2023 FSC Board of Directors Election Nominees
Voting for the Free Speech Coalition’s Board of Directors election is open November 28 – December 5, 2023.
This year, there are eight Board seats up for election. The candidates for those seats include eight incumbent Board Directors and four member-nominated candidates. You must vote for eight candidates. Each elected member will serve a two-year term beginning January 1, 2024.
All FSC members in good standing will receive an email with a unique voting link on November 28. It is important that as many members as possible participate. If you don't plan to vote, please click on the voting link in the email and choose "Abstain" to avoid receiving reminders.
Nominee Bios
Allie Awesome
Allie Awesome has been in the adult industry for over 10 years — as a dancer, a phone sex operator, a cam model and a content creator.
A passionate advocate, Allie has been a long-time member of SWOP and is regularly quoted by several mainstream publications (New York Times, Rolling Stone, NBC News, Vice, etc.) on issues pertaining to sex workers' rights and legal/legislative matters affecting the industry.
Allie also strongly believes in the community approach to promoting, encouraging and nurturing content creators, dedicating a significant amount of her time to sharing her expertise with creators and helping to develop their content and brands.
She is currently the Director of Talent Recruitment for popular livestream platform ePlay, as well as the founder and CEO of Hot Sauce PR and a Creator Community Ambassador for XBIZ.net.
Cathy Beardsey (Incumbent)
Cathy helps people and businesses navigate high-risk payments, fraud mitigation, and subscription-based billing.
As President and CEO of Segpay she oversees the entire Segpay team as well as monitoring the latest payment industry challenges and changes to help clients find the best payment solutions for their business.
For Cathy, helping clients grow their revenue while maintaining their compliance is the most rewarding part of the role.
Cathy is also a board member and current CFO of the Free Speech Coalition.
Outside of the office, Cathy enjoys travel, live music, and spending time with her family.
Jeffrey Douglas (Incumbent)
I am a Santa Monica criminal defense lawyer, representing all segments of the adult entertainment industry since 1982. It has been a great honor to chair the FSC Board of Directors since 1995. In the last 18 months, FSC has achieved extraordinary things, especially in tackling financial service discrimination and the new censorship efforts pretending to be age verification laws. It has been a joy to work with Alison Boden and the rest of our remarkable staff, our Federal lobbyists, our volunteer lawyers, and the committed Board of Directors in these efforts.
I am dedicated to improving the quality of life for the people creating and selling adult entertainment and sexual wellness products and resisting government intrusion. I am passionate about FSC and hope to continue to serve.
Steven Grooby (Incumbent)
Steven Grooby is the CEO of Grooby Productions, a company he founded in 1996 after he graduated from film school and was unable to find work. As a 20-something year old in London, he purchased a PC to solely work on scriptwriting and soon found he was spending more time scouring newsgroups for niche porn to occupy his time. Seeing a short-term opportunity, in a small thing called 'the internet' as a way to get more free porn, he started fan sites in the niches he wanted to see more content in. With Groovy.com not available, he settled on Grooby.com and 25 years later is still at the helm of that "short-term" business opportunity. He is still trying to write his script.
Steven started with "HTML for Dummies" (a book he has yet to finish) and then went into shooting for the first content of his sites, traveling to NYC, Los Angeles, and Thailand, where he was the first person to shoot trans content for the internet. Hiring new producers after the first 10 years of growth, he now concentrates on the 'bigger picture' of marketing and development but still enjoys interacting with customer service and the performers.
Grooby Productions is the largest producer of trans content, with over 35 unique websites supported by over 1,000 scenes being produced annually worldwide across N. America, Brazil, Europe, and Asia. Grooby also hosts the annual Trans Erotica Awards in Los Angeles, originally conceived as an online competition to support their models who were being ignored in other award shows and has since expanded into a celebration weekend of all things trans erotica. Grooby Productions is very much involved in the outreach, welfare, education, and support of all trans performers and those who work with them.
Lucy Hart (Incumbent)
Lucy is currently living in New York and working in mainstream film while keeping up with porn updates on various platforms and her own paysite, NiceFeelings.com. She also webcams on Chaturbate.
In her personal life she is very active in her local BDSM queer community, attending events and play parties regularly.
Allie Eve Knox
Allie Eve Knox has been in the industry for almost a decade, specializing in Financial Domination. She also currently serves as an Advisor at SpankChain. Allie has traveled to Washington DC with the FSC to lobby to Congress several times.
Micah Martinez (Incumbent)
Micah Martinez has over 4 years in the adult entertainment industry doing everything from modeling in front of camera to working as a production assistant, casting director and talent coordinator, production manager, director and cameraman.
Even before their already extensive resume working in entertainment, Micah attended Rutgers the State University of New Jersey and went on to work in social work with a focus in Youth Advocacy, Drug and Alcohol Counseling and aiding in finding homes for the homeless.
Micah brings his schooling and extensive work history to the board to be a vital part in balancing the many facets of how the industry works both in front of and behind camera.
Craig Miller
With 16 years of experience in the adult live cams industry, Craig is honored to be nominated for the Board of Directors of the Free Speech Coalition. His long technical career saw him relocate from England, to mainland Europe, and finally to California, where he now specializes in 5967 payment processing, compliance, and regulations, and is currently serving as the Vice President of Revenue Operations at VS Media, Inc.
At the core of his professional ethos is an unwavering commitment to ethical business practices and to the development of products and services that add value to the lives of all whom they impact. Craig firmly believes in the power of empathy in driving positive change, for the part that it plays in fostering a culture of respect and understanding, and that the combination of a data-driven mindset with a human-centric approach are critical to facilitating sustainable success within the adult industry.
If elected, Craig looks forward to contributing to a vision that celebrates and defends free speech, strengthens industry standards through collaboration, fosters inclusivity, and protects the rights of individuals in the adult industry. He is excited about the opportunity to contribute his skills and experience to the Free Speech Coalition, advancing the collective mission, and helping to shape a future where the principles of free speech are not only defended but celebrated.
Constance Penley (Incumbent)
Constance Penley is Professor of Film and Media Studies and founding director and past co-director of the Carsey-Wolf Center for media research at UC Santa Barbara. She is a founding editor of Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies, the world's leading feminist media journal.
Dr. Penley is the author, editor, or co-editor of ten books and has taught and lectured on her research around the world. Her books include The Future of an Illusion: Film, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis; NASA/TREK: Popular Science and Sex in America; Male Trouble; Technoculture; The Visible Woman: Imaging Technologies, Science, and Gender, and The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure, (trans. German and Spanish) with Tristan Taormino, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, and Mireille Miller-Young.
Dr. Penley's research and teaching on pornography led to the development of porn studies as an interdisciplinary academic discipline. She serves on the Editorial Board of the international journal Porn Studies and the Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ Adult Industry Scholarly Interest Group, with over 150 professors and graduate students.
In her spare time, she is President of the Council of University of California Faculty Associations, an independent faculty advocacy organization serving all ten UC campuses on economic and employment conditions, academic freedom, and shared governance. It gathers and disseminates information on issues before California government's legislative and executive branches, other relevant state units dealing with higher education, the University administration, and the Board of Regents.
Liz Rek
Liz joined the industry in 2000 and helped build and launch live cam giant Streamate. Over 2+ decades Liz has worked in different facets of the cam world becoming one of the “go to” resources for broadcasters, creators, affiliates, and partners from around the world. She has been an integral part of the creation and evolution of Streamate Models and while under her guidance Streamate has become a world leader in the cam industry garnering numerous prestigious awards; building Streamate into the product it is today. Liz has also participated and moderated various seminars, mentoring models, and become a valuable journalistic resource for interviews in both adult and mainstream media. She has focused on helping Streamate continue growing as an industry leader and places a high value on maintaining a positive reputation to models, members, and the industry as a whole.
Jamie Rodriguez (Incumbent)
Jamie Rodriguez spent 15 years overseeing the development, support, engagement and safety of the online community at VS Media. Through countless phases of growth, industry shifts, technology adaptations, and global transitions, As head of Broadcasting & Product, Rodriguez was at the forefront of listening to broadcasters needs and ensuring they had a safe space to broadcast and that their voices mattered. Her strong connections with partners, affiliates, broadcasters, and customers, led to Rodriguez's passion for ensuring their rights were protected, their voices were heard, and that she could be an advocate for their safety online.
Scott Watkins (Incumbent)
Scott Watkins is responsible for managing the sales and marketing departments at Doc Johnson. Since he joined the team in 2013, Scott has infused the company with the latest corporate strategies, along with a focus on streamlining procedures while continuing to expand business. He brings 14 years of hands-on sales, business development, and management experience, and he is always looking for ways to deliver great products and elevated customer satisfaction while strengthening the global presence of Doc Johnson.
Under Scott’s leadership, Doc Johnson has further strengthened its position as the world’s market leader for American made pleasure products.
Watkins previously held the position of Vice President of Sales at Trigg Laboratories, a market leader in the personal lubricant category. Previous positions include Director of Sales and Marketing at Ronco Inventions, a well-known infomercial company; Director of Business Development at Worldlink Media, a B2B solution for direct response and infomercial clientele where he founded an integrated media division; and in his early career, as an Account Executive at Excite@Home (imail.com), a one-time provider of web hosting, site creation, and e-commerce tools.
