Staff
Queta González
Director
(She/her/ella)(Mestiza/Venezolana)
Queta González believes that our differences make us stronger. A deep resonance with family, community, learning, service and compassion underpin both her life and work. Queta feels privileged to have worked internationally on development and implementation of equity, diversity, inclusion, healing justice, and liberation strategies and trainings. A seasoned professional, she has been training, facilitating, and coaching people in Fortune 500 companies, non-profit organizations, government and small businesses for over twenty years.
Queta is an adventurer who follows her passions. Her experiences run wide and deep, amounting to a litany of professional roles: assistant curator of an invertebrate museum; experiential and wilderness-based educator; recreation planner; advocate and educator with youth; gang rescue team; adolescent health care advocate and educator; food security advocate; and trainer, as well as serving in numerous team and organizational leadership roles. The common threads of community and ecology connect Queta’s diverse experiences. Her life and work have thus been characterized by the advancement of diverse, inclusive, just, and equitable environments and a deep connection to rivers, land and wilderness. Her commitment to social, environmental and economic justice began in her youth and has been growing and evolving since.
Queta serves on the American Rivers Board of Directors, Nesika Wilamut Board, and on the Oregon Environmental Equity Committee. She also served on Roadmap to the Outdoors steering team and the Governor’s Task Force on the Outdoors. Queta is eternally grateful for and enriched by supportive and loving family and friends, and she lives in Portland with her amazing partner.
Vanessa Bird
Development Associate
(She/her/hers)(Southern Paiute/White)
Vanessa Bird is a mother, sister, auntie, and partner. She joined CDE in 2020 to develop and deepen relationships with community partners, stakeholders, and funders and to cultivate resource opportunities to support CDE programming and initiatives. Vanessa is passionate about transforming the transactional fundraising paradigm into one that supports connection, belonging, and community healing.
Vanessa’s life, work, and education journey have called her into deep and reflective investigations that center on themes of healing, identity, and decolonization. This path has led to a broad range of experiences, including fundraising and communications for environmental organizations and community development work for tribal communities. Vanessa is profoundly grateful and honored to be a part of the CDE community.
Tanya Pluth
Program Associate
(She/her/hers)(White)
Tanya Pluth believes that connection to place and community is essential grounding to meaningful healing and transformation. Throughout her life, Tanya has worked in diverse roles to tend to the places and communities she loved: from habitat restoration pulling blackberries and planting snowberry in the Willamette Valley, to building and tending trails in National Forests, to bringing support and catalyst to communities and organizations. Throughout, Tanya sought to deepen awareness and understanding while engaging in racial equity and justice efforts. As an instructor at Portland Community College, Tanya served on the founding committee of PCC’s Whiteness History Month – Context, Consequences, and Change, an innovative project examining race and racism through an exploration of the construction of whiteness and practical responses to the harm caused by racism.
Tanya joined CDE in 2019 with over 15 years of experience as a consultant, facilitator, and teacher working to increase equity, diversity, and inclusion in non-profits, educational institutions and a myriad of other settings. Her life and work weave together deep commitments to equity and justice rooted in the transformative power of community and place.