Maya Garza
Administrative Aide
mgarza@baltimorecitycouncil.com

Maya Garza spent the first few years of her life in Berkeley, California, the daughter of organizers for the United Farm Workers. Her family moved across the country to Maryland when she was four. She graduated from the Johns Hopkins University in May 2007 with a degree in Political Science. As a student at Hopkins she interned with the Service Employees International Union and with MANA, A National Latina Organization. Before her last year at Hopkins, she spent her summer in Mexico, working with a non-profit organization that ran after-school programs for children living in poverty in the outskirts of Guadalajara. In Baltimore she ran an after-school ballet program for students attending Margaret Brent Elementary School and volunteered with National Student Partnerships, a student-run non-profit that primarily served the Waverly, Better Waverly, Abell, and Oakenshawe neighborhoods.

Maya began interning for Councilman Kraft in September of 2006 as part of an Urban Policy class she was taking through the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies, focusing on policy issues that affected the growing Hispanic community in the 1st, as well as learning all she could about how a city such as Baltimore is run. She had so much fun working for the Councilman that she continued her internship after the class ended and began working full-time when she graduated. Maya has thoroughly enjoyed working with the wonderful people in Southeast Baltimore and looks forward to continuing to serve such a diverse and welcoming community.

Erin McVay left a small town in southwest Michigan to go to school in Nashville, Tennessee. She received her degree in English and Sociology from Vanderbilt University. Outside of classes, she dedicated herself to fighting for living wages for university employees, addressing human rights issues through Amnesty International, working against the death penalty, and writing and editing for Orbis, a nationally recognized student-run paper. After college, Erin went on to work at the YWCA  Domestic Violence Center in Nashville, where she saw firsthand the importance of uniting good policy with strong community action.

In 2005, Erin moved to Baltimore to pursue her Masters in Social Work at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, where she graduated in May of 2007. While a student, she held internships with the Isaiah Wellness Center, working with low-income senior citizens in East Baltimore, and with Senator Mikulski’s Annapolis office, where she worked with constituents from across the state.

Erin began working for Councilman Kraft in the winter of 2006, and is excited to be able to continue working with him and the people of the First District.

Jennifer Piorkowski
Policy Aide
jpiorkowski@baltimorecitycouncil.com

Shriver Peaceworker Fellow

Jennifer Piorkowski joins the Councilman’s Office as a Shriver Peaceworker Fellow. Before moving to Baltimore to pursue a Masters in Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University, she served in Peace Corps in Albania as a NGO development volunteer for two years. She then stayed on in-country as Program Officer for child rights organization Terre des hommes. Prior to going overseas, Jennifer graduated from Binghamton University in 2000 with degrees in Political Science and German, and worked for the World Affairs Council of Oregon for three years. She is proud to be working in the community in Baltimore, serving the residents of the 1st District.

Quinn Gorman
Campaign Manager
quinngorman@uwalumni.com

Quinn Gorman was born and raised in Walworth, Wisconsin, a small town in the southeast corner of that state.  He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an undergraduate -- spending a year of that time at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany -- and earned an English degree while also working for the Dictionary of American Regional English.  He entered the University of Nevada, Reno's Master's program in Literature and Environment in the fall of 2002, and pursued his studies in rhetoric and environmental politics while teaching writing courses for the school's Core Writing Program.  He has since taught rhetoric and composition courses at the University of Georgia and Athens Technical College -- both located in Athens, Georgia -- and spent a year as a visiting lecturer at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. 

He has presented papers on political rhetoric and media studies at academic conferences in the U.S. and abroad (at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Romanian Association of American Studies, and European Association of American Studies Conferences), and has published both a book review of Timothy Sweet's American Georgics: Economy and Environment in Early American Literature, and an article dealing with the place of photography in environmental advocacy for a book forthcoming in 2008 from SUNY Press.

Quinn is a recent Baltimore transplant who loves his new home and looks forward to becoming a more involved member of the Baltimore community.  He recognized Councilman Kraft's commitment to the 1st District and environmental concerns in particular, and is proud to come on as his Campaign Manager.