Executive Director
Alan van Capelle became the Executive Director of Empire State Pride Agenda and Empire State Pride Agenda Foundation in April 2003. At 34 years old, Alan is one of the youngest LGBT leaders in the nation.
Alan has continued the organization's track record of delivering on legislative and political promises made to New York State's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Under his leadership, the Pride Agenda has won passage of a number of statewide measures, including a law guaranteeing same-sex domestic partners the same access rights as spouses and next of kin when taking care of loved ones in hospitals and nursing homes and a law giving domestic partners the same priority as spouses in making decisions about burial of a loved one. During his tenure, the Pride Agenda has also successfully worked with state agencies, like the New York State retirement fund, and local government entities like the cities of Albany, Buffalo, New York City and Rochester to respect out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples.
Alan has initiated new programs aimed at accomplishing the Pride Agenda's objective of winning full equality and justice for LGBT New Yorkers and their families. Emphasizing grassroots organizing both inside and outside the LGBT community, these programs—"Pride in Our Union," "Pride in My Workplace" and "Pride in the Pulpit"—build upon the Pride Agenda's traditional strength in the legislative area and strengthen the organization's ability to mobilize people across New York State in support of the group's public policy objectives.
Under Alan’s leadership, the Pride Agenda has almost tripled its budget and he has assembled a staff of professional community organizers with experience in building alliances with groups that share the organization’s objective of winning equality and justice for all New Yorkers. The Pride Agenda’s programs and approach to organizing have also become models that other LGBT groups across the nation seek to replicate.
Prior to joining the Pride Agenda, Alan worked for nearly ten years for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), where he moved up through the ranks of the organization in rapid fashion. He began by organizing interns and residents in hospitals around the country in 1994 and after a series of promotions became the Deputy Political Director in 2001 of SEIU Local 32BJ, the largest building service union in the country representing 75,000 cleaners, doormen, porters, maintenance workers, window cleaners, security guards, superintendents, and theater and stadium workers in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. He was the driving force behind the landmark New York City Displaced Worker Law, which created job protection for building service workers when residential and commercial properties were transferred from one owner to another. Alan is credited with turning around what was a declining political operation at Local 32BJ into one of the most active and successful organizations in the labor movement.
During this nearly ten-year period with SEIU, Alan took one year off to manage the 2000 re-election campaign of U.S. Representative Gary Ackerman and then run the day-to day activities of Ackerman's district office.
Alan is a member of Reboot: A network for Jewish Innovation funded by Bronfman Foundation and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation.
Alan served as member of the transition teams of Governor Eliot Spitzer and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. In 2008 Alan was elected as a member of the New York State Electoral College where he cast votes for President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden.
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