2019 GRS Election: Candidate Statements and Bios

Thank you to all of our excellent candidates for standing in the 2019 Government Records Section election. Please take some time to review their candidate statements and get to know them so you can make an informed choice.

You will be voting for 2 steering committee members. Following standing tradition, the candidate with the most votes will be asked to serve as Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect.

Ballots will be managed by SAA staff through Survey Monkey; keep an eye on your inbox for when the ballot opens! 

The following candidates are running for the section steering committee: 

Ashby Crowder
Archives Specialist, National Archives and Records Administration
Government Sector: Federal  

A longtime member of SAA, I’m interested in contributing more to our organization, and would like to become involved with the Government Records Steering Committee. I am an appraisal archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration. In this role, I work with a group of federal agencies on records scheduling. I am also president of the Washington DC-based American Federation of Government Employees union local that represents the agency's employees in collective bargaining. I'm interested in building up SAA as a resource for government archivists and in improving communication and mutual professional understanding between government archivists and colleagues outside of government. I would be honored to serve as a member of the committee.

Gwen E. Granados, CA
Director Archival Operations, National Archives at Riverside
Government Sector: Federal

Ms. Granados is currently the Director of Archival Operations at the National Archives in Riverside, a unit of the National Archives which holds Federal records from southern California, Arizona and Clark County, Nevada.

Gwen received her MA in History with a Public History emphasis from Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. She has worked in a number of diverse archival settings including in University Special Collections at Northern Arizona University, with museum archives at the Museum of Northern Arizona and with the National Park Service at Nez Perce National Historical Park and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco. She joined the National Archives at Laguna Niguel (later Riverside) in 2004 as an archivist and became director of that unit since 2010.

Brad Houston
City Records Officer, City Of Milwaukee Municipal Research Center
Government Sector: Local 

I’ve been in Government Archives/Records for about 2 years, but my interest in the issues affecting the records of government long pre-date my actual entry into local government. Part of that is inevitable given the outsized role government records professionals play in the Records Management Section (where I’ve been a Steering Committee member/Vice Chair/Chair for most of the last decade), but I also recognize the important government records play in guaranteeing the rights of citizens and keeping government accountable (and, by extension, how difficult it can be to fight for that role when people try to sidestep it!). Working for the City of Milwaukee has given me a more direct connection both with the creators of these records and the public using them, which has been eye-opening. The experience has further impressed upon me the importance of not just managing the records effectively, but advocating both internally and externally for the value of, and access to, records at all levels of government.

As a steering committee member, I would look to build relationships both within and outside SAA to raise awareness of the Government Records Section and the work it and its members do. GRS has participated in a number of collaborations with other Sections, such as Records Management and Privacy/Confidentiality, for Annual Meeting programs, webinars/hangouts, outreach activities, etc., and I think these are activities which we could reasonably expand on. Almost every functional-based Section within SAA has a potential relationship with Government Records, waiting to be explored. As a relatively new government archivist/records manager, I would also like to see more professional development activity/material focused on the particularities of working with government records; here, too, there’s opportunity to partner more explicitly with organizations such as NAGARA and CoSA to develop programming. There is a wealth of opportunities for GRS to help serve its members, and I am eager to get the chance to help put those opportunities into motion.

Gina Nichols, CA
Supervisory Archivist/Head of Collections, U.S. Navy Seabee Museum
Government Sector: Federal

Gina Nichols has been Supervisory Archivist and Head of Collections for the U.S. Navy Seabee Museum in Port Hueneme, CA since April 2016. Prior to this she served as the museum’s archivist from 2004 to 2016. From 2009-2014 she taught archival management courses for the Department of History at California State University Northridge. She has a M.A. and B.A. in History from California State University Northridge and a Master’s in Library and Information Science at San Jose State University. Nichols is also a Certified Archivist and a NARA Certified Federal Records Manager. She is an alumnus of the Archives Leadership Institute (2014) and the Greater Los Angeles Federal Executive Board Leadership Associates Program (2007).

I am interested in the becoming an active member of the Government Records Section and steering committee to determine the direction GRS will move in over the next several years. I believe my professional experience will help in planning new programs and initiatives for our members. My goal is to assist the GRS as they write responses to SAA Council requests for information and advice and support with any project they decide to undertake.