Meet Our Team

Cultivators And Defenders Of Community Power

Front Step Staff

Brittany Palmer

Executive Director
she/her

  • Brittany joined Front Step Community Land Trust 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 Program Manager
they/she

  • Hannah is the Stewardship Program Manager for Front Step CLT. They are guided by the conviction that housing cannot serve as both a source of unlimited equity and a lasting source of affordability. Hannah advocates for decommodifying housing by returning land to community hands.

    As a renter and organizer with the Missoula Tenants Union, Hannah is dedicated to building tenant power and ensuring that all neighbors—regardless of ownership status—can experience stability, dignity, and agency in their homes.

    You can find them on a gravel bike trail stopping for wildflowers, scheming with neighbors on their porch, or the closest establishment playing a women's basketball game.

Jana Richter

Community Engagement Specialist they/them

  • Jana is the Community Engagement specialist for the Front Step. 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 ( equitable 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. 

Shibu Arens

Policy and Advocacy Manager

he/him

  • Shibu grew up in Missoula and received a B.S. in geology at the University of Montana. In his professional career, he has served under local elected leaders as a staffer at the Montana legislature and managed U.S. Sen. Jon Tester's Missoula office. His recent work includes a project providing legislative summaries to Montana tribal governments. As policy and advocacy manager, he is excited to work with Front Step’s neighbors and partners toward stable, affordable, and accessible homes for all. He seeks to champion land use reforms that put people first.

Kate Whittle

Communication and Storytelling Manager

she/her

  • Kate Whittle is an award-winning journalist and writer who grew up in rural eastern Montana. She attended the University of Montana School of Journalism and never escaped the Missoula vortex. Her past work includes investigative reporting at the Missoula Independent and bicycle advocacy at Adventure Cycling Association. She is excited to join Front Step and elevate the voices of everyday Missoulians in the quest to make this wonderful city a more affordable place to live.

Allison Wilson

Missoula Outdoor Cinema Coordinator

she/her

  • Allison first moved to Missoula 2019 to study political science and nonprofit administration at the University of Montana. She has since worked at several nonprofits organizing volunteers and events. “I am always in awe of Missoula’s love of community building and lending a helping hand. I am so excited for a summer filled with hiking, biking, floating the river, and of course watching movies with neighbors and friends!” 

Grace Brown

Missoula Outdoor Cinema Coordinator

they/them

  • Grace is one of the coordinators helping make the Missoula Outdoor Cinema happen! Being born and raised in Missoula, the outdoor cinema has been a prominent part of their life. This makes them all the more excited to help with setting up the 22nd annual Missoula Outdoor Cinema. Outside of working for Front Step Community Land Trust, Grace also works at Soil Cycle. You can often find them biking around town, paddleboarding our Missoula rivers, or working on vermiculture and soil sustainability.

Front Step Board of Directors

Cortney Perreten

Board President she/her

  • Cortney found her way to Front Step 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.

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!

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

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.

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.  Front Step’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. 

Brenna Gradus

Board Member she/her

  • Brenna has called Missoula home since moving here to attend the University of Montana in 2012. Her own experiences as a renter in Missoula sparked her involvement with the Missoula Tenants Union and her work supporting tenants statewide through Montana Legal Services Association and the Montana Eviction Intervention Project.

    Brenna understands housing as a fundamental human necessity—not a commodity or financial investment. She is deeply committed to advancing tenant protections, expanding pathways to homeownership, and ensuring all people have access to safe, stable, and affordable housing. 

Hailey Hargrove

Board Member she/her

  • Hailey has always been passionate about community building and her decision to move to Missoula was largely influenced by the warm community vibes that Missoula offers. She has worked at the intersection of public health and housing for the majority of her career, both with small community non-profits supporting individuals with housing navigation and with community health planning addressing larger systemic issues. She believes that communities thrive when there are more affordable homes, ample access to green spaces and parks, public transportation, and spaces for community building and gathering. After encountering so many roadblocks in the affordable housing landscape, she is excited to support Front Steps and the promising solution of community land trusts to address housing affordability.

    You’ll see Hailey around town going on toddler hikes with her two-year-old, taking refreshing river dips, and visiting with her neighbors.