With the addition of Ashley Sellers as Southern Field Director, Take Back Action Fund is now staffed with four dedicated team members, each responsible for a region of the country. The Regional Field Directors, which include President John Pudner and National Field Director Lars Wiechmann, must not only be able and willing to relocate to a state deemed particularly important to stakeholders, but also to travel to assist in other regions -- such as will happen this week when all four Field Directors converge in New England for a series of kickoff meetings with leaders of agriculture, sportsmen’s rights, and faith-based and conservative politics.
The team’s New England tour, led by Eastern Field Director Johnny Babilon, will include multiple meetings in Maine as well as in Massachusetts, where the team already oversaw thousands of door knocks before Covid-19 shut down activity. The rest of the team will depart after the initial round of kickoff meetings while Babilon stays in New England to build the organization there.
TBAF’s staffing approach pairs seasoned political field work veterans such as Pudner and Wiechmann with rising stars who are wizards of cutting-edge field work technology, such as Sellers and Babilon. On the “About - Team'' page, you will find each team member’s area of geographic responsibility:
John Pudner, President/ Midwest Field Director
Lars Wiechmann, National/Western Field Director
Johnny Babilon, Eastern Field Director
Ashley Sellers, Southern Field Director
Sellers came to Take Back Action Fund’s sister organization as a high school student who had already created a business to fund her debate club’s travel to national competitions. She is on track to finish her college degree in three years, and the shift to all online classes enabled her to fulfill the travel requirements of a TBAF Field Director.
With the sister organization, Sellers served in various capacities, such as Events Coordinator, in which she represented the sister organization in meetings with Pudner that included the Alabama Speaker of the House, Lt. Governor and other leaders. But she was perhaps best known for overseeing training field work technology and setting a blistering pace for door-to-door canvassing wherever she went, from north Alabama to Cheyenne, Wyoming. While directing her first ballot referendum, her trademark canvassing skills and ingenious literature placement won rave reviews from business and community leaders, one of whom asked Pudner whether Sellers could stay in town to train his (much older) business directors. The referendum’s upset victory at the ballot box, and the op-ed she authored for the local newspaper, earned her an interview with the CBS affiliate in Huntsville.
Since the “scramble” email announcement of the entire team two weeks ago, both Sellers and Board Member Camille Solberg, a national Hispanic leader and former staff director for US Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), have been added to the TBAF team page.
