Martina GuilfoilMEET MARTINA GUILFOIL
• Job: Executive director of Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, replacing Ric Ebersole.• Previous employment: Executive director for Orange County Housing Trust in Anaheim, Calif.• Education: Bachelor of arts in community development from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.; master degree coursework in urban planning from the University of California, Los Angeles.• Experience: 27 years in affordable housing and healthy neighborhood efforts, from Inglewood, Calif., to Sarasota, Fla.• Fast fact: Guilfoil is the former head of the national trade association of NeighborWorks organizations, where she testified as an expert before Congress and lobbied officials to advance affordable housing in the U.S.
Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise has selected its next Pied Piper, choosing Californian Martina Guilfoil as the nonprofit’s new executive director.
“She really just blew the search committee away,” said Stephen Johnson, chairman of CNE’s board. “She just has a strong combination of operational and financial skill. A lot of times you get one or the other, but she has both.”
That’s a key requirement for the chief of CNE, an organization that serves a number of roles in Chattanooga that to the untrained eye may at times appear incompatible or even in conflict.
CNE does everything from making loans that help less-qualified homebuyers, to directing money to those who need it the most from federal programs like foreclosure prevention or weatherization grants. The organization counsels homeowners who have trouble paying their mortgages, but also works to collect payments from those same homeowners. It helps revitalize aging property for landowners, but also buys and improves its own land for future projects.