Our Team

Dave Buchholz

Vice-President, Technology

As day to day leader of the technology team in the BSD Boston office, Dave brings over twenty years of experience in software development to help shape and guide the future growth and evolution of the BSD online tools. Focused on meeting the challenges of the growing numbers and scale of our clients, Dave is involved with all aspects of client product development, infrastructure development, maintenance and the network services that are the foundation of the BSD tool set.

Previous to joining BSD, Dave was the Executive Director of Customer Applications at ChoiceStream and the SVP of Product Development at Ruckus Network. Dave also spent over 8 years at AOL where he worked in client software development in a variety of senior and executive management roles. Major projects include the original AOL web browser development and integration, AOL Windows and Macintosh client releases, the release of the first AOL Instant Messenger clients, You've Got Pictures, PDA software development, Tivo integrations, and PlayStation 2 development. Focused on shipping high quality products he managed teams in Boston, Dulles and Irvine. Prior to that Dave held positions as Director of Engineering at Interleaf, and as a District Sales Manager at Information International.

Dave studied printing systems and engineering at RIT and lives in the greater Boston area.

Jascha Franklin-Hodge

Chief Technology Officer & Founding Partner

A BSD founding partner, Jascha brings more than a decade's experience in software development in the corporate, nonprofit, and political spheres to his role as BSD's Chief Technology Officer. He manages  the company's technology staff and operations out of BSD's technology center near downtown Boston, including our infrastructure, the maintenance and enhancement of the BSD Online Tools, and our technology client services.

For Gov. Howard Dean's groundbreaking 2004 presidential campaign, Jascha led the technology team responsible for scaling, securing, and maintaining a high-visibility, high-traffic Web site, which received praise from both the political and tech communities for its usability, reliability, and depth of functionality.

Before entering the world of politics, Jascha was the director of software development for America Online's Digital Music Division. He helped architect several cutting-edge applications including Radio@AOL, Spinner, and MusicNet, as well as the digital music player Winamp. He has also worked for the Art Technology Group and Software Tool and Die (The World), and has consulted to the Computer Museum, Andiron Press, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.

Jascha studied computer science at MIT, and lives in Boston.

Thomas Gensemer

Managing Partner

Based in BSD's Washington, DC headquarters and in New York, Thomas provides day-to-day executive leadership, as well as executive sponsorship to several of the company's largest consulting engagements.  He joined BSD in 2005 with a background in venture capital, strategy consulting, product marketing and technology startup management.

Immediately prior to BSD, Thomas was the director of Internet strategy for America Coming Together (ACT), where he managed the organization's online fundraising, grassroots recruitment, and marketing. Prior to ACT, Thomas led online communications for General Wesley Clark's 2004 Presidential campaign, which built an unusually engaged supporter base that remained active after the race was over.

From 1999 to 2003, Thomas managed The Accelerator Group, an entrepreneurial venture capital fund with offices in New York, Los Angeles and London. The fund developed and funded a broad portfolio of early-stage technology and marketing businesses; its holdings included Pyra-Blogger (acquired by Google), Openwave (OPWV), 24/7 Media (TFSM), Meetup.com and a number of other concerns.  The community organizing, content development, and citizen engagement approaches that some of these companies pioneered continue to be relevant to the constituency development work our company does today.

Thomas is a graduate of New York University and lives in Washington, DC and New York.

Rich Mintz

Vice-President, Strategy

With almost 20 years' experience in direct response marketing programs, Rich provides executive sponsorship and senior program support from the company's New York office, which he manages.  By virtue of his role, he leads most of BSD's large nonprofit fundraising and membership engagements in the academic, health care, and cultural spheres, including annual fund, membership development, and stewardship programs.

Prior to BSD, he provided direct response program development, Internet application consulting, and copywriting and program management services to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee; the Presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton, Wesley Clark, and Bill Richardson; nonprofit and advocacy organizations such as the National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare and the Pew Charitable Trusts; financial services and manufacturing companies including First USA Bank, Monsanto, Schlumberger, and GE; and dozens of other programs and institutions.

He was a co-founder of NetResponse, an Internet professional services firm that was acquired by iXL, Inc. in 1998; and of BusyTonight, a search engine technology development company in New York. From 2001 to 2004, he owned and operated Peachtree Highway, a neighborhood bookstore with a national direct response program in the historic Candler Park neighborhood of Atlanta.

Rich holds an A.B. degree from Harvard College and lives in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, in a brick apartment building converted from a historic brewery.

David Nassar

Vice-President, Strategy

David Nassar joined Blue State Digital as a Vice President for Strategy with more than 15 years experience in campaign management, political communication, civic organizing and community empowerment.   Just before his work with BSD, David served as executive director of Wal-Mart Watch, a campaign that has been called the most successful corporate campaign in recent history.  That campaign utilized David's previous experience mobilizing people to participate in a bottom - up driven process designed to create change. Prior to Wal-Mart Watch, David organized people on a variety of campaigns around both issues and candidates.  He is a member of the National Journal's 50 Political Insiders and is polled weekly on his views on politics.

In addition to his domestic experience, David ran programs in the Middle East strengthening political parties and civic organizations for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.  He holds an MA from George Washington University and a BA from Villanova University.

Joe Rospars

Founding Partner

A Blue State Digital founding partner, Joe served as the New Media Director for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, where he oversaw all online aspects of the unprecedented fundraising, communications and grassroots mobilization effort.

Joe led a wide-ranging program that integrated design and branding, web and video content, mass email, text messaging, and online advertising, organizing and fundraising.

Prior to the Obama campaign, Joe led BSD's work with Gov. Howard Dean at the Democratic National Committee; during Dean's campaign for party chairman; and at Democracy for America. Joe was a writer and strategist in New Media for Dean's 2004 Presidential campaign.

He holds a bachelor's degree in political science from the George Washington University.

Ben Self

Founding Partner

A founding partner of BSD, Ben Self brings a wealth of experience to many of our clients, based on his background in technology and experience in internet strategy.  Focusing on expanding and diversifying BSD domestically and internationally, Ben works with new clients to take BSD's strategic experience and apply it in new and different ways.

During the 2008 election cycle, Ben also served as the DNC Technology Director, where, as a key member of the DNC's senior staff, he supervised the technology projects of the national party - focusing specifically on the website, computer infrastructure, compliance software, and national voter file database.  In this role, Ben led projects that entirely revamped the technology of the DNC, including a complete replacement of the website and the Democratic Party's national voter file (VoteBuilder).

During his career, Ben has garnered extensive experience in new media technologies, statistical data analysis, data warehousing, database architecture and administration, system design, and system development. He helped build the FEC's system for gathering and reporting on campaign finance data, and architected the largest distributed Geographic Information Systems database ever deployed for the USDA. He has created data warehouses for a variety of industries, including health care, telecommunications, finance, and insurance. In these industries, he has worked at all levels of system development -- from designing and writing the software itself to managing large teams responsible for developing systems to be used by tens of thousands of users. In addition to this work, Ben has performed extensive research and written a thesis on object-oriented design.

Ben has both a bachelor's and a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).