The Autism Self Advocacy Network Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Collin Killick will assume the role of Executive Director, effective November 1st. Collin joins ASAN with extensive leadership experience in the disability rights movement. For the past five years, he has served as Executive Director of the Disability Policy Consortium, Massachusetts’ leading statewide disability rights advocacy organization. In that role, he has worked to advance disability rights in a variety of contexts, including successful campaigns to increase state housing voucher funding for low-income disabled people, overturning discriminatory state crisis care standards during the COVID-19 public health emergency, and blocking moves to cut Medicaid home- and community-based services. Collin is a national leader in efforts to address discrimination against people with disabilities in health care, immigration, and other settings. He has worked to build coalitions between the disability community and other marginalized groups to address racial discrimination and language barriers in access to disability service delivery.
The ASAN Board of Directors is also extremely grateful to Avery Outlaw, who has served as ASAN’s Interim Executive Director. Avery has served as Deputy Executive Director since November and has agreed to continue in this role as Interim Executive Director until a leadership transition occurs. Avery’s leadership has been critical in facilitating ASAN’s continued advocacy and operational activities over the past several months. Leadership transitions are always a challenging process for any organization, and we are grateful to Avery for helping continue ASAN’s important work as this transition progresses.
We are thrilled that Colin will become ASAN’s third Executive Director and continue to build on our organization’s history of autistic leaders working to protect our community and create a more inclusive world for all people with disabilities. We know his leadership will be crucial in continuing to support our mission. ASAN plays a unique role in both the autistic community and the neurodiversity movement, and the broader disability rights movement to which they both belong. We believe Colin brings unique and important skills to the job, and we are excited to have him as our new Executive Director starting in November.