Laura Gaitàn, Office and Financial Manager

Laura has extensive experience in bookkeeping, financial management, customer service and logistics. She worked as the Accountant/Bookkeeper at the Resource Center of the Americas for three years, Accounting and Payroll at the University of Kansas Medical Center for fifteen years, and holds down a part-time job at an airline (for the travel benefits and to organize the union for customer service reps, she says).

Laura helped lead her Resource Center co-workers in forming a 25-member unit of the Newspaper Guild, part of the Communications Workers of America. She served on the unit's three-member negotiating committee, which won the first labor contract at the Resource Center in 2002. She is still active at the Resource Center as part of El Centro de Derechos Laborales and is helping to organize “Mujeres Trabajadoras” , a group of latino women organized in order to be self sufficient with livable wage jobs. Each year during tax time, she volunteers her services in the Latino community to teach them how to file their taxes.

She is responsible for coordinating and managing PTP’s day-to-day administrative operations, providing financial oversight, day-to-day bookkeeping activities, human resources, assisting grant-making activities and planning, coordinating, and implementing logistics for events.

Her interests include unions, social change, diversity, running and softball where she plays with her favorite team RMS (Reduce Military Spending). She speaks Spanish and English fluently.