Louise has spent the last 4 years as the Deputy Director for LEAD Ohio before taking over as Executive Director in January, 2023. Louise is also a graduate of the 2018 LEAD Ohio Academy, which helped prepare her to run for State Senate in Delaware County, Knox County, and parts of Franklin County that same year. The skills she learned and the relationships she built in the program helped propel her to a near upset in this Republican stronghold, narrowly losing the State Senate race by only 2.7% which the last Democratic candidate had lost by 22%. Louise also ran for office in 2022 as the Democratic candidate for State Representative in District 61 (eastern Delaware County, western Knox County). Although not successful at flipping the seat, she improved Democratic vote share for this seat in Delaware County by more than 8%.

Louise is a lifelong resident of Ohio, born and raised in Lorain County in the city of Elyria, ending up in the Columbus area through her education at The Ohio State University where she graduated with both Bachelor's and Master's degrees. Before her life in politics, Louise spent over 12 years in various roles at corporate retail headquarters’ in Central Ohio. Louise has lived in Genoa Township just outside of Westerville with her husband, twin 10 year old sons and two Shiba Inu fur-babies for nearly 10 years.

Crystal Lett joined LEAD Ohio at the beginning of this year as the Recruitment Director. She is thrilled to use the skills she learned as a 2019 LEAD Ohio graduate to prepare progressive candidates for the exciting task of running for office and to build the pipeline with talented candidates that will ensure our state has the best people representing them in all levels of government. 

Crystal has worked as an advocate for Save the Children Action Network, with Senator Sherrod Brown to protect the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and most recently as the Ohio Program Director of Red Wine & Blue. In 2020, Crystal ran for the Ohio Senate, District 16, losing by only 116 votes – challenging an eight-year incumbent, and moving the district 9 points from the previous election.

Eddie Davenport has spent the better part of his professional career fighting to affect positive change in Ohio’s legal and judicial systems. He took on the outdated Courthouse establishment as a Director on Aftab Pureval’s successful 2016 election for Hamilton County Clerk of Courts before creating a first-of-its-kind judicial coordinated movement in Hamilton County spanning 2018-2020. Under his leadership and management Hamilton County has seen a sea change in its local trial and appellate courts, electing over a dozen new judges to the bench and creating an opportunity to form a more representative, fair, and responsive judiciary. He served as Executive Director of the Hamilton County Democratic Party from 2018-2021, overseeing a complete rebuild of the organization while serving as the Coordinated Campaign Manager that elected several new, progressive candidates.

Based out of Cincinnati, Davenport was a founding member of the Buckeye Justice Forum and has served as its Program Director since its inception in early 2021. He can often be found trying new and exciting restaurants and hitting a ball into the water on one of Southwest Ohio’s many golf courses.

Erin Czerniak joined LEAD Ohio in August 2022 and is a three-time graduate of LEAD’s training programs. Before joining LEAD, she worked in various areas of public policy, including juvenile justice reform, single payer healthcare, and helping to pass the city of Toledo’s Pay Equity Act. She’s done communications and digital advertising work for city council, state representative, and Ohio Supreme Court Justice candidates, and most recently worked on the re-election campaign for U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur.

Erin is a native Toledoan and earned her master’s degree in English Literature in 2017. She works remotely from Toledo where she enjoys recruiting NW Ohio folks to run for office, watching Jeopardy, and tracking legislation.