Board Members
Nicole Nosek,
Chair of the Board
Nicole Nabulsi Nosek spent 15 years working in senior roles, from co-campaign manager to communications director, on American campaigns at the federal, state and local level. Nicole grew passionate about housing while she worked as a paralegal making just below $50,000 per year, where she could only afford to live with a family with a baby along with another roommate. She recognized the role limited supply had on not only on the lower income, but the missing middle as well. This led her to work for a housing organization whose mission was to pass laws to encourage more housing to accommodate the growing population and drive down costs through supply and demand approaches. In 2018, U.C. Berkeley with a B.S. in Political Science and B.A. in Rhetoric.
She is the Chair of the Austin Habitat for Humanity Advocacy Committee and a board member where she has the privilege of helping more Americans access the American Dream of home ownership through advocacy. She resides in greater Austin, TX with her two kids and husband.
Charles Blain
Charles is a public policy entrepreneur and the Founder of Urban Reform, an organization focused on promoting free market solutions to urban issues. Charles’ work focuses on policies that foster upward mobility for those living in major metro areas. He has also increasingly focused on bottom-up solutions that seek to restore a sense of community and rebuild social fabric in local neighborhoods.
He is a contributor to the American Enterprise Institute’s book The Future of Cities (American Enterprise Institute, 2023). In addition to many television and radio appearances which include CNN, Fox News, and CBS, Charles has been published in the Wall Street Journal, City Journal, Forbes, The Houston Chronicle, and Dallas Morning News. A New Jersey native, Charles currently lives in Houston and was named a Houston Business Journal 40 under 40 honoree.
He serves on the Governing Board of Prison Entrepreneurship Program and the board of Entre Capital, a second-chance lender for businesses started by ex-offenders. Charles is currently serving a 4-year term as an appointee to the Texas Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
John Mackey
John Mackey is an American businessman, and writer of the bestselling book Conscious Capitalism, which was released in 2013. He is the co-founder of Whole Foods Market and served as the CEO of the company from its inception in 1980 until 2022. Named Ernst & Young entrepreneur of the year in 2003, Mackey is a strong supporter of free market economics. Mackey co-founded his first health food store, SaferWay, in Austin in 1978. They borrowed $10,000 and raised $35,000 more to start SaferWay. At the time, Austin had several small health food stores. Mackey built Whole Foods into a multinational organization, with outlets in major markets across the country, as well as Canada and the United Kingdom.
Mackey serves on multiple nonprofit boards of directors, including Students For Liberty, Global Animal Partnership, Conscious Capitalism, and the Humane Society of the United States. A Texas native, John still resides there with his wife Deborah.
Advisors to the Board
Greg Anderson
Greg joined the Austin Habitat team in January 2015 after spending five years at Austin City Hall as Policy Director for Mayor Pro Tem Cole. For six years Greg was a high school dropout working paycheck to paycheck but was eventually able to sneak into university thanks to being able to consistently find $400/mo rent in Central Austin. Greg now works to promote housing policies to legalize a diversity of housing types for a diversity of income earners.
He has more than 15 years of experience in real estate development, including the 360 Condominium Tower and the Austin Habitat for Humanity Community Home Center. He currently serves on the City of Austin’s Planning Commission and lectures at The University of Texas. Greg is tasked with expanding Austin Habitat’s product line to include multi- family and regional advocacy. Greg received both his MBA and his undergraduate degrees in Urban Studies and Geography and the Environment from the University of Texas in Austin.
Salim Furth, Ph.D.
Salim Furth is a nationally recognized expert in land use and housing economics. He has given testimony before numerous state legislatures, as well as the U.S. House and Senate, and he has worked with local officials to reform zoning. Furth’s research has appeared in Critical Housing Analysis, The City, National Affairs, and other journals. Among his current research projects are Regulating Without Zoning in Maine Towns, Single-Family Zoning and Race: Evidence from the Twin Cities, and – constructed on Texas data – Foundations and Microfoundations: Building Housing on Regulated Land. Furth appears regularly in national print and radio media. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Rochester. He is not (yet) a Texan; he lives in Maryland with his wife and four children.
David Goswick
American entrepreneur David Goswick is focused on bringing scalable, sustainable, and responsible efficiencies and services to the $43 Trillion dollar residential real estate category. Goswick’s mission is to sell homes in a smart, healthier, zero energy home that costs less to own, operate, protect, and maintain.
Goswick teams with leading tech, energy and real estate companies to develop consumer focused solutions providing a single marketplace for all aspects of searching for, buying, and owning a home easing the way for making households smarter, more secure, efficient, and less to own.
Goswick has a visionary track record that has been recognized with over 400 marketing and innovation awards during his 40-year career resulting in over $140 billion in collective revenue. Goswick conceived and led the execution of the first master planned community in America featuring the ease of "one-bill" of services including telephony, data, entertainment, security, video conferencing and electricity.
Goswick is a Texan native and currently lives in Houston, TX with his family and grandchildren.
Heather Hubbs
Heather Hubbs is a University of Texas student from Floresville, Texas, a city south of San Antonio. After seeing the results of the housing crisis in her personal experiences, Heather decided to do something about it. She regularly volunteers at Habitat for Humanity builds, local food banks, homeless shelters, and organizes trash pick-ups around the City. Simply talking about housing affordability was not enough for her; she wanted to take real action making an impact to improve everyone’s life and possibilities in the State’s Capital. She harbors an overwhelming desire to see fairness around young people’s housing opportunities in Texas.
Heather experienced the lack of parity in the current housing market personally as a student at University of Texas, Austin. The lack of housing options for students and every day families has driven many Texans into substandard often-unhealthy circumstances because appropriate alternatives within their price range were not available. She is passionate about the creation of more Missing Middle housing.
Heather also regularly testifies in front of City Council advocating for housing affordability. She is an active member of the University of Texas, Habitat for Humanity and a member of the Austin Habitat for Humanity Advocacy Committees. Finally, Heather runs her own advocacy organization at University of Texas called ‘Let’s Talk about IT.’
She feels that through the study and application of economics she can improve everyone’s opportunities here in our City, State, and Nation for the better. Heather believes to do so it will take courage, commitment, and candor on her part. She is dedicated to making a difference and willing to put in the time and effort to do so regardless of the cost. Heather is from Floresville and goes to school at University of Texas, Austin.
Magatte Wade
Magatte Wade is the founder of SkinIsSkin.com, which sells skincare products. She’s a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum at Davos; a TED Global Africa Fellow; and “Leading Woman in Wellness” award winner by the Global Wellness Summit. In 2014, she was featured on the cover of Forbes Afrique. She also serves as director of the Atlas Network’s Center for African Prosperity; is a member of the board of Conscious Capitalism; on the John Templeton Foundation board of trustees; and serves on the advisory board of the Whole Planet Foundation of Whole Foods Market. She has written for The Guardian, Huffington Post, and Barron’s, and has been profiled by the New York Times.
Magatte Wade lives in Dale, TX with her husband.
Nick Walsh
Nick Walsh serves on the board of the Texas Affiliation of Affordable Housing Providers. He serves as Vice President of Development with The NRP Group, a vertically integrated developer, owner, builder, and manager of best-in-class multifamily housing. He is responsible for sourcing and entitling new projects, comprising everything from origination to the start of construction. Additionally, Walsh works to build and foster relationships with public partners, government agencies and housing authorities.
Based in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, Walsh develops affordable and mixed-income housing across the state of Texas. Since joining NRP in 2019, he has overseen the development of over 2,500 units at a total development cost exceeding $500 million.
Walsh graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the Ross School of Business.