Kim Carter Martinez, Co-Founder and Partner
Kim Carter Martinez grew up in New Jersey. You’ll note that her Jersey accent is gone, but the attitude remains pretty much intact. She grew up in an interracial and interfaith activist home. Kim’s mom (Inaclaire) came from a family of Russian Jewish immigrants, who settled in Newark, New Jersey. Her father (Rowland) grew up in the Bronx, in a Jehovah’s Witness household. Both of her parents were involved in their unions, and Kim grew up marching on picket lines and in New York City’s Labor Day Parade.
Kim moved out to the West Coast in the mid nineties to attend The Evergreen State College, where she studied Political Economy and Social Change. While in college, she worked as a home healthcare worker. The organization she worked for went through a union organization drive, and Kim volunteered to help her fellow homecare workers win dignity, respect and a living wage. After a few months, she started working for the union full time, at the age of 20.
Kim has continued to work in the labor movement for the last 23 years. Her last position was as the regional director for the country’s largest resident physician union where she was responsible for directing staff, directing field campaigns and leading contract campaigns and both public and private sector contract negotiations. Her previous positions were as the Organizing Director for a large local union, Deputy Director for a large Statewide Union, and Regional Field Education Director for a large International Union. In these positions, she has created programs to develop and mentor volunteer activists and staff, directed large scale grassroots organizing campaigns throughout the states of California and New Mexico, and led contract bargaining, mobilization campaigns and strikes.
When not working, Kim has served on the boards of several non-profit organizations. California Prison Focus is a prison reform organization, which is dedicated to stopping human rights abuses in California’s state prisons. In this position she mentored and coordinated volunteers, and also did grant writing, investigative visits to prisons, and published writings on and spoke on her findings.
Kim served on the Regional Council of the Bend the Arc, an organization that educates, advocates and organizes on issues of peace, equality, diversity and justice, as a progressive voice in the Jewish community and a Jewish voice in the progressive community.
Kim also served as a commissioner on the City of Oakland’s Sugar Sweetened Beverage Commission where she was tasked with safeguarding Measure JJ funds and deciding on how to allocate them in a way that helped mitigate the impacts of sugar sweetened beverages on low-income communities of color.
Additionally, Kim volunteers with the American Diabetes Association for their Annual Tour De Cure, which raises almost 2 million dollars a year for diabetes research. She was the chairperson of the event for six years. Previous to that, she was the volunteer coordinator. Kim also serves on the Community Leadership Board of the American Diabetes Association. Kim is a type 1 diabetic, and also lost her mom to the disease, so the issue holds very true to her heart.
For more on Kim’s resume: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimjoycarter/
Amy Hines-Shaikh, Co-Founder and Partner
Amy Hines-Shaikh founded Wild Cat Consulting, LLC in June of 2018 after the Janus vs. AFSCME Supreme Court decision to help strengthen labor unions in the wake of right wing attacks. Kim Carter Martinez joined the partnership in February of 2020 to further the mission of racial, social and economic justice for all.
Amy was born in Cork, Ireland and immigrated to Aberdeen, Scotland at the age of three, and then immigrated again to the United States when she was six years old. Her father mixed drilling mud on oil rigs all over the world, which is why she very deeply believes in a just transition for fossil fuel workers to the green economy of the future. Her first concerted organizing effort was a petition targeting the Principal of her middle school to take down the display of a sexist poem in Sandy, Utah. In that case, collective action did not get the goods, but the Principal allowed Amy to display her own feminist poem next to the misogynist one.
After graduating from the University of Utah in Political Science and Women’s Studies, Amy gave herself a graduation present of getting arrested with the Shundahai Network at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site in solidarity with the Shoshone people on Mother’s Day. This was first of many arrests throughout her life for social and economic justice issues. Later that year she went on to graduate school at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in Labor Relations and Research and got to join her first labor Union – the UAW Local 2322 - and get health benefits for the first time since leaving Europe fifteen years prior.
Amy has worked for many Labor Unions within her career, including the UAW, SEIU, AFSCME, AFT, and CWA. Her latest position was a Legislative and Political Director for a statewide labor union. Prior to that Amy was the Executive Director for another statewide labor union. Amy has many years of experience in all three sides of the “union triangle” - organizing, bargaining, and political affairs.
In 2015 Amy got her second Master’s degree in Organizational Development and Knowledge Management from George Mason University in Arlington, VA. In 2016 Amy joined the Democratic Party to vote for Bernie Sanders in the primaries and hasn’t looked back. She remains active in the California Democratic Party.
When not working Amy is spending time with her husband and two children, taking long walks in the hills, or reading with a cup of Irish breakfast tea in hand.
For more on Amy’s resume: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-hines-shaikh