This is the second of a five-part series. Part One is here.
Schonella Stewart
Schonella Stewart is Chief of Police in Beloit, the first Black woman to hold the position. Stewart has served in law enforcement for 19 years in Oak Park, Illinois. She started her career as a police officer and rose through the ranks at the department, ultimately serving as chief of investigations. Stewart worked as a patrol officer, juvenile investigator, detective, tactical officer, patrol sergeant, tactical sergeant, detective sergeant, patrol commander, community policing commander and investigations commander. She also served as a homicide task force member, Internet Crimes Against Children task force member, FBI hijacking task force member, and human trafficking task force member. Stewart holds a Master of Social Work degree from Chicago State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a minor in Criminal Justice graduating with Cum Laude Honors from Barber-Scotia College.
Robert Jackson
Robert Jackson is President of Raising The Bar, a nonprofit organization he established in 2019 with a mission to develop, educate, and equip youth to raise the bar in all areas of their life. He also serves as a Club Manager for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee, where he has worked for more than 10 years. Mr. Jackson graduated from Marquette University, where he played basketball on the 2003 squad that made the Final Four. After graduation, he played basketball overseas.
Dr. Daryl Fairweather
Dr. Daryl Fairweather is chief economist at Redfin, a Seattle-based national real estate brokerage. Prior to joining Redfin, she worked as a researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston studying why homeowners entered foreclosure during the 2008 housing crisis. She was also a senior economist at Amazon, working on employee engagement and managing a team of analysts. Her insights have been featured in “60 Minutes,” The New York Times and The Washington Post. Her 2025 book “Hate the Game” offers “cheat codes” for some of the most common dilemmas in life and business. She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.
Deshea Agee
Deshea Agee is the Vice-President of Emem Group, a Milwaukee-based design build real estate firm, where he focuses on development operations and serves as Owner’s Representative on housing, commercial, and neighborhood-scale projects. His role supports developing viable project structures, managing development teams, and keeping projects accountable from planning through completion. Before joining Emem Group in 2021, he was Executive Director of Historic King Drive Business Improvement District No. 8 (King Drive BID) and Director of the King Drive Main Street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At King Drive BID Deshea oversaw implementation of the organization’s annual operating plan, property owner relations, business engagement and recruitment, and community outreach. Earlier in his career with the City of Milwaukee, Agee worked on redevelopment transactions and Tax Increment Financing districts, helping ensure public investment was used where it could make the greatest diƯerence. He continues to serve on civic and nonprofit boards and remains deeply committed to advancing equitable economic development throughout Wisconsin. He earned a bachelor’s degree in at Marquette and a master’s from UW-Stout.
Dr. Earlise Ward
Dr Earlise Ward is faculty director for the Cancer Health Disparities Initiative (CHDI) and co-director of the T32 Primary Care Research Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She conducts community-engaged clinical intervention research focused on African American adults’ mental health and culturally competent mental health services. Her program of research focuses on developing and testing culturally tailored mental health behavioral interventions for African American adults with clinical depression. She has expanded her research on an international level; she is collaborating with researchers in the US Virgin Islands and Ghana, to develop and test culturally tailored behavioral treatments for clinical depression. She earned a bachelor’s degree at Baruch College, master’s degree in counseling and Brooklyn College and PhD in counseling psychology at UW-Madison.
Donald Dantzler
Donald Dantzler is an alder for the City of Fitchburg, candidate for Dane County Board, and a Survey and Research Specialist for the Madison Metropolitan School District. He was previously faculty and adjunct faculty for UW-Whitewater, and has also worked as a research associate at Wisconsin’s Equity and Inclusion Laboratory and a project assistant for the UW System Administration Office of Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Success. He earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UW-Whitewater and is a doctoral candidate in the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis program at UW-Madison. He serves as chair of the Board of Trustees for Madison College, the Board of the 100 Black Men of Greater Madison, the Program Committee for the Goodman Community Center, is the Mentorship Coordinator for the MKE Fellows Program, and Chair of the Policy & Procedures Committee for the Urban League Young Professionals of Greater Madison. He is also the Board Chairman of Communities Learning to Invest and Mobilize for Business (CLIMB).
Troy Dean
Troy Dean is currently a Village Builder at Mendota Elementary School. The Village Builder project in Madison Metropolitan School District, Village Builders reinforce early literacy and social-emotional learning in the district’s full service community schools. Before coming to Madison, he worked in Marshall as a special education paraprofessional, where he earned a Crystal Apple Award from WMTV in 2023 (and for which he received 51 nominations). He cofounded DAZE Entertainment Basketball in 2004 to build community through basketball. The organization holds basketball events as fundraisers for local nonprofits, and Dean established a scholarship in the name of Marshall firefighter Marcos Dominguez, which he funds through an annual basketball event. He is also an assistant football coach at Madison LaFollette High School. A native Madison east-sider, he attended East High for three and a half years and graduated from the School Within a School at LaFollette.
Part Three coming tomorrow!
