Meet Our Team

Cultivators And Defenders Of Community Power

Front Step Staff

Brittany Palmer

Executive Director
she/her

  • Brittany joined the North Missoula Community Development Corporation in 2020 and leads the organization in building community power, thriving neighborhoods, and affordable homes. Brittany received an MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana, where she researched and wrote about settler colonialism at the National Bison Range. She serves as the Board President of the Northwest Coalition of CLTs, a regional network of community land trusts, and organizes with ProHousing Missoula, a broad-based coalition of advocates in favor of zoning code reform that leads to housing for all. 

Hannah Kosel

Stewardship Coordinator
they/she

  • Hannah is the Stewardship and Communications Coordinator for NMCDC. They are motivated by Missoula’s history of neighbors advocating for housing justice, and enjoys building relationships with homeowners in the Community Land Trust program who continue this vision.  An organizer with the Missoula Tenants Union, Hannah is grateful for community support for equitable and affordable housing for all Missoulians. 

    Hannah also enjoys sparkling snowy ski trips and warms cups of tea over games of cribbage. In warmer seasons, they enjoy late evening bike rides and snacking on kayaks. Hannah is a self-acclaimed fanboy for the Western Montana Fair and dreams of a retirement filled with season tickets to Lady Griz games.

Jana Richter

Community Engagement Specialist they/them

  • Jana is the Community Engagement specialist for the NMCDC. They moved to Montana in 2019 to get a permanent taste of the Big Sky and have been slow gulping it ever since. 

    As a community organizer, Jana is passionate about building community around shared values of reciprocity and interconnectedness, working to make housing and land use knowledge more accessible and fun (zoning is sexy!!), and nourishing a deep sense of belonging throughout our beloved built environments. 

    They can’t wait to learn more about what fuels neighbors to show up for our community and build power around addressing Missoula’s housing crisis in the months to come. 

Front Step Board of Directors

Cortney Perreten

Board President she/her

  • Cortney found her way to NMCDC through her involvement in the housing market and her community engagement as a Northside resident. She is a licensed real estate Broker and Owner at Topo Real Estate, which is also located within the Northside neighborhood. Cortney’s experience provides a unique lens through which to view housing challenges within a dynamic and evolving market. She recognizes the inherent value in cultivating a diverse and equitable community, and strives to help Missoulians find housing within our Mountain town. 

    Cortney can often be found walking Henry (pictured on the left), along the Northside bike path or out rafting the local rivers. 

Pam Walzer

Board Secretary she/her

  • Pam chose Missoula over any other place in the country to settle when she ended a career in hazardous waste management to start a new chapter in her life. She earned a teaching certification in secondary science at UM but found that the best of the best in the country want to be high school science teachers in Missoula, MT. Rather than leave her newly beloved city for a teaching job somewhere else, Pam, like so many other Missoulians, cobbled together a series of part-time jobs to keep the lights on and mortgage paid on her Westside home.

    She has been active in her Westside neighborhood, served one term on the Missoula City Council representing Ward 2, and six years on the Missoula Cultural Council’s Board of Directors. Pam is a member/owner of the Missoula Community Food Co-op and traded in her free-standing home for one of the condos in Burns St. Commons. Now-a-days, Pam makes her living as a jewelry artisan and by baking gluten-free goodies to sell at Missoula’s Farmers’ Markets.

    Hannah also enjoys sparkling snowy ski trips and warms cups of tea over games of cribbage. In warmer seasons, they enjoy late evening bike rides and snacking on kayaks. Hannah is a self-acclaimed fanboy for the Western Montana Fair and dreams of a retirement filled with season tickets to Lady Griz games.

JW Trull

Board Vice President he/him

  • Raised in Idaho and living throughout the Mountain West over the years, J.W. Trull is proud to call Missoula’s F2F neighborhood home. J.W.’s construction career and experience with public infrastructure projects lends insight to the scale of possibilities for community development.

    J.W. invests in solidarity and aims to stay active in transforming how we relate to each other and the places we live. He strives for a future Missoula enhanced by resilient neighborhoods and invigorated by changing relations to land, property, and mobility. He is excited to deepen his understanding of this place and the people who call it home as he continues a journey to bike every street in Missoula!

Jessy Lee

Board Member she/her

  • Jessy grew up in eastern Montana and has been in Missoula for nearly twenty years. She pursued both and undergraduate (Social Work) and graduate (Master of Public Administration) degrees at University of Montana. She left her role as Executive Director of North Valley Food Bank in Whitefish in 2021 to stay home with her new daughter, Finley.

    She and her husband and daughter love to travel and explore new places, but their favorite place to be is home in the mountains of Montana.

Jon Clarenbach

Treasurer he/him

  • Jon Clarenbach grew up in Eugene, Oregon, and graduated from the University of Oregon with degrees in economics and international studies. He earned an MBA from the University of Montana in 2013, specializing in entrepreneurship. Jon co-founded Western Cider in 2015, creating an award-winning cidery that focused on community projects, such as the Great Bear Apple Drive. He was awarded the Montana Placemaker of the Year by Governor Bullock in 2020 for his work at Western Cider.

    Since then, Jon has been actively involved across the Northwest providing financial and strategic guidance to non- and for-profit organizations as a finance director and consultant. A Northsider since 2017, Jon is proud to support NMCDC’s work creating thriving neighborhoods and affordable housing across Missoula. 

    Jon enjoys traveling with his wife, Holly, floating Montana’s rivers, telemark skiing, hiking, and exploring the West.

Bergan Strand

Board Member she/her

  • Raised on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Bergan spend a majority of her life living in cities along the east coast. She studied fine arts in Boston and Savannah and obtained degrees in Sociology and Anthropology. Bergan has done extensive work with women in early recovery, working to secure housing, meet transportation needs, connect with legal resources and explore employment opportunities. She has also mentored elementary aged girls experiencing unstable family issues.

    Bergan came to Montana, where her husband grew up, in late 2021 after losing housing in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, she faced similar setbacks after finding housing here. Quickly after moving in, Brittany knocked on her door letting her know that her new community was up for sale. Bergan and her neighbors began to organize and formed the River Rocks Cooperative – Missoula’s second limited-equity housing cooperative!

    She is excited to get involved with the community and loves traveling, reading, painting, gardening and spending time with her husband and three cats in her free time!

Ashley Clark

Board Member she/her

  • Ashley made her way to Missoula for a summer of adventure after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in 2019. She quickly fell in love with the city, and knew she needed more than just one lovely summer immersed in this amazing community. She feels a strong connection to her work at Missoula Food Bank & Community Center where she does Child Nutrition Programming.

    She was incredibly lucky to be introduced to CLT homeownership in 2022, eventually leading her to NMCDC. You can also find Ashley reading, playing board games, dancing with friends, traveling, doing yoga, or playing at the climbing gym.

    She has been active in her Westside neighborhood, served one term on the Missoula City Council representing Ward 2, and six years on the Missoula Cultural Council’s Board of Directors. Pam is a member/owner of the Missoula Community Food Co-op and traded in her free-standing home for one of the condos in Burns St. Commons. Now-a-days, Pam makes her living as a jewelry artisan and by baking gluten-free goodies to sell at Missoula’s Farmers’ Markets.

    Hannah also enjoys sparkling snowy ski trips and warms cups of tea over games of cribbage. In warmer seasons, they enjoy late evening bike rides and snacking on kayaks. Hannah is a self-acclaimed fanboy for the Western Montana Fair and dreams of a retirement filled with season tickets to Lady Griz games.

Maggie Brown

Board Member she/her

  • Maggie is a homeowner at Clark For Commons who has been concerned with affordable and sustainable housing for many years. A native of Missoula, descended from two generations of lumbermen, she has also lived in Nevada, California, England, and for many years in the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. She returned to Montana once again in 2015.

    Maggie attended the University of Montana, majoring in creative writing. Her fiction and poetry, as well as book and movie reviews, have appeared in literary journals, McCall’s magazine, and the Seattle Times, and two of her plays were produced in small Washington theaters. To support herself and her three children she also worked as a secretary, bartender, realtor, part-owner of a co-op restaurant, graphic designer, and grant writer. After retiring from a non-profit arts organization, she started an eco-friendly housekeeping business which she ran for ten years. These days she is concentrating on writing fiction.

Alice Boyer

Board Member she/her

  • Alice was born and raised in Missoula and has always had a strong affinity for the things that make Missoula great. She remembers going to the Missoula Outdoor Cinema showings as a kid and riding her bike with her dad over the Northside Pedestrian Bridge to get to the Farmer’s Market on summer Saturdays.

    As an adult, she has worked in the Montana political space since 2019 and has recently started work as the Deputy Director at Montana Women Vote. You can catch Alice walking her dog, sitting in the sunshine with friends and online where she enjoys playing video games in her free time!

Josh Nichols

Board Member he/him

  • Josh and his spouse KP moved to Missoula in 2009 to go to the University of Montana and experience everything western Montana had to offer.  Fifteen years later, they’re still experiencing.  They have lived in their current Northside home for seven years, and they have two children who are students at Lowell Elementary School. 

    Josh is a former journalist, an Afghanistan veteran, and currently serves as a Judge Advocate Special Victims’ Counsel representing Air and Army National Guard sexual assault and harassment victims throughout the western United States.  When he’s not working, you’ll find Josh tinkering in his backyard woodshop, running local trails, climbing area rocks, skiing the Bowl, and watching his kids’ soccer games.  NMCDC’s mission perfectly aligns with Josh’s passions – developing affordable home ownership opportunities, supporting neighbors, and advocating for the needs of the community he loves.  

Celia Easton Koehler

Board Member she/her

  • Celia is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Missoula. She moved to Montana from New York where she worked advising the boards of limited equity housing-cooperatives with the non-profit UHAB for several years. She is passionate about the limited-equity co-ops and CLTs as models for long-term affordable and community-owned housing and property. In addition to affordable neighborhood and housing, some things that are important to her are: jogging around at a (very) leisurely pace, eavesdropping, collective practices and self-managed, place-based projects.