Who We Are

Rose Kapolczynski, Partner

Rose Kapolczynski has three decades of experience working for elected officials, political campaigns and nonprofit organizations. She specializes in strategic planning, message development and general consulting for campaigns.

In recent years, Rose led four successful ballot initiative campaigns in the Pacific Northwest--three in Washington State and one in Oregon. In Washington, PSP served as general consultant for Approve 67 (insurance fairness), Yes on 937 (clean energy) and No on 330 (medical malpractice.) In Oregon, we led the No on 43 effort (parental notification.) The American Association of Political Consultants named Rose the Public Affairs Professional of the Year in recognition of her exceptional work on the Approve 67 campaign in 2007.

Prior to founding Progressive Strategy Partners, Rose directed all three of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer’s winning campaigns as Campaign Manager. In addition to managing the day-to-day operations of those multi-million dollar campaigns in California, she led the strategy and message development team of consultants.

After Senator Boxer’s upset victory in 1992, Rose became State Director in the Senate office, managing the California operation and staff in six offices in one of the most diverse states in the country. During Boxer’s first two terms in the Senate, Rose served as a member of the senior management team, participating in the development of legislative and communications strategy and serving as an on-the-record spokesperson.

Before moving to California, Rose lived in Washington, D.C. for five years, leading the Sierra Club’s election efforts as Political Director and then serving as Deputy Chief of Staff for U.S. Senator Tim Wirth of Colorado.

In the Pacific Northwest, Rose managed several political campaigns, including the Mike Lowry for Senate campaign in 1988 and the Charles Royer for Mayor of Seattle campaign in 1985. After Mayor Royer’s victory in his bid for an unprecedented third term, she became the Mayor’s communications director and spokesperson as well as a senior member of his City Hall team.

During the 1984 presidential campaign, Rose worked for the Gary Hart for President campaign in the national headquarters in Washington, D.C., and in key states. Starting as a national constituency group organizer, she went on to run the victorious Washington State caucus operation on Super Tuesday and later worked for Hart in Oregon, Wisconsin and California.

Rose started her career as an environmental advocate, organizing and lobbying for the Sierra Club, the Colorado Open Space Council and the University of Colorado Wilderness Study Group.

Yvette Martinez, Partner

Yvette Martinez has developed and managed community engagement strategies and public education campaigns for a variety of elected officials, nonprofit organizations and political campaigns. An expert in California’s Latino community, she has designed outreach campaigns and served as a spokesperson for many initiative campaigns and candidates.

Yvette has led successful PSP efforts to help elect Mónica García and Nury Martinez to the Los Angeles School Board, where Garcia now serves as the Board President. Yvette also led the successful campaign to elect Los Angeles City Councilmember Alex Padilla to the State Senate in one of the most competitive legislative races in that cycle.

Yvette leads PSP’s efforts to guide Preschool California in its outreach to communities across California. Funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Preschool California’s goal is to expand access to quality preschool for kids who need it most. Yvette provides strategic guidance on building partnerships with key organizations, opinion leaders and elected officials and outreach to stakeholders, particularly in the Latino community.

Yvette directed the effort to build a broad-based coalition for Senator Barbara Boxer’s re-election campaign in 2004, serving as the campaign’s Political Director. Yvette worked with labor unions, election officials, progressive organizations and opinion leaders throughout the state to secure key campaign endorsements.

In 2000, Yvette assisted California State Senator Hilda Solis’s successful campaign to unseat an incumbent and later became District Chief of Staff for Congresswoman Solis. She spearheaded outreach on environmental projects and helped raised community awareness on environmental justice and open space issues in the San Gabriel Valley.

In the mid-1990s, Yvette provided consulting services for a variety of political campaigns around the country. As an Associate with the Campaign Design Group, a Washington DC based general consulting firm, she managed 20-targeted campaigns in marginal Democratic districts for the Florida Democratic Legislative Caucus.

Yvette’s political experience includes serving as the Political Director for the Clinton/Gore ’96 campaign in California. Working closely with key constituency groups and elected officials, she coordinated a sophisticated “rapid response” team of surrogate speakers for the national campaign.

Yvette graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara and majored in Political Science. She was appointed to the national Clean Water Fund Board of Directors in 2007 and the Coalition for Clean Air Board of Directors in 2009. Yvette is the proud mother of boy/girl twins attending kindergarten.

Javier Angulo, Senior Associate

Javier Angulo has over ten years experience in political advocacy, program development and supervision, fundraising, and in managing key relationships with government, corporate and community stakeholders.

Javier specializes in political and constituency communications and outreach to win public support for candidates and issues. He is currently responsible for building constituency support for Senator Barbara Boxer’s 2010 re-election campaign. In early 2009, Javier served as Campaign Manager for the Nury Martinez for Los Angeles Unified School District Board campaign.

In late 2008, he served as the Deputy Political Director for the No on Proposition 8 campaign, a ballot initiative that eliminated the rights of same sex couples to marry in California. Javier was responsible for constituency and political outreach with an emphasis in Latino communities. His tasks included: serving as the campaign’s primary Spanish-language spokesperson; organizing press and community events; media outreach; producing language and culturally appropriate signage and collateral; and establishing a satellite campaign office for Spanish-language outreach.

Prior to joining Progressive Strategy Partners, Javier served as the National Director of Civic Education for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund. He directed the organization’s national civic engagement and community participation program and was responsible for the day-to-day operations in the organization’s Los Angeles, New York and Houston program offices.

Before NALEO, Javier served as the Associate Director of Development for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) where he was responsible for raising $2.5 million annually by managing the organization’s corporate giving and special events programs. Javier prepared and implemented strategies to increase corporate giving, streamlined the organization’s gifts management system, implemented an online giving strategy, and managed MALDEF’s annual fundraising events held across the country.

Javier began his career in advocacy and civic participation as a fellow for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) in Washington, D.C., where he served as a Hispanic community liaison to the former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Before CHCI, Javier directed youth programs for Girls Incorporated of Santa Barbara.

Javier is an advocate for equal rights for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community. He is a founder and Vice President of HONOR Political Action Committee, which advocates for the political empowerment of the Latino LGBT community. Javier also co-founded the Latino Equality Alliance in Los Angeles to align Latino and LGBT organizations to advocate for liberty, equality, and justice for both communities. In 2009, the Los Angeles City Council formally recognized Javier as one of the “New Faces of the LGBT Movement,” and Frontiers In L.A. magazine named Javier as one of the top 25 LGBT leaders in Los Angeles.

Javier earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He currently resides in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood in the City of Los Angeles.

Nicole Ward, Vice President Strategic Campaigns

Nicole Ward is one of California’s leading political operatives, working to win policy and political campaigns for nearly twenty years. She has extensive experience working in successful candidate, ballot initiative and independent expenditure campaigns, with special expertise in local campaign management and constituency coalition building. Her many years of work with organized labor give her a deep understanding of policy and politics in California.

Prior to joining PSP, Nicole was the Political Director for the SEIU’s United Long Term Care Workers (ULTCW) local, where she designed and implemented the statewide political and legislative agenda. ULTCW is one of the nation’s largest local unions, representing over 200,000 long-term care workers in California.

Nicole oversaw millions of dollars of independent expenditures and member communications for targeted races. She also provided strategic guidance to organizing campaigns. During her tenure, union membership more than doubled.

Among Nicole’s accomplishments at ULTCW, she created and implemented an aggressive statewide member-driven campaign to influence the state budget for in-home care. As many programs were sustaining cuts, Nicole’s leadership successfully prevented state budget cuts for in-home care.

To sustain action over the long term, she created the Long-Term Care Action Team, which trained members to lobby elected officials, educate on political events, learn campaign skills and learn the budget and legislative process.

Prior to her work in labor, Nicole was an Account Executive at Stoorza, Zieguas and Metzger Public Affairs where she managed client accounts, providing public relations and strategic advice. She also served as the campaign manger for Proposition CC, the L.A. Zoo Bond, which set a record for public support of any citywide bond in Los Angeles.

In the mid-1990s, Nicole provided campaign consulting services for a variety of political campaigns in Northern California. Her political experience includes serving as campaign manager, field director and development director for several State Assembly races, local ballot measures and municipal races in the Bay Area. Nicole also worked for Hanson & Associates, providing fundraising consulting services for a variety of political campaigns and nonprofit organizations.

Nicole began her political career at the California Democratic Party in 1991, where she served as the Deputy Press Secretary after finishing an internship at the State Capitol with then Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown, Jr.