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Bio: Lauren Conangla has served as the Business Attraction Administrator for the Town of Gilbert since September 2017. Her professional highlights include experience in destination marketing across Latin America and the Caribbean, public relations for Mall of America, and media planning for Target Corporation.

Lauren enjoys challenging others to be more environmentally aware, and takes pride in her numerous sustainability accomplishments across various companies for which she has worked. She spearheaded the process of digitizing decades’ worth of vendor contracts for one corporation, and at another she founded both a “green” team and newsletter column.

During college, she studied Spanish language and culture in Spain, before earning bachelor degrees in both Spanish and Marketing from Augustana College, in Illinois. In 2015, after relocating from the Midwest to sunny Arizona, she spent a month as a marine conservation volunteer in southern Thailand, adding the 5th continent to her travel log.

Lauren is an avid outdoor enthusiast, traveler and yogi, who loves discovering local dining “gems” in new cities, something she has enjoyed greatly about working in Gilbert. Lauren believes strongly in supporting local businesses in order to help communities thrive and create a unique sense of place.

Bio: Michael has over ten years of comprehensive economic development experience. He has spent a majority of this time attracting and supporting businesses from a wide range of industries and of all different sizes.

Before joining Gilbert, he served one year as the Economic Development Analyst for Fountain Hills. During this time he helped attract a new micro-hospital, 150 unit single-family detached home rental community, and a proposed 400 unit multi-family development.

Michael served as the Economic Development Coordinator for Winnetka, IL before joining Fountain Hills. He was Winnetka’s first-ever full-time economic development employee, tasked with creating most of the programs and processes from the ground up. He developed and implemented a new marketing strategy, launched a business visitation program, and created a business database to help streamline internal processes.

Before Winnetka, Michael served as the Marketing & Business Development Administrator for Bensenville, IL. At the start of his employment, the vacancy rate for the 16 million square feet of industrial/office space in Bensenville was around 20%. During his seven years, he streamlined processes, created a business-friendly brand, and worked closely with the development community to help reduce the vacancy rate to under 5%.

Michael earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Business Administration and a Master of Business Administration from Northern Illinois University. He moved to Arizona from Chicago in 2018 and loves to spend his free time exercising, hiking, volunteering, and traveling to different countries.

Bio: Prior to joining Gilbert, Glenn served as Chief of Marketing for Arizona State Parks and Trails, where he led all marketing and public relations for the agency. He is proud to have contributed to Arizona receiving the prestigious NRPA award for the Best Managed State Park System in the country. Glenn led a rebranding effort for the agency that included the launch of a new website. He worked closely with federal, state, and non-profit agencies and businesses to coordinate park promotions and campaigns, such as collaborating with REI on their Opt Outside movement.

Glenn also led community relations and marketing efforts at the Arizona Office of Tourism, where he designed and implemented a one million dollar cooperative marketing campaign to assist rural Arizona communities with tourism promotion. He worked closely with statewide partners and chaired the Arizona Council for Enhancing Recreation and Tourism.

Glenn began his career working with youth at a variety of community-based organizations, most notably the YMCA. He earned a Bachelor of Science from Michigan State University in Parks, Recreation and Tourism, and a Master of Advanced Studies from Arizona State University in Geographic Information Systems. He also holds a certificate from the University of Georgia in Marketing Research.

He loves all things outdoors and is an enthusiastic camper, hiker, mountain biker and traveler, easily drawn in by movies and music.

Bio: Kiley Phillips has served as the Marketing and Communications Administrator since March 2019. Prior to her joining Gilbert, Kiley was the Director of Marketing and Website Design at a national staffing and recruiting company. While in her role, she launched both the blog and the successful website dedicated to it, completed a full in-house rebrand of the company, and implemented new marketing automation technologies. A few of her most exciting projects included working on the company’s charitable work throughout the community and school districts, moving the company towards more green initiatives, and branding a full-size in-home basketball court.

Kiley received her Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Iowa State University in May 2010. After graduating, she moved from Iowa to Arizona to escape the cold winters and be closer to family. She currently has 3 rescue dogs and enjoys taking them on hikes or to downtown Gilbert for brunch.

Bio: Alan can best be described as a regional scientist whose interests lie at the intersection of economics and computer science. In his work, he endeavors to bring technology to the forefront of modern challenges in economic development and regional planning. On a given day he can be found in such divergent pursuits as researching the fiscal impacts of a land use change, or automating a data-driven dashboard or statistical process.

Prior to joining the Gilbert OED team, Alan worked as a research economist at the Economic and Business Research Center of the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. At EBRC, Alan was a key contributor to several team projects such as the Making Action Possible Dashboard and Arizona-Mexico Economic indicators. Other responsibilities included management of primary data collection, market research studies, and collaboration on several economic impact analyses.

Alan completed his undergraduate work at the University of Arizona and holds degrees from Boston University (M.A. ‘10) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (M.S. ‘13). When he is not batch processing large quantities of data, Alan can be found batch processing large batches of chocolate chip cookies with his two kids, or watching the Wildcats destroy the Sun Devils.