Lives Radio Show & Podcast with Stuart Chittenden

Maggie Wood, executive director of Film Streams, talks about working in the nonprofit world, especially in building welcoming communities and elevating the arts and cultural landscape. wood shares the evolution of her leadership, influenced not only by her work experience but also insights revealed during international travel and a recent career break.

Born and raised around Bloomington/Normal, Illinois Maggie Wood came to Omaha in 1997 with the Clark Construction Group, as part of the general contracting team that built the Roman L. Hruska Federal Courthouse and then spent the following decade focusing on business development and operational management within the construction and supplier industry in Omaha. Building on her degree in Theater Arts and Communications from Eureka College, in 2006, Wood transitioned to the non-profit sector with development and operational management roles at Opera Omaha, Film Streams, and Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, before her leadership and strategic acumen took her to Inclusive Communities in 2015, where she served as Executive Director for close to 8 years. Earlier this year, Wood was appointed the new Executive Director of Film Streams.

Demetrius “Dee Dee” Gatson, the founder of Q.U.E.E.N.S. Butterfly House, talks about the many challenges that face formerly incarcerated people as they return to their communities and, drawing from her own experiences with incarceration, how she was inspired to create the nonprofit Q.U.E.E.N.S. Butterfly House a safe and supportive place for women to call home while navigating their reentry into the community.

Being a formerly incarcerated person herself, Demetrius “Dee Dee” Gatson has seen how the lack of housing, resources, education, employment, and other supports can lead an individual back into incarceration. Gaston has worked with nonprofits such as Rise and with programs such as Dance to Be Free which supports incarcerated and formally incarcerated people in present lives and in their return to community.

Mindy Rush Chipman, the Executive Director of the ACLU of Nebraska, talks about difficult experiences in her early life and shares her personal story of seeking an abortion. She talks too about the stigma and the difficulties of telling that story. We’ll also hear Rush Chipman on the work of the ACLU and her path from working at a correctional facility library to legal practice.

The ACLU of Nebraska’s advocacy and legal work regularly includes a range of impactful civil rights issues, featuring everything from police practices to LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights. Rush Chipman came to the ACLU of Nebraska after a 3-year tenure as the director of the Lincoln Commission on Human Rights, prior to which she represented Nebraskans through her roles at the Immigrant Legal Center and Legal Aid of Nebraska, as well as in her private legal practice in rural Nebraska. One of her first jobs out of high school was at the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services where, while working in the prison library, her eyes were opened to the many issues faced by incarcerated Nebraskans. Rush Chipman’s keen advocacy for everyone’s human and civil rights started early in life with her personal experience needing legal support from a pro-bono attorney to access reproductive health care. Rush Chipman and her spouse live on a small farmstead and are the proud parents of four independent children.

Professor of medical anthropology and ordained priest, Alexander Rödlach, talks about his early awareness of his calling to religion and to education, his vocational endeavors ministering around the world, a commitment to the intersections of health, service, and faith, and where his journey is leading him now.

Alexander Rödlach was born in Innsbruck, Austria. He was ordained after completing his studies of philosophy and Roman Catholic theology and served for seven years in Zimbabwe to support the local church. Subsequently, Rödlach earned a doctorate in Anthropology and a Certificate in African Studies. Since 2007, he has been at Creighton University and teaches undergraduate courses on public and global health. His research tends to be conducted in collaboration with organizations and community groups, and focuses on themes at the intersection of health, volunteerism, and religion. For several years, he has been accompanying the Karenni, a refugee group in Omaha, and is pursuing other research and ministry projects.

Kevin Mahler, a nonprofit fundraising consultant, talks about the thoughtfulness required in effective fundraising, how he helps nonprofits to be responsive, and his own inexorable draw to entrepreneurship in service to the needs of philanthropic organizations. Mahler also talks about the influences in his life, from diabetes, art to astrology and faith.

Kevin Mahler is the founder and owner of Contributed Line, a nonprofit fundraising consultancy based in Omaha, Nebraska, which engages multiple disciplines, diverse ways of thinking, collaboration, problem solving, and addressing the urgent issues facing the world. Mahler earned a Bachelor’s Degree from The University of Iowa and then a Master’s Degree from Michigan State University. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Nebraska Chapter of the Grant Professionals Association and the Board for The New Territory Magazine. He lives in Nebraska with his wife and children.

Native-American spiritual and cultural consultant Renee Sans Souci talks about being a lost and confused child living between indigenous and white American culture and her awakening to a Native spiritual tradition and wisdom. Sans Souci also talks about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement and her own traumatic encounters.

With a degree in education from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and being an Umonhon woman, Renee Sans Souci is a Cultural Consultant, Lecturer, and Curriculum Developer, and has since 2009 been a Teaching Artist with the Lied Center for Performing Arts. She has been invited to speak on topics such as Water and Environmental Science, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women advocacy, Native Science, History of Indian Education, and Native languages, Poetry, and Sustainability. Sans Souci was featured in the PBS American Masters Series, UNLADYLIKE 2020: Susan LaFlesche Picotte: The First American Indian Doctor. She is also a Co-Leader for the Niskithe Prayer Camp and is a recipient of the UNL Institute of Ethnic Studies 2023 Leo Yankton Award for Indigenous Justice.

Musician, author, and Jungian Depth Coach Orenda Fink talks about her forthcoming memoir The Witch’s Daughter: My Mother, Her Magic, and the Madness that Bound Us, which recounts life dominated by an abusive, mentally ill mother; seeking to make sense of magic and faith; and Fink’s escape through music and into Jungian therapy and her Last Eden in the Mojave Desert, from where she joined me remotely for this conversation. Fink will also read excerpts from this memoir of suffering, survival, and self-determination.

Orenda Fink is an acclaimed musician, songwriter, performer, and writer getting her start in Birmingham, Alabama, with the pop rock group Little Red Rocket and later, in 2000, with the lauded ethereal folk duo Azure Ray, formed with longtime friend Maria Taylor in Athens, Georgia. Fink has collaborated with, among others, Moby, Bright Eyes, Sparklehorse, and the Faint, and their music has featured regularly in film and television programs. Fink’s memoir “The Witch’s Daughter: My Mother, Her Magic, and the Madness that Bound Us” is published by Simon and Schuster and is out in August. The experiences described in this book prompted Fink to become a certified Jungian Depth Coach with a specialization in shadow work and dream interpretation. 

Angela Cooper, an organization culture consultant and founder of Mindpower Strategic, talks about her passion for and the pressures of being a business leader responsible for thousands of employees and the physical and mental toll of the burn out she experienced. Cooper also talks candidly about the lived experiences and the evolution of beliefs from faith to humanism that have shaped her work and her life.

As the Founder and Principal Consultant of Mindpower Strategic, Angela Cooper helps organizations shape their cultures. Cooper has over 20 years of experience evolving business environments in ways that help everyone thrive. As the inaugural Chief Diversity Officer at Mutual of Omaha, a Fortune 300 insurance company, for over five years she led the organization’s award-winning diversity, equity and inclusion and culture-shaping programs. Cooper herself has been recognized with numerous accolades for her DEI leadership. Cooper now works as a DEI strategist, change architect, and thought partner having founded her own independent consultancy in June 2022.

Media producer Paul B. Allen IV talks about the multi-generational cultural legacy of his family in north Omaha and beyond, his own international journeys exploring media and culture, and the focus of his media entity 1st Sky Omaha on news dissemination, community outreach, and citizen journalism.

Being the same age as hip hop, Paul B. Allen IV was raised in Southern California in a life of music, recording studios, showcase venues, visual art, filmmaking and radio. He moved to Hawaii in his 20’s where he deejayed, built musical acts, helped start a hip-hop radio station and music festivals, ran a record store and a print shop, and worked as a promoter and musician booking shows around the islands for numerous acts. From there, Allen moved to Europe in 2009 to work in film and deejaying. After coming to Omaha, where Allen’s family has a long cultural heritage, he became Program Director of Mind and Soul Radio 101.3FM, a community radio station out of the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation, which evolved into Allen’s 1st Sky Omaha, where the focus is now on news dissemination, community outreach, and citizen journalism training. In 2018 he started consulting on the creation of the Benson Theatre later becoming its Director of Communication. Today, Allen is focusing on his company, 1st Sky Omaha, building alternative news for East Omaha and traveling around the country to work on projects related to media, including documentary films, digital radio and video channels, and music projects.

Librarian Amy Mather talks about how libraries reflect and respond to their communities  and her own passion for all things library. Mather also shares how creativity offers shape and satisfaction to her life and to the creative capital of the world around her.

Amy Mather is the Partnerships Manager at Omaha Public Library and believes in connecting the community through information, storytelling, and relationships. In 2010, Mather won the Library Journal’s Movers & Shakers award for her outreach efforts to young professionals. As well as her library vocation, she hosted her own podcast “Whatever Mathers” for four years and worked as an adjunct instructor teaching human relation skills at Omaha’s community college. Mather completed her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of New Mexico, and completed her master’s degree in library and information science from Louisiana State University. Though she grew up in West Virginia and has lived in New Mexico, Louisiana, and Washington D.C., she considers Omaha home. In her free time, Amy is reading, practicing yoga, walking, traveling, bird watching, and, "art-ing."