PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 3, 2026--
Relay Resources, the Pacific Northwest’s leading social enterprise nonprofit committed to advancing disability inclusion in the workplace, has added two senior leaders to its executive team: Oscar Rico-Cazares was named Vice President, Employee Experience and Talent Management, while Paulien van Uden was promoted to Vice President of Business Transformation.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260204768060/en/
As Vice President, Employee Experience and Talent Management, Rico-Cazares will design and execute a disability-centric talent strategy that supports the success, growth, and well-being of disabled and non-disabled Relay employees. Van Uden, as Vice President of Business Transformation, will play a key role in advancing Relay’s most important initiatives, including leading Relay’s enterprise transformation efforts to advance the organization’s operational excellence, mission impact, and sustainable growth.
“The addition of Oscar and Paulien is key to achieving our ambitious growth targets at Relay,” said Relay Resources CEO, Chief Disability Inclusion Officer, and President Dr. Jennifer Camota Luebke. “Paulien has been an asset leading our Enterprise Project Management Office, and we’re excited for her continued leadership in her new role. Oscar’s long track record of human resources expertise, uplifting minoritized communities, and designing employee experience programs make him a great fit for our team.”
Oscar Rico-Cazares, Vice President, Employee Experience and Talent Management
With expertise in organizational operations, human resources, and workplace culture, Rico-Cazares has spent more than a decade as a progressive leader working in HR and beyond.
Most recently, he spent three and a half years at the nonprofit Latino Network, serving as Director of Human Resources before becoming Director of Human Resources & Benefits in 2023, then taking on the role of Interim Deputy Director of Workplace Culture and Operations in 2025. As deputy director, he supported Latino Network’s management and the organization’s $25 million budget, ensuring alignment between programs, operations, and strategic priorities.
Rico-Cazares currently serves on the board of Adelante Mujeres, a nonprofit that addresses the needs of marginalized immigrant Latina women. Before joining Latino Network, he worked for six years at HR consulting company Xenium HR, serving as Human Resources Business Partner for his last three years there.
Rico-Cazares has a bachelor of arts in Business Administration: Human Resources Management and a master of arts in Educational Leadership and Policy, both from Portland State University. He is a certified coach in CliftonStrengths—a development tool for leadership, learning and professional growth—and earned a certificate in adult learning as part of his master's degree.
Paulien van Uden, Vice President of Business Transformation
Van Uden joined Relay Resources in 2024, where she built and scaled the organization’s Enterprise Project Management Office (EPMO), helping to shape a culture of structured delivery and change adoption. This led her to becoming Relay’s Enterprise EPMO Director until taking on the Vice President of Business Transformation role this month.
Before joining Relay, van Uden served as a consultant, supporting organizations in turning complex strategies into actionable programs with measurable outcomes. She started her career at Nike, where she spent over 18 years working on large-scale business transformation efforts and initiatives spanning innovation, manufacturing, sourcing, supply chain, and sustainability.
Throughout her career, van Uden has made intentional transitions to align her work more closely with purpose, reflecting a long-standing desire to apply her expertise in service of mission-driven organizations like Relay.
Originally from the Netherlands, van Uden moved to the United States for her career 10 years ago and now lives in the Portland area. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Facility Management from Hogeschool Wageningen and is certified in change management through Prosci and in program management via Cadence.
Dr. Camota Luebke adds that Rico-Cazares and van Uden’s people-driven skills made them particularly exciting hires. “Their dedication to uplifting people in their prior workplaces shows their character,” she says. “Oscar’s ability to work with our talented team of employees to support their success, coupled with Paulien’s ability to move our organizational goals forward, will help us tremendously in our mission.”
About Relay Resources
Relay Resources is the leading disability social enterprise nonprofit in the Pacific Northwest, with a mission to transform workplaces and communities by championing disability inclusion. The organization employs over 950 team members in four lines of business: Building Solutions, which includes janitorial, landscaping, and floor care services; Document Solutions; Supply Chain Solutions; and Disability Inclusion and Accessibility Consulting Services. Additionally, Relay operates three programs: Competitive Integrated Employment, which places and supports disabled people in competitive jobs in the community; abilIT, a cybersecurity and technology training and job placement program; and Affordable Housing, which manages 760 units for 1,500 residents, 27% of whom have a household member with a disability. Learn more at relayresources.org.
Relay welcomes Paulien van Uden, Vice President of Business Transformation, and Oscar Rico-Cazares, Vice President of Employee Experience and Talent Management to their Executive Team.
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinians gathered on both sides of Gaza’s border with Egypt on Tuesday hoping to pass through the Rafah crossing, after its reopening the previous day was marred by delays, interrogations and uncertainty over who would be allowed to cross.
On the Egyptian side were Palestinians who fled Gaza earlier in the Israel-Hamas war to seek medical treatment, according to Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News television. On the Gaza side, Palestinians in need of medical care that is unavailable in Gaza gathered at a hospital before ambulances moved toward Rafah, hoping for word that they would be allowed to cross the other way.
The office of the North Sinai governor confirmed Tuesday that an unknown number of patients and their companions had crossed from Gaza into Egypt.
The bus with about 40 Palestinians that entered Gaza via Rafah on Tuesday arrived at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis early Wednesday morning, where their families welcomed them after spending the entire day waiting.
Though hailed as a step forward for the fragile ceasefire struck in October, it took more than 10 hours for only about a dozen returnees and a small group of medical evacuees to cross in each direction on the first day Rafah reopened.
Three women who crossed into Gaza on Monday told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Israeli troops blindfolded and handcuffed them, then interrogated and threatened them, holding them for several hours before they were released.
The numbers permitted to cross on Monday fell well short of the 50 people that officials had said would be allowed each way and barely began to address the needs of tens of thousands of Palestinians who are hoping to be evacuated for treatment or to return home.
The import of humanitarian aid or goods through Rafah remains prohibited.
Evacuation efforts on Tuesday morning converged around a Red Crescent hospital in Khan Younis, where a World Health Organization team arrived and a vehicle carrying patients and their relatives rolled in from another hospital. Then the group of WHO vehicles and Palestinian ambulances headed toward Rafah to await crossing.
As the sick, wounded and displaced waited to cross in both directions, health officials said the small number allowed to exit so far paled beside Gaza's tremendous needs. Two years of fighting destroyed much of its medical infrastructure and left hospitals struggling to treat trauma injuries, amputations and chronic conditions like cancer.
In Gaza City, Shifa Hospital director Mohamed Abu Selmiya called the pace “crisis management, not a solution to the crisis,” imploring Israel to permit the importing of medical supplies and equipment. He wrote on Facebook: “Denying the evacuation of patients and preventing the entry of medicines is a death sentence for them.”
U.N. and WHO officials said the trickle of patients allowed out and restrictions on bringing in desperately needed supplies are prolonging a disastrous situation in Gaza.
"Rafah must function as a real humanitarian corridor so we can have a surge in aid deliveries,” said Tom Fletcher, the U.N.'s top relief official.
Palestinian Red Crescent spokesperson Raed al-Nims told AP that only 16 patients with chronic conditions or war wounds, accompanied by 40 relatives, were brought from Khan Younis to the Gaza side of Rafah on Tuesday — less than the 45 patients and wounded the Red Crescent was told would be allowed.
After days of anticipation over the reopening, hope lingered that it might mark a meaningful first step. In Khan Younis, Iman Rashwan waited for hours until her mother and sister returned from Egypt, hoping others would soon see their loved ones again.
Officials say the number of crossings could gradually increase if the system works, with Israel and Egypt vetting those allowed in and out. But security concerns and bureaucratic snags quickly tempered expectations raised by officials who for weeks had cast reopening as a major step in the ceasefire deal.
There were delays on Monday over disagreements about luggage allowances. Returnees were carrying more than anticipated with them, requiring additional negotiations, a person familiar with the situation told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the diplomatic matter.
“They didn’t let us cross with anything,” Rotana Al-Regeb said as she returned around midnight Monday to Khan Younis. “They emptied everything before letting us through. We were only allowed to take the clothes on our backs and one bag per person.”
The initial number of Palestinians allowed to cross is mostly symbolic. Israeli and Egyptian officials have said that 50 medical evacuees would depart — along with two caregiver escorts — and 50 Palestinians who left during the war would return.
At that pace, long waits are facing most of the roughly 20,000 sick and wounded people who Gaza’s Health Ministry has said need treatment abroad. About 150 hospitals across Egypt are ready to receive patients, authorities said.
Who and what would be allowed through Rafah was a central concern for both Israel and Egypt.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that anyone who wants to leave will eventually be permitted to do so, but Egypt has repeatedly said the Rafah crossing must open in both directions, fearing Israel could use it to push Palestinians out of Gaza.
Reopening the crossing is considered key as the ceasefire agreement moves into a complicated second phase. That calls for installing a new Palestinian committee to govern Gaza, deploying an international security force, disarming Hamas and taking steps to begin rebuilding.
In a meeting Tuesday with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff in Jerusalem, Netayanhu repeated Israel’s “uncompromising demand” that Hamas be disarmed before any reconstruction begins, the prime minister’s office said.
Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said Ahmed Abdel-Al, 19, was shot and killed by Israeli troops on Tuesday morning in a part of the southern Gaza City, some distance away from the area under the Israeli military's control.
Israel's military said it was not immediately aware of any shootings in the area.
Abdel-Al was the latest of the 529 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire since the Oct. 10 start of the ceasefire, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. They are among more than 71,800 Palestinians killed since the start of the war, according to the ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
The ministry, part of Gaza’s Hamas-led government, keeps detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Josef Federman and Sam Metz in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Palestinian patients ride a bus in Khan Younis as they travel to the Rafah crossing to leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment abroad, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Returnees arrive in a bus at Nasser Hospital after a group of 12 Palestinians was allowed into Gaza from Egypt following the long-awaited reopening of the Rafah border crossing, which was marred by delays, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, early Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Najat Rubaie, center right, embraces one of her grandsons after they arrive with their mother as part of a group of about a dozen Palestinian returnees allowed into Gaza following the long-awaited reopening of the Rafah border crossing, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, early Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
The family of Huda Abu Abed, a 60-year-old heart patient, carries her belongings after she and 11 other returnees were allowed into Gaza from Egypt following the long-awaited reopening of the Rafah border crossing, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, early Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A U.N. vehicle escorts ambulances and a bus carrying Palestinian patients in Khan Younis as they travel to the Rafah crossing to leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment abroad, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinian patients ride a bus in Khan Younis as they travel to the Rafah crossing to leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment abroad, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
