Leadership and Accountability: The ARPI is led by Director Cyndy Ortiz Gustafson, MA. Ms. Ortiz Gustafson has worked in public policy and policy research for 20 years, beginning her career in the United States Senate after graduate school, and most recently acting as the lead strategist for Nevada’s Green Zone Veteran’s Initiative which lays out a statewide reentry architecture for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Her main area of expertise is designing, implementing and evaluating large scale systems change projects and initiatives.

Ms. Ortiz Gustafson founded the Veterans Policy Leadership Institute in 2015, with a group of partners providing leadership and support, including the UNLV School of Environmental and Public Affairs, and University of Nevada Reno. The ARPI has grown out of the work the VPLI has done over the last year, and is designed to be a solutions based institute that focuses on a wide range of social issues, with its sister organization VPLI focused on military and veterans topics.

Tim Burch has invested over 20 years in improving health and human services systems of care while working in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. 16 of those years were in local government in Clark County (Las Vegas),NV where he worked in a variety of capacities, including 5 years in the executive leadership roles as the Director of the Department of Social Service as well as the Director for the Department of Family Services. He has served as CEO for a provider of innovative hosted solutions for public sector clients in health, human services, justice, and child welfare verticals. He brings those life lessons; failures and successes, into the role of Chief Strategy Officer for Strategic Progress, LLC.

Dr. Christopher Stream is a lead researcher with ARPI and has been a partner on applied research and policy work across the state for many years. He leads the big data elements of our work at UNLV School of Environmental and Public Affairs. He acts as a research advisor to the ARPI.

Justin Gardner is a PhD candidate at UNLV with the School of Environmental and Public Affairs who leads several research projects for the ARPI and also works on the data and analytics elements of the work. This commitment to systems change work has been seven years in the making, beginning with a shift from stand alone research projects conducted by our individual organizations to focused projects that tackled “wicked social problems.”

Tamalyn Gee has a corporate background in Global Project Management and Business Process Architecture as well as a nonprofit background in Project Management, Grant Writing, and Program Development. She is a 5th generation Nevadan.