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Meet Your 2009 PAPOR Executive Council |
Ginger Blazier -President Ginger has over fifteen years of proven market research management experience, working  with top national firms throughout her career history, specializing in the areas of healthcare, finance, IT, social
research, and multiple facets of consumer and executive research. She is currently working at Directions In Research, a market research
company in San Diego, which was established in 1985. She has been with DIR in the capacity of Field Director, VP of Operations, and,
currently, Senior VP for Business Development. She is also currently on the National Board for the MRA, a member of the AMA, and the
HMCA. On a personal note, Ginger had lived overseas for 15+ years in Latin America, South America, Japan, England, and Australia, due to
her dad's profession in the oil industry, She speaks Spanish fluently and learned "need to know words" in Japanese! Interests include
activities with her family and Samson, her Shetland Sheepdog, in addition to traveling, photography, cooking, and tennis. Contact Ginger
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Floyd Ciruli - Vice-President/President-Elect Floyd Ciruli founded Ciruli Associates, a research and consulting firm specializing in public policy, community and cultural affairs and strategic planning, in 1985. 
Clients include
major Colorado corporations, business and civic associations. Mr. Ciruli is perhaps best-known to Colorado audiences as a pollster and
political analyst for 9-KUSA TV, The Denver Post, The Rocky Mountain News and KOA Radio. In addition, he has appeared on NBC Nightly
News, Lehrer News Hour, CNN, Fox News Special Report with Brit Hume, and National Public Radio. Recent analysis has appeared in Time
Magazine and The Economist. His firm publishes The Variable, a political newsletter analyzing current trends and public opinion, and
hosts www.ciruli.com for political news and information on the web. Mr. Ciruli holds a law degree from Georgetown University in
Washington, D.C. and a bachelor's degree in political science from UCLA. Mr. Ciruli is a member of the American Political Science
Association and the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). He serves on the Council of the Pacific Chapter of AAPOR as
the Conference Chair. He teaches graduate classes in media, public opinion and policy for the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the
University of Colorado-Denver. He is a board member of the Social Science Foundation of the University of Denver Graduate School of
International Studies and the President-elect of the Denver Athletic Club. He is a native of Pueblo, Colorado. Contact Floyd |
Carolina Gutierrez -Secretary Carolina is a survey analyst with the Public Opinion and Survey Research team at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 
She graduated from Stanford
University with a B.A. and M.A. in Psychology. Believing she was pre-med through most of college, after a summer fellowship
in a Congressional office, Carolina came to realize that she is most passionate about health policy research. At her
current job, she has become interested in how public opinion plays a role in influencing policymakers and shaping health
policy debates. In her free time, Carolina spends much of her time with her .older. sister (there is a mere 10-month age
difference), visiting her mom (an amazing single parent who immigrated from Mexico), riding her bike (she just signed up
for her second AIDS LifeCycle . a one-week bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise funds for AIDS research),
and trying new foods.
Contact Carolina |
Jill E. Darling -Treasurer Jill E. Darling Jill Darling is the founder of the independent survey research and consulting firm of Jill E. Darling Research. 
Formerly the Associate Director of the Los Angeles Times Poll, these days Jill is focused on putting her unique
research experience and her wide range of expertise to work for clients in the areas of public policy,
elections, opinion and market research; as well as consultation services such as questionnaire design, sample
design, data analysis and report writing. She has a special interest in California elections and politics, and
two decades of experience in studying voter behavior through telephone and exit polling, and has presented many
papers on the subject at professional conferences. She is currently working on a book on the history of
gay-related legislation in the state. Ms. Darling is a member of AAPOR - the American Association of Public
Opinion Researchers - and has served on the executive council of its Pacific chapter (PAPOR) in various offices
including president, conference chair, treasurer, and webmaster. In her capacity as co-leader of the
award-winning Los Angeles Times and Times/Bloomberg Poll, she guest lectured at USC, gave numerous print,
television, and radio interviews and her work was regularly published in print and online. Her academic
background is in mathematics: she completed a B.A. from Sonoma State University and three years of work on a
Ph.D. at UCLA before joining the Los Angeles Times Poll in 1988. Jill is also an avid gardener, cook, and
part-time film buff and she lives in Los Angeles with her wife Lorrane and several cats.
Contact Jill Darling
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Paul T. Melevin - Conference Chair Paul T. Melevin, is a Research Program Specialist II with the Survey and Applied Research Section of the State of California's Employment Development Department.  He is the lead
researcher in charge of overseeing many of the department's survey research efforts including the consumer satisfaction surveys for the
Unemployment Insurance Branch. Paul has a deep interest in research ethics and in the protection of human subjects. He has organized and
presented on numerous panels and workshops on the subject of protecting the privacy of human subjects. He has been the Principal
Investigator on over 120 Applied Research projects for a variety of government agencies and university research centers. He is the
primary author of several articles on survey research methodology that have been published in Social Insight and the Journal of Applied
Sociology. He has previously served as Vice President and Program Chair for the Society for Applied Sociology (SAS) in 2002-2003, Vice
President Elect for SAS in 2001-2002 and as a member of the SAS Board of Directors from 2000-2001. From 1998 to 2001, he chaired the
Pacific Sociological Association's (PSA) Committee on Practice, Applied, and Clinical Sociology and in 1997-1998, he was Chair of PSA's
Committee on the Status of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Persons in Sociology. Paul received his Ph.D. in Sociology from
Washington State University in Pullman, WA, his M.A. in Sociology from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and his B.A. in Sociology
from Indiana University, Bloomington. Contact Paul |
Amy Simon -Associate Conference Chair Amy R. Simon is a partner at Goodwin Simon Victoria Research. 
Amy Simon brings 20 years of political experience to her work as a pollster and
communications strategist. She conducts research on a variety of public policy issues and her clients include state and
local government, non-profits, labor unions, and both political and candidate committees. She has worked on candidate and
ballot measure campaigns at the federal, state and local level in over 40 states. Prior to founding GSV Research in 2001,
she worked as a pollster at Bennett, Petts and Blumenthal and GLS Research. A former campaign manager, direct mail
consultant, and political director before becoming a pollster, Ms. Simon helped elect pro-choice women at the Women's
Campaign Fund and was an organizer on the Dukakis presidential campaign. Locally, Ms. Simon managed city council and state
assembly races. Ms. Simon serves on the Board of Directors of PeacePAC and Emerge America and is a contributing author to
True to Ourselves, a collection of essays by prominent American women. Ms. Simon graduated with Honors from the University
of Michigan in 1987. She studied at the Joint Program in Survey Methodology (Universities of Maryland and Michigan). She is
a member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the American Association of Political Consultants. Contact Amy |
Quin Monson -Student Paper Competition Chair Quin Monson is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and the Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University. 
He received his PhD from Ohio State University in 2004. His research and teaching are in public opinion; campaigns, elections, and voting
behavior; survey research methods; and religion and politics. He co-directs the Utah Colleges Exit Poll, a statewide exit poll conducted
every two years since 1982, and the Utah Voter Poll, an Internet panel survey conducted periodically with a random sample of Utah voters.
He is the co-editor of several books monographs on congressional and presidential elections and his research has also appeared in
academic journals and edited volumes including Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, Political Analysis, Presidential
Studies Quarterly, and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. He is a Utah native and currently lives in Orem with his wife
Kate and three children-Anna, Alex, and Sadie.
Contact Quin |
Bob Davis -Membership Chair Bob Davis is President of Davis Research, a second generation family business focusing on web and telephone data collection for public and private industry. 
Bob's first job in market research came when he was 3 years old working for his mom taping quarters to outgoing mail surveys. Needless to say, he has seen a lot of change in the industry over the last 3 decades. Bob has a particular research interest in the appropriate application of web and multi-modal surveys to help answer research questions. When Bob used to have free time he enjoyed traveling, hiking, cooking, and eating. Now he spends most of his time singing Thomas the Train songs with his 2 year old son Zach and cooking up macaroni and cheese. Bob holds a B.S. in Computer Science from UCSD and Masters in Business Administration from the Anderson School of UCLA.
Contact Bob |
Leora Lawton -Councilor-at-Large (Webmaster) Leora Lawton wears many hats: 
She owns a boutique consultancy specializing in custom social science and consumer behavior research,
TechSociety Research (www.techsociety.com), and has been conducting online research since 1994. She teaches community-based
research and other courses in the UC Berkeley Sociology department. Because she enjoyed being on campus, in 2008 she began
working as the executive director of the Berkeley Population Center. She is president of a very small non-profit, the
Eastbayshore Eruv Corporation. Her scholarly research interest in family dovetails with her employee satisfaction
consulting: she is currently studying work-family balance, flexibility and job satisfaction. Past association experience
includes Treasurer and Executive Director of the Society of Applied Sociology, and with the section on Sociological
Practice of the American Sociological Association she has served as councilmember, Chair, Secretary, and now newsletter
editor. She feels like she doesn.t have any spare time with all that, but somehow manages to entertain friends with home
cooking and go bike-riding. Leora has a Ph.D. in sociology from Brown University.
Contact Leora |
Susan Pinkus -Councilor-at-Large Susan Pinkus is the former director of the Los Angeles Poll. 
She is starting her own consulting firm concentrating on public opinion polling, market research, political strategy and
communication. Much of the polling that she has done has been in the political arena . from pre-election polls to exit
polling. The Times has conducted exit polls since 1980 and has been the only other news organization that did exit
polling other than the consortium of networks. She is on the board of directors of the Roper Center and a trustee on the
National Council on Public Polls. She was on the executive council of AAPOR and past-president of PAPOR. She now serves
as PAPOR.s councilor-at-large. She has written several articles for Public Perspective, Public Opinion Pros, and PS .
Political Science and Politics Magazine, a chapter on push polling for the Encyclopedia of Public Opinion and for a
book, In Polls and Politics: The Dilemmas of Democracy. She has appeared on numerous TV and radio talk shows and has
been a guest lecturer at USC, Loyola Marymount University and Claremont College, among others. Under her direction, the
polling unit won awards for its Jewish-American, Israeli-Jewish polls and a Chinese American poll. Contact Susan |
| Anthony Salvanto -Councilor-at-Large -
Anthony Salvanto has been with CBS News since 
2002 where, in addition to his work on design and analysis for the CBS News and CBS News/New York Times Polls, he is a
member of the CBS News Decision Desk, which estimates election outcomes on Election Night. He contributes columns on public
opinion to CBSNews.com and has appeared on the CBS Evening News and on CBS Radio. His Ph.D. is from the University of
California, Irvine. Anthony is also Vice President/ President-Elect of the New York Chapter of AAPOR. Though based in New
York, Anthony also keeps a close eye on California's politics and its
weather reports. Contact Anthony
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| Doug Strand -Past President - Doug Strand, 2008 President of PAPOR, 
and Ph.D. (political science) is a Consultant at Kaiser Permanente. There he focuses on how health affects work productivity, how
health and work can be improved through workplace interventions, and how people assess the health care they receive. In
addition, Doug continues to serve as Project Director for the Public Agendas and Citizen Engagement Survey (PACES), a
recurrent national survey of the political preferences and political involvement of Americans, sponsored by UC Berkeley's
Survey Research Center. Doug is currently co-authoring a book on American national elections and has previously published
analyses of public opinion concerning gay rights. When he is not doing any of those activities, Doug plays chess, runs a DJ
business, and has fun with his dogs and husband in Oakland, CA, where they live, and in any fun places they can get to.
Contact Doug
Previous Councils:
2008
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