REBECCA WAGGONER
An innovative nonprofit leader, Rebecca Waggoner is the executive director of Quorum, the Twin Cities LGBTQA Chamber of Commerce. She also serves as Midwest Regional Chamber Affiliate Chair for the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC). For over 20 years, she’s worked at every level of program development and management with community-based programs. She’s the former director of the anti-violence program at OutFront Minnesota, working with survivors of hate/bias violence, domestic violence and sexual assault. Currently, Waggoner is active in local community organizing efforts and has served on a number of organizational boards and advisory committees, and is a co-founder of the Lamb Project, an organization that provides handmade quilts and baby blankets to homeless kids. “My adult life has been dedicated to working with survivors of violence and discrimination,” she says. “The reward comes not from what I do but from knowing that somehow, and in some way, I have helped survivors change their own lives.” Originally from Arkansas, Waggoner was raised Southern Baptist, and recalls having a complicated, extended coming out process as a femme lesbian. “My family still thinks it’s a phase,” she jokes. Now she lives happily in the Minneapolis-St.Paul area with her partner, two teenage sons, two “slightly cranky” cats and a rescued greyhound named Atom. –SLO
What Do You Think?