Northwest Area Foundation Board of Directors Seats Three New Board Members

News Release

Fr: Susan Buckles, APR

Northwest Area Foundation
60 Plato Boulevard East

St. Paul, MN 55107

651-225-3865

For Immediate Release

St. Paul, Minn., July 13, 2007: The Northwest Area Foundation today seated three new representatives to its 13-member board of directors. Natalie Camacho Mendoza of Boise, Idaho; Sally Pederson of Des Moines, Iowa; and Sarah Vogel of Bismarck, North Dakota have been appointed to three-year terms.

Natalie Camacho Mendoza is an attorney in Boise, Idaho, who is licensed in Idaho and Texas. She practices in the areas of worker’s compensation, immigration law and American Indian law. Having grown up in poverty, Camacho Mendoza rose to manage her own private practice law firm. She has been active in Image de Idaho, a non-profit organization concerned with civil rights, employment and education of Idaho Hispanics, for which she served as president; the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs; Hispanic Cultural Center of Idaho; and the mission committee for St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Camacho Mendoza has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Idaho State University and a law degree from Washburn University School of Law in Kansas.

Sally Pederson served as Iowa’s lieutenant governor from 1998-2006, during which time she advocated for people with disabilities, health care coverage for children and insurance coverage for mental health issues. In 2003, Pederson received the John F. Sanford Award from the Iowa Medical Society for her efforts in improving the quality of health care in Iowa. As lieutenant governor, Pederson initiated and chaired the Iowa Committee on Diversity. She served as state Democratic Party leader until November 2006. Pederson holds a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University.

Sarah Vogel is an attorney in Bismarck, North Dakota with the Sarah Vogel Law Firm, P.C. A native of North Dakota, she served as North Dakota Commissioner of Agriculture from 1989-1996, where she was co-founder of Marketplace of Ideas, the nation’s largest rural development conference. Vogel also was Assistant Attorney General of North Dakota. While she has been in private practice in North Dakota, she has been lead counsel in a number of significant agriculture cases, such as the national class action lawsuit against the Farmers Home Administration, which enjoined many thousands of farm foreclosures until the federal government provided farmers with their due process rights, a case requiring the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation to honor crop insurance policies worth $42,000,000 benefiting 8000 durum wheat farmers; litigation protecting farmers involved in elevator insolvencies, and many others. In 2006, Vogel won the Distinguished Service Award from the American Agricultural Law Association. Vogel holds a law degree from New York University.

Fellow board members include Daniel Kemmis, Montana; Dorothy Bridges, Minnesota; Father Kevin McDonough, Minnesota: Louis Fors Hill, Minnesota; Elouise Cobell, Montana; Patricia Jensen, Minnesota; Sandra Vargas, Minnesota; Elsie Meeks, South Dakota; and William Thorndike, Jr., Oregon. The five members of the Foundation’s trustees are: Terrence W. Glarner; Linda L. Hoeschler; Dr. Thomas J. Horak; Rodney W. Jordan; and Nicholas P. Slade.

The Northwest Area Foundation is dedicated to helping communities reduce poverty for the long term. The Foundation works on strategic efforts with a small number of rural, urban, and American Indian reservation communities, and the organizations supporting these efforts, in its eight-state region: Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. These states were served by the Great Northern Railway, founded by James J. Hill. In 1934, Hill’s son, Louis W. Hill established the foundation.

Since 1999, the Foundation has invested approximately $193 million in community-based poverty-reduction programs. It expects to invest an estimated additional $75 million within the next two years, at which time it will have completed its first 10 years of operation under a community-based program model. The Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant requests. For additional information, visit www.nwaf.org, or call 651-224-9635.

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