Thaden and founder Paul Bradley to work together through six-month transition
CONCORD, N.H. – The second president of ROC USA has arrived.
Emily Thaden, a national advocate for affordable homeownership, succeeds Paul Bradley, who launched ROC USA in 2008. The two will work together through a six-month transition period, with Thaden serving as President and Bradley as CEO. In January, Bradley will move full time to Integrity Community Solutions, a ROC USA subsidiary whose mission is to purchase manufactured home community portfolios, stabilize them and provide individual community groups the opportunity to purchase through ROC USA’s traditional co-op model.
Thaden has extensive experience in the shared-equity space, making her an ideal leader to guide ROC USA into the future. She has served as the Vice President of National Strategy at Grounded Solutions Network, where she spent more than a decade scaling shared equity homeownership and community land trusts. During her tenure, she led the organization’s policy and research departments, notably developing financing solutions and field standardization initiatives to drive increased affordability and impact.
“For years, I’ve admired ROC USA’s dedication to providing a secure and affordable housing solution that fosters stability and pride,” Thaden said. “Now more than ever, I firmly believe that manufactured home communities, when owned by the residents themselves, offer a crucial solution to the ongoing national housing crisis.”
Most recently, Thaden served as Senior Director of Housing Solutions at Habitat for Humanity International. She is widely published on the topic of shared equity including in Housing Studies, Urban Geography, Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, Social Science Quarterly, Shelterforce, and numerous reports published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Beyond her professional accomplishments, she served as Vice Chair on the Board of Commissioners for Nashville’s housing authority, the Metropolitan Development & Housing Agency.
“I could not be more pleased with Emily’s appointment or more confident about the future of resident ownership with Emily at the helm,” Bradley said. “She’s the right person, and she has the right expertise to lead the social venture to a new level of scale and impact.”