Protecting Northwest Consumers: A Common Ground Conference

December 12

Krista Bush, Federal Trade Commission

Krista Bush is an attorney in the FTC’s Northwest Regional Office where, since 2014, she has enforced federal consumer protection laws in federal court.  A graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, Krista began her legal career as a military attorney with the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps. While on active duty for eight years, she served as prosecuting attorney, military defense counsel, administrative law attorney, military magistrate, and ethics counselor. After leaving the military, Krista worked in the Criminal Justice Division of the Washington Attorney General’s Office for five years, focusing on complex criminal and civil litigation at the trial and appellate levels.  In 2006, Krista entered private practice where she practiced white collar criminal defense in federal and state courts and conducted corporate fraud investigations. Krista has also served as a part-time instructor in the Trial Advocacy Program at the University of Washington School of Law and as a faculty member for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy’s (NITA) deposition and trial skills conferences.

Brett DeLange, Idaho Attorney General’s Office

Since 1990, Brett DeLange has served as a deputy attorney general and as chief of the Idaho Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division, which handles all competition, consumer protection, telemarketing, and charitable solicitation matters for the Idaho Attorney General. In addition, Brett is responsible for all legal matters related to the State’s tobacco settlement agreement and various tobacco sales laws, and he received an award from the National Association of Attorneys General in 2006 for his tobacco work. He is the author, with Brian Kane, of A Tale of Two Internets: Web 2.0 Slices, Dices, and is Privacy Resistant, 45 IDAHO L. REV. 317 (2009) and is a contributing author of the Idaho Appellate Handbook as well as the various editions of the ABA SECTION OF ANTITRUST LAW, State Antitrust Practice and Statutes. He is an honors graduate of the University of Washington School of Law (1984) and a recipient of the Idaho State Bar’s Public Service Award for pro bono work. Brett is married and the proud father of five children and four grandchildren.

Pam Dixon, World Privacy Forum

Pam Dixon is the founder and executive director of the World Privacy Forum. An author and researcher, she has written respected and influential studies in the area of privacy, identity, biometrics, AI, data brokers, health privacy, and other topics. In 2019 Dixon served as Rapporteur for the first Roundtable of African Data Protection Authorities (RADPA), for which she produced a report regarding privacy and identity in African jurisdictions. She also conducted substantive biometrics research in India, which formed the basis of a scholarly article analyzing India’s Aadhaar, biometrics, and

EU-US data protection policy, A Failure to Do No Harm (Springer-Nature). This work was cited in the landmark 2018 Supreme Court of India Aadhaar decision. Also in 2019, Dixon co-wrote with UW professor Jane Winn a discussion bill on standard setting in privacy, which Dixon testified about before the US Senate Banking Committee in June. In previous work, Dixon was the lead author and researcher on a groundbreaking report on predictive analytics and financial, medical, and other scoring mechanisms, The Scoring of America. She also researched and wrote the first report on medical identity theft, identifying and bringing that topic to the public for the first time, and has subsequently published follow up work that analyzed debt collection issues in medical identity theft cases.

Matt Geyman, Washington Attorney General’s Office

Matt Geyman is an Assistant Attorney General in the Consumer Protection Division of the Washington Attorney General’s Office. Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office in March 2018, he was a staff attorney in the Economic Justice Project at Columbia Legal Services. His litigation and policy advocacy currently focus on consumer rights and economic justice issues, including issues involving debt collection.

Chelsea Hicks, Northwest Justice Project

Chelsea Hicks is an attorney with Northwest Justice Project’s King County Consumer, Housing, Education, and Employment Rights (CHEER) Team. Chelsea also serves on the Affordable Housing Committee of the King County Growth Management Planning Council, volunteers at the King County Housing Justice Project in Kent, serves as a student mentor with the University of Washington School of Law Student Legal Services program, and serves on the board of directors at Seattle Education Access.  Prior to joining NJP, Chelsea worked for over three years at Alaska Legal Services Corporation (ALSC), a non-profit legal aid organization, where she represented low-income clients in a variety of areas including home foreclosure defense, public benefits, landlord/tenant, consumer protection, real property, and family law. In addition to her work with ALSC, Chelsea worked as a domestic violence advocate at the Alaska Family Services domestic violence shelter in Palmer, Alaska, and while in law school, she volunteered at the drop-in center at Lambert House, King County’s GLBTQ teen center. Chelsea is a 2008 graduate of Seattle University School of Law.

Elena Huizar, Washington Attorney General’s Office

Elena Huizar is an outreach and education specialist who leads consumer education programs and distributes materials to diverse communities throughout the state of Washington. She meets regularly with consumer protection stakeholders and enforcers and is a frequent speaker and presenter on consumer protection issues.

Dené Joubert, Better Business Bureau

Dené Joubert currently serves as the Manager of the Investigations Department at Better Business Bureau Northwest + Pacific, which serves Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington & Western Wyoming. Dené started working for Better Business Bureau in 2014. Her department currently overseas investigations, Scam Tracker, government actions, misuse cases, and advertising reviews. Prior to BBB, Dené worked for Trademark Management which served as the administrator for Coalition to Advance the Protection of Sports Logos (aka CAPS), an alliance comprised of IMG College Licensing, LLC; Major League Baseball Properties, Inc.; NBA Properties, Inc.; NFL Properties LLC; and, NHL Enterprises, L.P., providing intellectual property enforcement for its members, both civilly and criminally.  Dené is originally from Seattle and graduated from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications.  She now calls Hayden, Idaho her home.

Julia Kellison, Northwest Justice Project

Julia Kellison is a consumer attorney in Northwest Justice Project’s Seattle office. Her consumer practice includes representing victims of debt collection abuses involving medical debt, garnishment, predatory lending in student loans, and auto sales. Julia also serves on the Executive Committee of the Washington State Bar Association’s Antitrust, Consumer Protection and Unfair Business Practice Section. Julia received her J.D. in 1998 from Temple University School of Law and her B.A. in 1990 from Brown University.

Amy Kerkof, U.S. Postal Inspection Service

Amy Kerkof is a Postal Inspector assigned to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Seattle Division Headquarters since 2008. Prior to joining USPIS, Inspector Kerkof spent over 10 years working at two financial institutions in the Pacific Northwest including over 5 years as a bank fraud investigator. Inspector Kerkof is currently assigned to the Mail Fraud Team where she conducts investigations of numerous criminal enterprises utilizing the US mail to further fraud schemes, including but not limited to mortgage fraud, investment fraud, Ponzi schemes, and elder fraud.

Tina Kondo, Federal Trade Commission

Tina Kondo is the Assistant Regional Director for the FTC’s Northwest Regional Office. She joined the FTC in 2014. The Northwest Regional Office files competition and consumer protection law enforcement actions throughout the country. It also provides consumer education and outreach to stakeholders in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Alaska and Wyoming. Prior to joining the FTC, she was a Deputy Attorney General for the Washington State Attorney General’s Office. In that capacity, she oversaw the Antitrust, Consumer Protection, Revenue, Public Counsel, University of Washington and Washington State University Divisions. Before becoming a Deputy she was the Division Chief for the Antitrust Division, where she worked on numerous multistate and state/federal cases.

Pierre La Rose, King County Sheriff’s Office

Pierre La Rose is the Community Engagement Specialist for the King County (Washington) Sheriff’s Office, where his responsibilities include social media engagement, developing community outreach initiatives, and special projects with the Office of Equity & Social Justice. Prior to working for King County, he was a case facilitator for the Franklin County (Ohio) Community Based Correctional Facility and a Crime Prevention Specialist for the Westerville (Ohio) Division of Police. Mr. La Rose has a B.S. in Criminal Justice/Sociology from the University of Cincinnati and an M.A. in Criminal Justice from the University of Toledo.

Adam Mayle, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Adam Mayle is a Senior Counsel in the Bureau’s Office of Regulations. In this capacity, he supports the Bureau’s debt collection rulemaking. Prior to joining the Office of Regulations, Adam was an Attorney-Advisor in the Bureau’s Office of Supervision Policy where he supported supervisory examinations of banks and non-bank entities, including debt collectors. He is a graduate of the Boston University School of Law and previously worked with the Northwest Justice Project in Seattle.

Colin MacDonald, Federal Trade Commission

Colin MacDonald is a consumer protection attorney in the FTC’s Northwest Regional Office, where he investigates and litigates matters involving unfair and deceptive trade practices. He previously practiced in the Commission’s Division of Enforcement in Washington, D.C., and represented domestic violence survivors in Legal Aid Services of Oregon’s Portland Regional Office. He serves on the executive committee of the Oregon State Bar Consumer Law Section. He is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center (J.D.) and the George Washington University (B.A.).

Nicola Pfeifer, Competition Bureau (Canada)

Nicola Pfeifer is a Senior Competition Law Officer with the Competition Bureau of Canada. She has worked in the Bureau’s Vancouver regional office for five years. Prior to that, Nicola worked for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada where she prosecuted deceptive marketing and price fixing cases, as well as general economic crime under the Income Tax Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Canada Elections Act, and various other federal and provincial Acts. Nicola is actively involved in domestic and international partnerships at the Bureau.

Anthony Polidori, Idaho Department of Finance

Anthony Polidori is the Bureau Chief of the Idaho Department of Finance, Consumer Finance Bureau. Anthony formerly served as the President of the North American Collection Agency Regulatory Association, and he currently serves as the Chairman of the Association’s multistate debt collection examination committee.

Devesh Raval, Federal Trade Commission

Devesh Raval is an economist in the FTC’s Bureau of Economics specializing in industrial organization, macroeconomics, and applied econometrics. He joined the FTC in 2013. Prior to joining the FTC, Mr. Raval was a senior economist at Amazon.com. Mr. Raval holds a BA in economics and mathematics from the University of Virginia and an MA and a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago. In addition to studying consumer behavior, he has published papers related to technology and hospital mergers. Mr. Raval is a nationally recognized speaker and lecturer and was honored recently by being named the FTC’s 2019 Economist of the Year.

Franziska Roesner, University of Washington

Dr. Franziska Roesner is an associate professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on computer security and privacy. She is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award (2017), an Emerging Leader Alumni Award from the UT Austin College of Natural Sciences (2017), an MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Award (2017), and a Google Security and Privacy Research Award (2017). She is the co-author of the 2019 paper “Computer Security and Privacy in the Interactions Between Victim Service Providers and Human Trafficking Survivors” for the 28th USENIX Security Symposium. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from the University of Washington and a B.S. and a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Nadine S. Samter, Federal Trade Commission

Nadine S. Samter is an attorney in the FTC’s Northwest Regional Office. Ms. Samter enforces federal consumer protection laws by investigating and litigating cases involving telemarketing fraud, fraudulent business opportunities and investments, predatory lending, mortgage lending fraud, credit reporting and debt collection, privacy law, and deceptive advertising.

Eric Setala, Federal Trade Commission

Eric Setala has been at the FTC’s Northwest Regional Office since 2010, where he presently works as an Investigator, assisting attorneys on all phases of case development. Prior to joining the FTC, Eric graduated from Seattle University, served in the US Army and, after the military, gained legal experience at two private law firms and the Washington Attorney General’s Office. Eric has training in the areas of mobile technology, accounting, and fraud investigation and holds certification as a paralegal.

Emily Soli, Wyoming Attorney General’s Office

Emily Soli is a Senior Assistant Attorney General for the State of Wyoming. Emily graduated from UC Berkeley School of Law in 2014. Before joining the Wyoming Attorney General’s office, Emily worked as a Skadden Fellow on the Navajo Nation, providing health impacting legal services to low income families through a medical-legal partnership model. Since joining the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office in 2016, Emily has represented the State of Wyoming in consumer protection investigations and litigation against schemes that disproportionately target low-income and elderly consumers, including in the areas of auto lending, healthcare, multi-level marketing, and federal student loan relief. Emily is also co-lead attorney in Wyoming's opioid investigations and Purdue lawsuit. Outside of work, Emily enjoys Wyoming's vast and beautiful wilderness areas with her dogs Rex and Bobby G.

Robert S. Sola, Private Practice

Robert S. Sola is one of the most respected and successful lawyers in the field of credit reporting. Robert has won substantial verdicts and settlements for consumers on claims under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Most of Robert’s cases are against the “Big 3” credit reporting agencies: Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. He has also successfully represented consumers on claims against banks, credit card companies, collection agencies, telephone companies, and information vendors. He was named Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2003 by the National Association of Consumer Advocates. H e received his J.D. from the University of Oregon School of Law and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin.

Doug Shadel, AARP

Doug Shadel is the State Director for AARP Washington and serves as the lead fraud researcher for AARP's Fraud Watch Network. He is a former fraud investigator who has coauthored numerous studies and books that profile victims and the tactics used by scammers including Outsmarting the Scam Artists, Weapons of Fraud and Schemes and Scams. Shadel has served as an expert witness in federal criminal fraud trials and on the advisory council for Stanford University’s Financial Fraud Research Center. He has also testified before Congress about the rise of fraud in the US and he writes a regular column for AARP the Magazine.

Shaquille Turner, United States Army

Captain Shaquille Turner is an Army Judge Advocate practicing in Legal Assistance on Joint Base Lewis-McChord.  In his practice, he ensures operational readiness and deployability of soldiers by drafting wills and powers of attorney during mobilization and de-mobilization processing. He assists soldiers in military administrative matters such as appealing OERs and NCOERs as well as rebutting reprimands, liability in Financial Liability Investigations, and AR 15-6 investigation findings. He advises and negotiates on behalf of clients in matters to include: divorce and separation, child support, child custody, adoption, personal finance and debt, claims under the Servicemember’s Civil Relief Act, landlord/tenant disputes, contract interpretation and disputes, and procedures of small claims court. CPT Turner also serves as the officer in charge of the preventative law program at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. In that role, he conducts training regarding potential legal issues to ensure the operational readiness of subordinate units.  CPT Turner is a member of the Washington, DC, Bar and a graduate of Howard University (B.A.) and the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law (J.D.).

December 13

Aaron Alva, Federal Trade Commission

Aaron Alva is a Technologist in the FTC’s Office of Technology, Research, and Investigation. At the FTC, he assists attorneys on technical aspects of investigations, and conducts technical research. Prior to joining the FTC, Mr. Alva focused on multidisciplinary cybersecurity research and policy. He has published work on a variety of topics including cloud forensics, digital evidence admissibility, and legal requirements engineering. Mr. Alva jointly completed a Master of Science in Information Management and a J.D. at the University of Washington as an NSF CyberCorps scholarship recipient.

Dorothy Bean, Oregon Division of Financial Regulation

Dorothy Bean is the Chief of Enforcement of the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation, formerly the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities, within the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services. Ms. Bean has been with the Division since 2014, and started as Chief of Enforcement in 2018. She is responsible for supervising the Division’s Enforcement unit, overseeing investigations and enforcement actions relating to the Division’s financial services regulatory programs. Prior to joining the Division, Ms. Bean worked as a private attorney at a business law firm in Salem, Oregon, specializing in complex civil litigation. Ms. Bean received her law degree from Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Oregon, and her undergraduate degree from Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon.

Laureen France, Federal Trade Commission

Laureen France is a Senior Investigator in the FTC’s Northwest Regional Office. Laureen has worked on multiple fraud investigations of payment processors, money mules, and others involved in the movement of fraudulently obtained funds. She also works with two cross-border task forces working to combat mass-marketing fraud that crosses the Canadian border and international borders. She is also a certified fraud examiner.

Charles Harwood, Federal Trade Commission

Chuck Harwood has been Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Northwest Regional Office, located in Seattle, since 1989, except for 2009 through 2013 when he was Deputy Director and acting Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. Chuck is also a commissioner on the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, a U.S. Department of the Interior agency that oversees federal laws promoting the marketing and sale of Native American arts and crafts. From 1983 to 1989, he was a counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Chuck graduated from Willamette University College of Law in Salem, OR. He is a member of the Oregon State Bar and of the District of Columbia Bar.

Ethan Via, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Ethan Via (rhymes with pie) has been a Special Agent with the FBI for 16 years. Prior to becoming an Agent, he was a CPA working for Arthur Andersen in their litigation consulting group in Washington, DC. Since joining the Bureau, he has worked in both the Seattle and New York City Divisions investigating complex financial crimes. He also worked at FBI Headquarters as a Supervisor in the Counterterrorism Division’s Terrorist Finance Operations Section. In 2010, he was assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Seattle where he worked for four years before becoming the supervisor of the Complex Financial Crimes squad.

Joseph Vincent, Washington State Department of Financial Institutions

Joe Vincent is Director of Regulatory & Legal Affairs for the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions. Vincent has had nearly four decades of experience in banking and financial services regulation, consumer protection, corporate governance matters, real estate and mortgage lending, land development and construction law, information technology, litigation and litigation management. This has included 6 years as a civil litigator and trial lawyer in private practice, 11 years as corporate counsel for Washington Federal Savings (NASDAQ: WFSL), and 5 years as an entrepreneur with information technology firms, including running an Internet-based mortgage company. Joe co- developed Seattle University School of Law’s LLM/MLS Program in Innovation & Technology Law and is also one of the Law School’s adjunct professors, regularly teaching Financial Institutions Law & Policy, Introduction to the Law of Financial Technology (FinTech), and Payments Ecosystems from Barter to Bitcoin. Joe received his undergraduate degree from University of California at Berkeley and his law degree from Golden Gate University School of Law.