County Salary Commissioners
Kelly Anderson has held leadership positions for 20 years, serving in social service, healthcare, and education community-based organizations. She worked at Outside In for 15 years, leading her team's portfolio of total rewards, compensation and benefits, human resources, volunteer management, development, and internal and external communications. She is the Chief People Officer at The Math Learning Center, where she leads human resources and organizational development. She holds a senior certified professional credential from the Society for Human Resource Management.
Dr. Koffi Dessou is the Social Equity Director for the Oregon Department of Early Learning and Care. He leads the social equity office, provides guidance and advisement to the executive team on social equity in policies and decision making, and leads the development of training on equity and bias management for all staff. He previously served as the Deputy Director of the Office of Equity and Human Rights in the City of Portland. He has over 31 years of experience in public administration, business administration, human resources management, nonprofit administration, and community-based leadership. Before moving to America in 2008 with his wife and their four children, Koffi worked for the U.S. Department of State at the American Embassy in Togo for 16 years. He served consecutively as human resources assistant, manager of community development and democracy-human rights funding programs, specialist of political, economic, and commercial affairs, and coordinator of International Military Education and Training programs. He led and coordinated the review of employee compensation plans for several years. Koffi holds a Doctor of Business Administration degree. He also leads community-based organizations in Oregon.
Karen Ehn has about 10 years of HR experience. This includes her current work at the City of Portland as a Senior Recruiter, outreach and recruiting at Multnomah County (Departments of Community Justice and County Human Services), and HR generalist experience from industry positions. She has also worked as a non-profit Executive Director, in sales and marketing positions, and with developmentally disabled individuals. She enjoys serving on boards in the greater Portland area. She was a Board Member for 4 years at NAYA (Native American Youth and Family), and 4 years at Carpe Mundi, and a Founding Board Member of the Sunnyside Swap Shop.
Heather Pedersen has over 29 years of professional HR experience in the private and public sectors. Serving in a variety of roles in many areas of human resources, Heather has spent the last 19 years serving as a Senior HR Manager for Clackamas County where she oversees classification and compensation administration and staffs the annual Compensation Board for Elected Officials process.
Travis Southworth-Neumeyer is currently the Personnel Administrator for the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Oregon. As the sole HR leader there, is responsible for interpreting and implementing federal judiciary staffing and compensation policies and serves as the Federal Public Defender representative on the US Courts Administration Human Resources Advisory Group. Travis has over 20 years of experience navigating complex HR landscapes in government agency, public-private partnership, nonprofit and for-profit organizations in executive leadership roles, all with substantial human resources responsibilities.