Thomas Gensemer
Managing Director
Thomas joins Blue State Digital as the managing director with a background in venture capital, strategy consulting, product marketing and start-up management. Immediately prior to BSD, Thomas was the director of Internet strategy for America Coming Together where he led the development of ACT's online fundraising, grassroots recruitment and organizational marketing. Prior to ACT, Thomas led online communications for General Wesley Clark's presidential campaign in 2003-04.
Before entering politics, between 1999 and 2003, Thomas managed The Accelerator Group, a venture capital fund with offices in New York, Los Angeles and London. The fund focused on early-stage technology and marketing businesses. Portfolio holdings included Pyra-Blogger (acquired by Google), Openwave (OPWV), 24/7 Media (TFSM), Meetup.com and a number of private concerns.
Thomas is a graduate of New York University and lives in Los Angeles, CA and Washington, DC.
Jascha Franklin-Hodge
Founding Partner
Jascha brings over ten years of experience in the software development industry to his role as a founding partner at Blue State Digital. Jascha currently directs our technology group -- creating, developing, and maintaining technology solutions for approximately 40 clients. He brings a vast array of experience from the corporate, non-profit, and political spheres to his job.
Jascha's previous experience includes serving as the national systems administrator for Gov. Howard Dean's presidential campaign. He 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.
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, MusicNet, as well as the digital music player Winamp.
He has worked for the Art Technology Group and Software Tool and Die (The World). He has also worked as a consultant with various organizations, including The Computer Museum, Andiron Press, the School of The Museum of Fine Arts, and The Nieman Foundation at Harvard University.
He studied computer science at MIT and currently manages Blue State Digital's Boston office.
Joe Rospars
Founding Partner
Joe Rospars is presently on leave from Blue State Digital, serving as New Media Director for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
Joe Rospars is a founding partner at Blue State Digital and specializes in Internet strategy, communications and fundraising. Since helping found the company, he has developed and implemented strategies that have made news, recruited hundreds of thousands of volunteers, and raised tens of millions of dollars for clients.
Before his work at Blue State Digital, he worked for Gov. Howard Dean's presidential campaign where he wrote and edited emails that were sent to hundreds of thousands of supporters and provided content for the highly praised Web site and blog. Joe also worked on message development, online brand building, and grassroots organizing for the campaign.
Prior to the campaign, he taught English in Stockholm, Sweden and wrote for NotGeniuses.com, a political blog. Joe has a bachelor's degree in political science from The George Washington University.
Ben Self
Founding Partner
As a founding partner at Blue State Digital, Ben Self directs the day-to-day operations of the client services division. Ben works with many of our clients on a daily basis to ensure that all work delivered by Blue State Digital far surpasses any client expectations. In addition, Ben advises our clients on how they can leverage the tools provided by Blue State Digital to reach their goals in the quickest and most cost-effective way possible.
Prior to Blue State Digital, Ben was a chief data architect for the Dean for America campaign. At the campaign he was responsible for reporting on, maintaining, and analyzing the large amount of data that was gathered by the campaign's interactions with its supporters. This analysis gave him extensive insight into how to attract new supporters and move those supporters into higher levels of engagement with the campaign.
During his career, Ben has garnered extensive experience in data analysis, data warehousing, database architecture and administration, system design, and system development. He built 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, and insurance. In these industries, he has worked at all levels of system development and design -- 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.
Lauren Miller
Senior Strategist
Lauren develops online outreach and social networking programs for clients like Senator Ted Kennedy, Wal-Mart Watch, and the Communications Workers of America. In addition to utilizing sites like Facebook.com and MySpace.com, Lauren has also helped develop Blue State Digital's own social networking technology, which powers the Democratic Party's PartyBuilder and Barack Obama's My.BarackObama.com.
Prior to joining Blue State Digital in 2005, Lauren was the state volunteer coordinator for the California Democratic Party. She holds a B.A. in political science and Middle Eastern and North African studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Katelyn Sabochik
senior strategist
Prior to joining Blue State in March 2007, Katelyn worked at the AFL-CIO during the 2006 election cycle. At the AFL-CIO she helped to design and implement an online communication program focused on identifying union activists and engaging them in a wide range of online and offline activities to help elect AFL-CIO endorsed candidates at the federal, state, and local level.
Katelyn has also worked as a Consultant with M+R Strategic Services. At M+R, she worked with progressive non-profit organizations to create, implement and analyze the results of online advocacy and fundraising campaigns.
Katelyn holds a B.A. in Politics from New York University.
Leigh Heyman
System Administrator
Leigh ensures reliable performance, security and sustainable growth for the company's technological infrastructure. His expertise covers most aspects of UNIX system management, and he approaches his role with the holistic view developed from years of experience, including infrastructure design and network security.
Before coming to Blue State Digital, Leigh was a system administrator at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory where he was a member of the team that designed and built an innovative computing and networking infrastructure for the Frank Gehry designed Stata Center.
Leigh holds a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College. Outside of work, he is a two-time U.S.national champion in rowing . He referees ice hockey in the wintertime and also enjoys golf, sailing, and movie trivia.
Craig Nuttall
Software Engineer
As a web application developer, Craig draws on his many years of experience in producing dynamic web tools to leverage the latest technologies and produce useful and interesting applications.
In 1995, Craig co-founded NetWay Internet, a regional Internet services provider. There, he oversaw most aspects of the day-to-day business with a heavy focus on technology, until the corporation was sold in 2004.
Craig also volunteered for phpBB, a popular open source project, and eventually became a Team Leader.
Craig holds B.A.'s in both computer science and philosophy from the University of Massachusetts. Originally from Norton, MA, he still participates in several open source projects, enjoys most sports and is an avid computer gamer.
Bob McKee
Software Engineer
As a web developer for Blue State Digital, Bob aids in developing and maintaining the company's software, as well as deploying that software to clients.
Bob was a web developer for BobVilla.com, a site that delivers information relating to the home-improvement guru, Bob Villa. There, he developed systems to manage the vast library of articles, videos and other web-based tools that are used by millions of site visitors each month. For one of his projects there the "Paint Designer," a Flash-based web application -- Bob received Macromedia's "Site of the Day" award.
Bob graduated from New England Institute of Art in Boston, Massachusetts. Bob is also a metal guitarist.
Seth Reznik
Manager of Client Services
At Blue State Digital, Seth’s responsibility is to launch new projects and maintain relationships with our clients.
Prior to coming to Blue State, Seth served as a project manager at Kintera Inc., dealing with national and international organizations helping them to meet their fundraising and volunteer goals. Seth also worked in the Online Communications and Fundraising department for America Coming Together, where he coordinated Internet operations in over fifteen state offices, assisted in the design of the national site, and in the formulation of online messaging strategy.
Seth has a BA from Northwestern University in economics, and originally hails from New York. Outside of the office, he develops his own web designs and operates a documentary film production company.
Lowell Kitchen
Software Engineer
Lowell draws on his many years of experience to help maintain and develop our software.
For the past six years Lowell has taught technology courses and worked with several technology firms to develop award-winning web sites. His experience includes web development for several higher education institutes, nonprofits, and for-profit companies.
Lowell completed one year of undergraduate study at the University of Georgia prior to moving to Massachusetts. In his spare time he enjoys getting dirty in the garden, eating good food, and tending to his growing collection of orchids.
Matt Thompson
Client Services Manager
Matt's responsibilities at Blue State include managing client relationships throughout the entire website development process and beyond. From the moment a client joins the Blue State team, Matt works closely with them to ensure that they are completely satisfied with the end product.
Prior to joining Blue State, Matt managed the Federal Highway Administration's Knowledge Sharing Initiative, which included the development and deployment of knowledge management websites. Matt has also worked with the Department of Health and Human Services to strategize and implement their department-wide Enterprise Architecture.
Matt is a native Upstate New Yorker with a B.S. in Integrated Science and Technology from James Madison University. When not working, he likes to go camping on the Maryland shore, check out live music, snorkel, and play the guitar.
