Our Team
Barbara Andrea Garza Guzman, MSW, SWC
(she/her/ella)
Executive Director – Culture, Services & Programs
Barbs (she, her, ella) is the TJP Executive Director of Culture, Programs & Services and a fierce advocate for system-impacted youth. Rooted in both Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and Brownsville, TX, she moved to Colorado to pursue her Master’s in Social Work at the University of Denver. Over the past decade, she has dedicated herself to dismantling the oppressive systems that harm youth of color—working at the intersections of child welfare, education, mental health, and the criminal legal system.
A late-diagnosed neurodivergent with dyslexia, Barbs understands firsthand the barriers young people face in systems designed for conformity rather than liberation. Fluent in both Spanish and English, she builds deep, authentic relationships with youth, guardians, and community members, creating spaces where people feel seen, valued, and empowered.
Barbs is not just an advocate—she is a visionary. A bold, big-picture thinker, she connects dots others overlook, seeing both the harm caused by systemic injustice and the possibilities for something better. She leads with love, fights with conviction, and stands firm against those who seek to uphold oppressive systems. In addition to her direct advocacy, she has co-authored articles on antiracism and abolishing whiteness, always pushing the work beyond surface-level reform toward true transformation.
Barbs is committed to promoting healing, racial justice, and community care. When she’s not working, she spends quality time with her husband and their two tuxedo cats—despite being highly allergic.
Elie Zwiebel
(he/him)
Executive Director – Operations, Legal & Education First
Prior to attending law school, Elie Zwiebel taught a variety of subjects in the Detroit Area, Chicago, Portland, Shenzhen, and Nanjing. Through these experiences, Elie developed a passion for student and family advocacy. During law school, Elie engaged in experiential learning opportunities as often as possible: with movement and power-building nonprofit organizations, where he learned the importance of holistic and interdisciplinary approaches to legal advocacy; with the United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, where he gained experience and familiarity with special education law and other statutes regarding discrimination in schools; and with the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, where he contributed to investigating police departments, prisons, and mental health facilities for patterns and practices of discrimination.
While in the University of Denver Civil Rights Clinic, Elie successfully petitioned President Obama to grant clemency to two individuals serving life sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. After spending one year as a Judicial Law Clerk for Judge Norma A. Sierra in the 20th Judicial District, Elie is thrilled to now zealously represent students and their families in Colorado schools and courts.
Elie has represented students, parents, and guardians in educational and youth justice matters as Education First’s Director since 2018 and has been honored to serve as Executive Director (focusing on operations and legal matters) at TJP since August 2023.
Erin Pier, Ed.S
(she/her)
Executive Director – Communications & Court Advocacy
Prior to joining TJP, Erin spent 14 years as a school psychologist, where she became increasingly passionate about the dire need for systemic change in education. She earned her undergraduate degree in Special Education from Saint Louis University before beginning her teaching career at Savio House in Denver in 2007. Soon after, she pursued an Education Specialist degree in Child, Family, and School Psychology from the University of Denver.
Throughout her career in Aurora and Denver Public Schools, Erin has been guided by a core belief: there are no bad kids, only unmet needs. This philosophy extends into her personal life as a mother of three neurodivergent children navigating dyslexia, ADHD, and hearing loss. Erin herself is late-diagnosed with ADHD, an experience that deepened her understanding of how systems prioritize conformity over creativity, often leaving neurodivergent individuals feeling ill-equipped or unseen. She also recognizes the privileges that enabled her own success despite these challenges—privileges that are too often denied to system-impacted youth.
As a co-founder of the Community Cares program, Erin has led efforts to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline by providing holistic support to system-impacted youth. Her leadership integrates her background in mental health and education with an unwavering commitment to decentering whiteness and advancing antiracist practices in youth advocacy. As an Executive Director, she oversees development and fundraising, storytelling through newsletters and social media, and court advocacy for English speakers.
Beyond work, Erin enjoys camping, traveling, hiking, baking, running, snowboarding, and playing drums with her husband, three kids, and two dogs.
Our Leadership Philosophy
Historically, non-profits operate under an executive director model, giving one individual significant power and influence over the organization and its external relationships. This organizational structure creates an inequitable hierarchy of power that values the decision making, knowledge, and expertise of one individual at the expense of others, all while subordinating the wealth of wisdom, expertise, and diversity of the organizational collective.
At the Transformative Justice Project of Colorado, we recognize that we exist under an inherently racist, capitalist, ableist, and patriarchal system that will take more than empty commitments to anti-racism to abolish. As such, we commit ourselves to do more than just talk, and instead operationalize anti-racism, anti-oppressive, re-indigenization values, vision, and goals..
At TJP, we distribute decision-making power among multiple leaders, countering the racialized, gendered, ableist concentration of power that Western leadership models have historically embodied. Our first step towards intentional anti-racism and decolonization is to adopt a shared leadership model.
