Keynotes & Speakers

Governor Kelly Armstrong (R-North Dokata) is a lifelong North Dakotan who took office in 2024 after serving as a U.S. Representative for 3 terms and a State Senator for 3 terms. As he has in previous roles, he championed infrastructure investment, including a $2 billion statewide initiative. North Dakota, like most of the country, faces a housing shortage – The 2024 North Dakota Statewide Housing Needs Assessment (published in Feb. 2025) calls out “based on estimated change in population by age and the state’s current housing inventory, the state would need to add an additional 20,382 housing units by 2027 to meet the potential need, a 6% increase from 2022.” We look forward to Gov. Armstrong’s perspective on how to make pro-homes change happen in a very different part of the country. Full bio here.

tamika l. butler is a national expert and speaker on issues related to the built environment, equity, anti-racism, diversity and inclusion, organizational behavior, and change management. As the Principal + Founder of tamika l. butler consulting she focuses on shining a light on inequality, inequity, and social justice. Most recently, she was the Director of Planning, California and the Director of Equity and Inclusion at Toole Design. Previously, tamika served as the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, a non-profit organization that addresses social and racial equity, and wellness, by building parks and gardens in park-poor communities across Greater Los Angeles. tamika has a diverse background in law, community organizing and nonprofit leadership. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. tamika received her J.D. from Stanford Law School, and received her B.A. in Psychology and B.S. in Sociology at Creighton University in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. She lives in Los Angeles with her wife, son, and daughter. Learn more. 

Daryl Fairweather is the chief economist of Redfin and recently published “Hate the Game: Economic Cheat Codes for Life, Love, and Work”. Her insights have been featured on 60 Minutes, CBS Evening News, as well as in the New York Times and Washington Post. Prior to joining Redfin she was a senior economist at Amazon working on problems related to employee engagement and managing a team of analysts. During the housing crisis, Daryl worked as a researcher at the Boston Fed studying why homeowners entered foreclosure. Daryl received her Bachelor’s of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received her Ph.D. and Master’s degrees in economics at the University of Chicago where she specialized in behavioral economics. Read more.

Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org, and serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2014 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel,’ in the Swedish Parliament. He’s also won the Gandhi Peace Award, and honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. He has written over a dozen books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature, published in 1989, and his latest book is The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened. Learn more.