Our Staff Team

Suzie Taka (she/her): 
Executive Director

Suzie Taka has been a dedicated community organizer and 2SLGBTQIA+ advocate in Waterloo Region for over a decade. She has extensive experience in the non-profit and public sectors, specializing in communications and Reconciliation, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. She applies an anti-oppressive lens to her work and is committed to community building rooted in anti-racism and Truth and Reconciliation. She believes in the power of community to drive lasting, system change. 

Her personal projects include producing multiple years of Rainbow Reels Queer and Trans Film Festival and co-founding LOL - KW’s first queer and feminist monthly stand-up comedy show. Suzie also served on Spectrum's Board of Directors from October 20, 2019 - July 18, 2021.

Outside of work, you can find her biking, wrangling her three young kids alongside her wife, browsing a thrift store, or refinishing furniture.

Rye Huston (they/she): 
Programs and Operations Manager

Rye has spent most of her life living on the Haldimand Tract. Her values are firmly rooted in intersectional feminism, community care, and harm reduction. They have navigated agricultural, academic, and non-profit workspaces but she is very happy to be landing back in her home region to work with and alongside queer community. She loves working with systems and data, and creates databases as a hobby to track things like her extensive vinyl collection. Outside of Spectrum, you'll probably find them around town at a locally owned cafe, the library, or on her bicycle!

Baz Kanold (they/them): 
Training and Communications Coordinator

Baz is a graduate of the University of Waterloo Fine Arts program. Alongside their work at Spectrum, they also live, work, and teach as an artist in the region, creating pieces that generally conceptualize their experience with sexuality and gender. 

While they began their work with Spectrum as a Rainbow Diversity Trainer, their passion for providing education to the community led them to pursue a more involved role in the organization. Over the past few years they have also led transgender-focused peer support circles for Eating Disorders Nova Scotia and Spectrum. Prior to their work at Spectrum and their time in school, they worked as a graphic designer for a company in Montreal, but are happy to have settled back in the region where they were born and raised.

Emme Kay Kennedy (she/her):
Fund Development Coordinator

Emme Kay Kennedy (she/her) has newly returned to Kitchener after surviving 25+ years in the United States. She is a comedienne, a performer, a director, and all-around-swiss-army-knife of an arts practitioner. She also produces and raises funds for her own performance work, including her stand-up special OOPS! As a neurodivergent trans lesbian, she resists all categories she doesn't make for herself - including her own resistance to categories. She has a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership from Thomas Jefferson University and a Master of Fine Arts in Devised Performance from the Pig Iron School/University of the Arts and once served as Experience Consulting Creative Producer and first full time hire for industry-disrupting museum tour company Museum Hack in NYC.

Troy Dettwiler (he/him): 
Sports Coordinator

Troy is Spectrum's Sports Coordinator, where he organizes programming focused on sports, physical activity, and community building for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in Waterloo Region. He is a Certified Personal Trainer (ACSM-CPT #927796), sits on OSSTF's Equity Advisory Work Group, and works full-time as an IT Infrastructure Analyst.

When Troy isn't having fun at Spectrum Sports and the Spectrum Queer Run Club, you can find him weight training, playing board games, backcountry camping, hiking with his partner and dog, and fostering meaningful friendships.