Meet Our Team
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Elizabeth M. Yang, President
Leanne Pfautz, Chief Operating Officer
Elizabeth J. Fabrizio, Vice President
Amy Garmer, Senior Counsel
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ELIZABETH M. YANG
President
Elizabeth founded WStrong LLC, with a law school classmate and a former colleague, because she wanted to promote opportunities and engagement that prioritize individual and organizational well-being and advancement. She believes that when we create opportunities to have open conversations, we can see our starting points, discover our commonalities, and begin to work together. Elizabeth excels at creating and fostering local, state, and national relationships and networks.
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Elizabeth is a national expert in election law. She recently served as a Co-Reporter to the American Bar Association (ABA) Task Force for American Democracy and served for over two decades as the Director of the ABA Standing Committee on Election Law, a purposefully balanced bipartisan entity, where she played an instrumental role in ABA policy development, programming, and presidential initiatives on the important role of elections, voting rights, and voter participation in our democratic society. Her career in election law, balancing the perspectives of conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats, and all viewpoints in between, made her realize that we are closer than we realize, and that words really do matter. She believes that it is important to hear different viewpoints, and it is crucial to acknowledge that other people’s opinions and beliefs are as important to them as your own are to you.
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As a volunteer leader, she is Vice Chair and Revenue Enhancement Officer of the ABA Section of State and Government Law. She also Chairs its Elections, Democracy, and Rule of Law Committee where she created the Section’s Defending Democracy initiative to increase transparency and education about the voting process and ensure the safety of election workers. As part of this body of work she drafted ABA policy urging the safety of all election workers.
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She is committed to defending democracy, through policy, education, civic engagement, and efforts to instill confidence in the integrity of our nation’s electoral process. Most recently, Elizabeth was awarded the 2024 ABA Section of State and Local Government Law’s Jefferson Fordham Anita P. Miller Advocacy Award for her efforts in defending democracy. In November 2022, she was named by the ABA Governmental Affairs Office as the Advocate of the Month for her tireless work on reforming election law. In 2025, She was appointed to the Board of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit whose core mission is to work with election officials and build confidence in elections that voters should and do trust.
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Elizabeth is a proud first generation Taiwanese American, whose parents came from Chingshui and Taipei. She is an innovative and accomplished author and presenter on all aspects of election law, with a recent focus on election administration and democracy and the rule of law in our electoral process.
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She earned her BA in Rhetoric and Communications Studies from the University of Virginia and a JD from Syracuse University College of Law. She and her family reside in Northern Virginia.
LEANNE PFAUTZ
Chief Operating Officer
She has focused on strategic goal setting and implementation towards more successful policy development, innovation in publication delivery, project advancement and programming enrichment. She is a team builder and works to ensure there is fun in the process.
Leanne has a BA in Political Science (serving on her Town Council for 7 years and involved in countless political and local issue campaigns). Leanne earned her JD from the University of Baltimore.
Leanne is an avid reader, loves to take long bicycle rides and walks with her dogs, volunteers with her local Master Gardener program, and is always researching for the next adventure.
ELIZABETH J. FABRIZIO
Vice President
She is an accomplished writer and editor, as well as a strategic thinker. She advocates for LGBTQ+ youth and is very interested in education issues and matters of social justice and racial equity.
Elizabeth earned a JD from the Syracuse University College of Law and an MA in International Relations from The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
In her spare time, she enjoys Pilates, reading and writing fiction, and designing handmade crafts from sustainable materials. She lives in Northern Virginia with her family.
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AMY GARMER
Senior Counsel
Her professional career has been guided by the desire to bring the best available information to bear in support of individual and organizational decision-making to strengthen democracy, promote peace, and build the good society.
Garmer served as Director of Special Initiatives at the U.S. Institute of Peace for five years, where she worked with colleagues across the Institute and key external stakeholders to increase the impact of USIP’s work preventing, managing, and mitigating violent conflict around the world. She provided day-to-day leadership for the Institute’s strategic initiatives, including the Women Building Peace Award initiative, the International Advisory Council, and other high-profile signature events that elevated USIP’s mission and national and global visibility. Prior to joining USIP, Garmer enjoyed a lengthy tenure as Program Director at the Aspen Institute, where she launched and led a nationally-recognized journalism portfolio for more than 10 years, served as Founding Director of the Aspen Institute Dialogue on Public Libraries, and directed multiple other initiatives for its Communications and Society Program. With experience convening dialogues on five continents, she is adept at navigating diverse intellectual, professional, and cultural landscapes and skilled at identifying common ground among stakeholders with different perspectives and priorities. A trained facilitator and seasoned presenter, Garmer has moderated and spoken at conferences, events, and media programs including NPR’s Studio 1A, the Carnegie UK Trust, Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University, the Digital Public Library of America, the American Library Association, Comcast Newsmakers, Wharton Business Radio, San Jose State University, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. She has written widely on topics ranging from journalism, the attention economy, and telecommunications regulation to institutional innovation, community resilience, and public libraries. Garmer began her career in the office of U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and holds an M.A. in Speech Communication from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in Rhetoric and Communication Studies from the University of Virginia. She and her family reside in Maryland.