BlaqOut’s president and CEO, D. Rashaan Gilmore, is a dynamic entrepreneur, community connector, and respected leader deeply rooted in his community. As the founder of BlaqOut, he has achieved significant milestones, including the purchase of a 6,000 square-foot facility—the first and only designated safe space for the Black LGBTQIA community and its allies. Under his leadership, BlaqOut has grown from zero members/ patients to over 800 in just four years, launched the largest telePrEP program in Missouri, and increased BlaqOut's revenue from less than $100,000 in 2019 to approximately $2 million today, with more than half resulting from earned revenue. Gilmore earned the distinguished 2020 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Equity Award for his groundbreaking work with BlaqOut. His vast professional experience makes him a sought-after cultural and political analyst and commentator. For four years, from 2017 to 2021, he was host and executive producer of the popular weekly public affairs radio show, "Unbossed and Unbothered with D. Rashaan." In 2022 and 2023, he won an EMMY® Award as host/moderator of "Flatland in Focus," a monthly broadcast television show tackling cultural issues and public affairs on Kansas City Public Television (PBS). Mr. Gilmore has worked extensively with marginalized and oppressed populations through various HIV prevention projects. His experience includes Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), developiing innovative models of healthcare, evidence-based interventions, field outreach, technical assistance to CDC and SAMHSA grantees, and grant management. He led Project I Am, a CDC grant focused on HIV prevention and testing for Black and Latino MSM, and managed a SAMHSA-funded new media campaign that developed a mobile app for HIV testing and PrEP education. Under his direction, Project I Am significantly improved HIV intervention and community cohesion in Kansas City and served as a forerunner to the work of BlaqOut.

Quinlin is the founder and director of JUST Design - a group of activists assembling groups, teams, and community, to facilitate design processes that center Mother Earth as a stakeholder, and realize a future where we can all thrive together. As a design practitioner, Quinlin’s creative identity is rooted in his African American, Indigenous and Jewish heritage; he channels and honors these legacies through “equity and justice acupuncture” - engaging communities and projects with a focus and sensitivity to renew wellbeing through empowerment, belonging, and legacy cultivation. Quinlin believes design is a tool for social and environmental transformation, and that systems can and should be just for all. Understanding the historical, current, and future contexts of projects is integral to Quinlin’s process, integrating co-creative and eco-centered practices to address the deepest challenges our communities and ecosystems face.

Kevin Nordmeyer, FAIA, LEED AP is an architect and a Principal at BNIM in Des Moines. He has served as a pioneer in sustainable design in Iowa and the Midwest, leading the creation of Iowa’s first model sustainable buildings in the 1990’s and the first LEED Platinum collegiate facilities In Iowa in the late 2000’s. He was the Founding Chair of the USGBC Iowa Chapter in the mid-2000's. Prior to joining BNIM in 2011, Kevin served as Director of the Iowa Energy Center and lecturer on sustainabe design in the College of Design at Iowa State University (ISU). As a person with a disability due to MS, Kevin is focusing his current design and research efforts on expanding the definition of sustainable design to include equity and inclusivity. Kevin led the design for the Tom and Ruth Harkin Center at Drake University , a 2024 AIA COTE Top Ten Green Buildings Award recipient, and co-authored the book "ALL - A Guidebook for Inclusive Design".