue Hyde, director of the Creating Change Conference stated:

We are thrilled to have secured the talents, energy and enthusiasm of four outstanding Baltimore and Maryland leaders who will inspire their colleagues on the Host Committee to do their very best work to make Creating Change 2012 an unforgettable experience for all. Our co-chair team is ready, willing and able to bring Baltimore and Maryland’s brilliance and charm to the planning table. Together, we will build power, take action and create change.

The 2012 Host Committee co-chairs:

The Rev. Mother Meredith Moise, an activist, teacher, writer and public educator, has spent most of her professional life working on behalf of peace, justice and equality. Ordained an Old Catholic priest in 2008, she was the first black field organizer for Equality Maryland and is former associate director for religious affairs at the National Black Justice Coalition. She is the recipient of the 2011 James Baldwin Award for Civil Rights, a graduate of Morgan State University, and a 14-year resident of Baltimore City. She serves as a priest within the Byzantine Rite Old Catholic Church, a denomination centered in Baltimore.

Sharon Brackett serves as chair of the board of directors of Gender Rights Maryland, Inc., a newly formed advocacy organization. She is a serial entrepreneur who was the president/CEO of The PTR Group, an engineering technology services firm. She is president/CEO of Tiresias Technologies, a startup company. In 2010, Brackett was selected by Washington SmartCEO Magazine as one of Washington’s Smart100 CEOs for 2010 and then again, after transition, in 2011. She volunteers as co-moderator of the gender identity support group at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Baltimore and Central Maryland. She founded, with another transgender parent, TransParent Day. In her spare time she works with youth groups with technical interests such as rocketry and robotics.

Sam Offer is vice president and senior consultant of the Washington Consulting Group, a multicultural organizational development firm based in Baltimore. He is a member of Maryland Black Family Alliance and is an advisor to Pride and Faith, organizations advocating equity of all people. Offer is a member of Interfaith Fairness Coalition of Maryland and Marylanders of Color Coalition. He has served in music ministry for more than 40 years and currently serves as minister of Community Relations and Outreach for Unity Fellowship Church, Baltimore, and is an ordained minister in the Unity Fellowship Church Movement. He has dedicated many years working to develop youth and young adults in education and within the community. A native Marylander, he shares his life with his son, two daughters, three grandchildren and lives a fulfilled life with his beloved partner.

Matt Thorn has been a development and fundraising professional, ranging from political organizations to nonprofit and advocacy groups. Most recently, he served as the development director of Equality Maryland. Over the last decade, his issue portfolio has included homelessness, the arts, education, the developmentally disabled and LGBT issues. His commitment to social change is unwavering and he seeks ways to educate and create compassion in others that can drive social change. Thorn looks forward to uniting the LGBT communities of Maryland and to building greater awareness of LGBT issues in the Free State. He is a graduate of The Catholic University of America.