NEXT STEP NETWORK - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- in 2010 As a Marketing & Operations Specialist
- Vice - President of Next Step Homes
Amy Barnard joined the Next Step Network in 2010 as a Marketing & Operations Specialist, following nine years with Clayton Homes in their corporate offices in Maryville, Tennessee. Her training is in Computer Aided Drafting and Design Technology, and her work experience includes manufactured homes, modular home design and construction, residential and commercial building codes (IRC, IBC, NEC codes) and development of subdivisions.
While with the subdivision arm of Clayton Homes, Amy worked closely with contractors, sub-contractors, civil engineers and surveyors on the development of subdivisions. She has the ability to read site plans, understand topography and to position a home according to the site plan.
While she was employed by Clayton, Amy assisted Frontier Housing to develop home plans based on Frontier's quality specifications and those that are required for optimal mortgage financing. Working with Frontier Housing, Amy ordered the homes to Frontier's specifications from the manufacturing facility. She worked closely with the engineering staff, both Frontier Housing and the manufacturing facility to make sure that each home was correct in all aspects.
Job Titles:
- Treasurer
- Sales and Marketing Manager for Credit Human Federal Credit Union
- Treasurer / Sales and Marketing Manager, Credit Human Federal Credit Union
A veteran of the manufactured housing industry for more than two decades, Barry Noffsinger has served many roles in the financial services space.
As the Sales and Marketing Manager for Credit Human Federal Credit Union, Barry directs sales and marketing efforts for the company. Additionally, Barry serves in advisory and leadership capacity for a number of organizations in the manufactured housing space, including: Vice President of the Kentucky Manufactured Housing Institute, member of the Manufactured Housing Institute's (MHI) Financial Services Committee, President of the Factory Built Homeowners Association of America and board member of Kentucky Housing Corporation.
Barry is a graduate of the University of Kentucky holding degrees in Business Management, Marketing, and Agriculture Economics. He resides in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife of 27 years Liz, son Grant and their Labrador Matilda.
Billie Ann Wells joined Next Step in 2010 as a part-time contractor and assumed the role of grants and data manager in April 2012. At Next Step, Billie oversees administrative operations, including human resources, information technology and accounting, in addition to managing data collection and resource development.
Billie brings years of experience to the team. Prior to joining Next Step, Billie worked for nine years with Frontier Housing in Morehead, Kentucky. While employed by Frontier Housing, she served as Grants Manager and assisted in the Human Resources and Accounting Departments. Billie is highly skilled in related technologies, including Microsoft Excel and QuickBooks, in addition to managing processes on virtual platforms such as Box.com and Highrise.
Billie holds a degree in Business from Morehead University, and her specialty is designing applications to capture data and financial modeling.
Job Titles:
- Accountant
- Secretary of the Board
Cindy George joined Next Step in August 2013 as a part-time executive assistant. Cindy and her husband owned a general contracting company specializing in insurance restoration work for 14 years. In addition, they owned an insulation company that specialized in cellulose wall-spray application and air sealing for energy efficiency. Cindy served as business manager of both companies, handling all administrative and financial duties, including bookkeeping, human resources, customer service and coordinating marketing activities.
In 2007, Cindy became a Certified Master Gardener through the Purdue Extension Service and served as President of the local association. She transferred that membership to Jefferson County, Kentucky's UK/KSU Extension Service, where she serves as Secretary in the association.
Cindy holds a B.S. and M.S. degree in Education from Indiana University.
Job Titles:
- Vice Chairperson
- Vice Chairperson / Executive Director, Neighborhood Partnership Housing Services, Inc. ( NPHS )
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Chairman / VP & Community Investment Officer, Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati
- Manager of the Credit Financial Analysis
Senior Vice President and the Community Investment Officer for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati (the "FHLB"). His responsibilities include oversight and administration of the FHLB's Housing and Community Investment Department.
Damon joined the FHLB in 1999 as the manager of the Credit Financial Analysis division within the FHLB's Credit Services department. After several years in the Credit Services Department he joined the Housing & Community Investment Department in 2008. Prior to joining the FHLB, Damon worked briefly for FedEx and served four years as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force.
Damon holds a B.B.A. in Accounting from Howard University (Washington, DC) and a M.B.A. in International Business and Finance from The University of Miami (Coral Gables, FL).
Job Titles:
- Executive Director, Systems Building Research Alliance
A founding Board Member of Next Step. He was Board Chair of Frontier Housing during Next Step's incubation and launch.
Frank is a retired teacher and administrator, having taught 5th Grade in Vermont and Kentucky and many subjects at the secondary level in Kentucky. He was an adjunct professor of English at Morehead State University. For more than 40 years, he was active in Kentucky education and civic engagement. His last position was as Performing Arts Facilitator for the Elliott County Schools in Sandy Hook, Kentucky. He is also a published writer and poet.
As an officer in the United States Coast Guard from 1967-70, Frank was on the Joint Services Presidential Honor Guard and was Operations Officer on a medium icebreaker in Alaska for which service he received the Coast Guard Achievement Medal. Frank holds a B.A. in History, and an MAEd and M.A. in English from Morehead State University.
Job Titles:
- President, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Job Titles:
- Vice - President of Strategic Partnerships
Grant Beck serves as the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for Next Step, where he is responsible for driving the overall strategic marketing and communications direction for the organization.
Grant has eight years of nonprofit marketing and communications experience, overseeing brand management, digital communications and messaging, social media strategy and press relations for national nonprofit organizations. Prior to his role at Next Step, Grant served as the communications and marketing manager for Rebuilding Together - a national housing organization that completes critical home repairs for low-income homeowners. He also worked as the communications officer for the Equal Rights Center - a nonprofit civil rights advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
Grant holds a B.A. in Media Arts and Design from James Madison University.
Job Titles:
- Product Manager
- Product Manager, SimpleNexus
Jay Arneja is a Sr. Product Manager at SimpleNexus.
With 25+ of experience, Jay maintains her passion for innovation and creating a solution for the affordable housing crisis. She believes manufactured housing is part of the solution. She strives to marry affordable lending with affordable housing by creating education opportunities for new homebuyers, appropriate financing and transforming housing into a performing asset for all.
Jay has spent time building process and technology solutions for the primary and secondary market operations and currently serves as a Senior Product Manager.
Job Titles:
- Founder & President, Beyond the Line
Job Titles:
- Vice - President of Homeownership
Kelly Fleck serves as the Vice President of Homeownership where she leads the development strategy to implement a comprehensive factory-built homebuyer education and counseling training program and oversees the disseminations strategy to launch nationally. Kelly has 20 years' experience in affordable housing. She began her career as an AmeriCorps Member serving as a housing counselor. Throughout her career Kelly has continued to make affordable housing her mission as a housing counselor, mortgage loan originator, and has spent the last 8 years as a Homeownership Center Director at Frontier Housing, where she oversaw the counseling and lending departments.
Kelly holds a BA from Morehead State University, a professional certificate in Homeownership and Community Lending, and is a licensed MLO.
Job Titles:
- Secretary
- Secretary / President, Urban Habitat Initiatives
A longstanding green building and sustainability practitioner. Since founding her consulting company, Urban Habitat Initiatives, twenty years ago, she has focused on helping community development corporations and other affordable housing developers set and achieve ambitious sustainability goals for their projects.
As the green strategies consultant, she offers strategic and tactical consulting to coordinate energy conservation, healthy housing and green building in their projects and to direct project certification through LEED for Homes or Enterprise Green Communities. Today, her consulting focus is expanding to include climate resilience as an integral element of sustainability. In her consulting practice she has also worked to increase the understanding and adoption of sustainability best practices through research and professional education.
Kim received her Bachelor's Degree from MIT and completed a Master's Degree at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her education in architecture design, policy, and urban planning, and past work in housing finance, provide a unique skillset for this work. Kim is LEED AP Homes accredited.
"I believe that a quality manufactured home, placed properly, and purchased with a quality loan is an important housing and financial asset for families. Next Step Network is committed to making it happen through ‘Affordable Housing Done Right'. Through its programs and services, Next Step is addressing the key places where too often manufactured housing has been ‘Done Wrong.' I'm proud to have a small part in helping Next Step transform this industry for the betterment of families across America."
Lauren Williams is a Detroit-based designer, researcher, and educator who works with visual and interactive media to understand, critique, and re-imagine the ways in which social and economic systems distribute and exercise power. Her work seeks to expose and unsettle power and often prioritizes engaging people through design in service of imagining and manifesting a more equitable present and future. She's currently full-time faculty teaching in the Communication Design BFA and Interaction Design MFA programs at the College for Creative Studies. Lately, much of her work revolves around Blackness, identity, bodiliness, and social fictions and examines the ways in which racism is felt, embodied, and embedded into institutions.
From 2010 - 2016, Lauren led numerous initiatives aimed at addressing economic inequality while working at Prosperity Now: Qualitative research studies, federal and state policy advocacy efforts, and program-related partnerships with community-based organizations.
Lauren received her MFA in Media Design Practices from Art Center College of Design and holds a BA in Economics / Global Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Job Titles:
- Policy & Research Associate
Shelly Trent serves as the Policy & Research Associate for Next Step where she is responsible for coordinating policy priorities and activities. She supports the CEO and the VP of Strategic Partnerships in conducting research to obtain and evaluate relevant data, information, and policy perspectives from subject matter experts, interest groups, and other governmental agencies.
Before moving into the policy and research role, Shelly was Next Step's HR and Training Coordinator. Before joining Next Step, Shelly worked in a nonprofit membership association and in employee development for Kentucky Housing Corporation, the state's housing finance agency.
Shelly is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) by the HR Certification Institute, as a SHRM-Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP), and as a Certified Association Executive (CAE) by the American Society of Association Executives. She holds a B.A. in government and writing and a master's degree in public administration from Western Kentucky University and completed her Ph.D. coursework (all but dissertation) at the University of Louisville in human resources development.
Stacey Epperson is a native of rural Kentucky and has worked in affordable housing throughout her career. In 2011, she founded Next Step Network and is committed to Manufactured Housing Done Right - which prepares and supports homebuyers to buy ENERGY STAR homes with fair loans. Her manufactured housing work began in Appalachia as a response to families living in outdated mobile homes, and for a decade she served as the President & CEO of Frontier Housing - a nonprofit housing organization based in eastern Kentucky.
In 2012 Stacey was elected an Ashoka Fellow for her innovative approach to creating the only independent distribution channel for affordable manufactured housing. She was recognized as one of Prosperity Now's Innovators-in-Residence and has completed the Achieving Excellence in Community Development Program at Harvard's JFK School of Government.
Stacey holds a Masters of Public Administration from Western Kentucky University, and attended the University of Kentucky Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. She also serves as an appointed adviser to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati and the Aspen Institute Expanding Prosperity Impact Collaborative (EPIC).