OUR TEAM

Prior to his roles in nonprofit management, Dwayne Crenshaw had eight years of government experience as an aide to state and local elected officials, including former California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante. Dwayne Crenshaw began his public service career as one of eighteen James M. Unruh Assembly Fellows who are chosen from hundreds of applicants each year to serve in the California state capitol. Dwayne Crenshaw’s community service includes his current membership on the Union-Tribune Community Advisory Board, the San Diego Community College District Trustee’s Advisory Board and recent service with the Encanto Neighborhoods Community Planning Group, Police Chief’s Community Advisory Board, Southeast Rotary Club, Torrey Pines Bank’s Community Reinvestment Board, and the advisory board for Lincoln and High Tech High schools. San Diego Metropolitan Magazine named Dwayne Crenshaw as one of “San Diego’s Smartest Young Professionals – 40 under 40” in 2007.
He graduated from San Diego State University in 1994 where he majored in elementary education and was elected student body president of the 35,000-student campus. While working in the state capitol, he completed the coursework for a master’s in government from California State University, Sacramento. In 2011, he received his juris doctorate from California Western School of Law, where he twice earned the highly-coveted Distinguished Advocate recognition.
Dwayne Crenshaw resides in the Encanto community of southeastern San Diego. He is the proud and active uncle of five nieces, four nephews, and two great-nieces and enjoys regular dinners with his entire immediate family at his parent’s home.



Diane has over twenty-two years of experience working in higher education, nonprofits, and government and brings a proven record of success in organizational communication and development, strategic planning, and assessment of EDI initiatives. She previously served as director of practicum at Sixth College, where she spearheaded the development, design, and assessment of multiple community-based initiatives and courses. She has planned and implemented three regional conferences hosted at UC San Diego that convened hundreds of participants to dialogue about high impact practices, diversity in education, and social justice. Prior to UC San Diego, she was a lead consultant in a countywide organizational effectiveness and diversity initiative in Montgomery County, Maryland where she led an assessment and planning process to improve organizational effectiveness and strengthen equity, diversity, and inclusion for thousands of employees in the county government. Diane was previously an associate professor and department chair of communication at Trinity University, a visiting professor at George Mason University, and a senior fellow at the University of Maryland, College Park in leadership and public policy. She has been awarded faculty fellowships in the areas of women’s leadership, community-based research, public policy, and dialogue from Georgetown University, the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, and the Interactivity Foundation. She has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in intercultural communication, organizational communication, leadership and discourse, and women’s studies. She also served as an ombudsperson at the US Capitol in the areas of conflict resolution and communication. Diane received her master’s and doctoral degrees in organizational communication and social psychology from Howard University and earned her BA in communication arts and a certificate in Spanish translation and interpretation from Barry University. In 2014, she was awarded the UC San Diego Diversity Award for her outstanding efforts in advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion; for increasing access to international education; for extending community-based courses and initiatives in underserved communities; and for organizing large-scale experiential learning conferences on campus that featured research and best practices in community-based courses and diversity initiatives.

As an organizational consultant, Zachary’s clients have included multinational corporations, government agencies, university departments, religious institutions, and nonprofit organizations. He is a leadership coach for the World Bank and a co-founder of IMAGO Global Grassroots, an organization using a participatory, co-creative model to address the generational issues of poverty in international development. His career highlights include serving on the dialogue development team for the President’s Commission on Race, conducting leadership training on five continents, and leading a multi-year process for emerging leaders of Northern Ireland in advance of the Good Friday Accord.
