CED Board of Overseers


	Robert J. Berg is an international consultant and senior advisor to the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa. He has advised a number of UN development initiatives. For many years he led the International Development Conference. Prior to that he was senior fellow of the Overseas Development Council and director of evaluation for USAID and the OECD/DAC. He is a fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and serves on a number of boards of higher education and international development.

	John Blackford is a Management Consultant and Counselor to CEOs of owner-managed industrial companies, working with them in the areas of strategy, organization, operations and finance. Prior to starting his consulting firm in 1984 John was CEO and major stockholder of a small manufacturing company building machinery for the Forest Products Industry, a company which he had helped start in the mid 1950s. John has served on the Boards and as an officer of several statewide non-profit organizations over the past twenty years including The New Hampshire Humanities Council, NH Public Radio, Concord Community Music School and NH Symphony Orchestra. In 1998 John volunteered for an overseas assignment in Kazakstan with International Executive Service Corps. That assignment has led to an ongoing advisory relationship with a small start-up college of management and language in Northwestern Kazakstan.

	Howard Brodsky is founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Carpet One, America's largest floor covering retailer with 1,500 stores in four countries. He entered the family business, Dean's Carpet in Manchester, NH, in 1967 following his graduation from Wesleyan University. The business expanded to become the largest carpet store in New England. Brodsky is former president and former chairman of the American Floorcovering Association, a nationwide trade group he helped form in 1980. In 1997 he was named Retail Entrepreneur of the Year, an award given by Ernst and Young and the NASDAQ Stock Exchange. In 1998 he received the Blue Chip Enterprise Initiative Award from the United States Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member of the Entrepreneur Hall of Fame and in 1985 was named National Retailer of the Year. A New Hampshire native, Brodsky lives in Manchester. He founded and is chairman of the New Hampshire Better Business Bureau, is a former trustee at Notre Dame College, and has been president of the Federated Arts Council in New Hampshire. He has been on the board of directors of the YMCA, the Salvation Army, Junior Miss, Kids University and the Greater Manchester Mental Health Center.

	Larry Connell is a Principal at Promontory Financial Group. He has served as CEO of Household Bank, CEO of Atlantic Bancorp, CEO of New Hampshire Savings Bank Corporation, and was a member of the firm of Prather Seeger Doolittle & Farmer. He was president &CEO of Society for Savings, leading the turnaround efforts in which it was sold to Fleet Boston Financial. He was also President & Chief Operations Officer during the restructuring of Washington Mutual Savings Bank. Mr. Connell advises the Turkish Bank Regulatory Agency. President Carter appointed him to head the National Credit Union Administration. He was also appointed Bank Commissioner for the State of Connecticut, and later joined the U.S. Treasury Department as a Senior Advisor in its Office of Technical Assistance. Mr. Connell received a B.A in economics from Harvard College, an M.A. in economics from Trinity College, and a J.D. from Georgetown University.

	Joyce M. Dickens is founding Board member and President of the Rocky Mount/Edgecombe Community Development Corporation. Ms. Dickens, a life-long resident of Edgecombe County, is former Chair of the Edgecombe County Board of Elections, and Vice-Chair of the Edgecombe County Department of Social Service Board. Her current directorships include the City's Comprehensive Planning Commission; Board Chair and co-founder of the N.C. Community Development Association; Vice-Chair and co-founder of the N.C. Community Development Initiative; and the National Congress of Community Economic Development. Ms. Dickens' work emphasizes political and economic empowerment, and African-American cultural development. She developed the annual Harambee Festival in Rocky Mount, now the largest cultural festival in North Carolina. Her volunteer work includes two decades of political activism. Ms. Dickens was the first African-American person on the Edgecombe County Board of Elections and first to receive the Citizen Distinguished Award presented in 2003 by the area Chamber of Commerce. She holds a Master of Science in CED from New Hampshire College. Peter Drasher worked at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, which later became Natexis Bleichroeder, for 20 years as manager of an international equities trading desk with institutional clients in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. He left in 2006 to found and manage AltruShare Securities, the first institutional brokerage firm specializing in community investment. AltruShare's business model puts purpose on a par with profit. Returns from the otherwise-traditional institutional brokerage will be reinvested in underserved communities through grants and venture investments.

	Denise Fairchild, Ph.D. is an Urban Planner with advanced training and 30 years of experience in community economic development. Special expertise in development financing, community organization and economic development. Strong analytical background, including policy analysis, research design and survey research, and statistical analyses. Experience in fundraising, program development, management and supervision. She is President and Founder of the Community Development Technologies Center in Los Angeles. CDTech is a non-profit community development training, research and technical assistance center. Johnette Hartnett has dedicated her life work on behalf of people with disabilities. She has a doctorate in education and policy, is currently a Vice President with the NCB Development Corporation in Washington, DC, and is a member of the research team and co-principal investigator of the Asset Accumulation and Tax Policy Project (AATPP) at the Law, Health Policy and Disability Center, University of Iowa, College of Law. Luis (Cito) Lorenz worked on Wall Street until 1981 when he went home to run the family business. Cito led several globally competititve agri-food businesses. A recipeint of the AGORA Award for Export Marketing and Philippine Business Leader of the year in 2001. In 2002 Cito was appointed as Secretary of Agriculture and cocurrent Cabinet Officer for Regional Development. In 2005, Cito was appointed as the Presidential Adviser for Jobs Generation. Cito has since left government and is focusing on public service focusing on rural sector sustainable enterprise development initiatives especially focused on impoverished communities. John Eric Nelson is the managing partner of the Wall Street Without Walls initiative, providing financial technical assistance from finance professionals to community-based organizations in order to access the capital markets and for transactions over $3m. Funded by major foundations, WSWW provides capital markets orientation and training programs nationally through the individual banks of the Federal Reserve Bank system and financial technical assistance to community development organizations and public agencies through teams of volunteer finance professionals, including retired and active investment bankers volunteering their expertise as a new form of philanthropy. He earlier served as director of Corporate Partnership Program at the National Congress for Community Development. Funded as part of the Ford Foundation's Corporate Involvement Initiative, the program facilitated market-driven, business case opportunities with community-based development organizations and minority entrepreneurs in joint venture business investments. Mr. Nelson has thirty years experience in community economic development, management consulting, and collaborative environmental policy. He designed and managed the Small Business Opportunity Project for HUD to assist public housing residents plan and run their own businesses. He founded the urban land trust program for the Trust for Public Land and managed non-profit liaison for the Chevrolet-Geo environmental program. Much of his consulting activity has been in the area of multi-sectoral collaboration on behalf of clients in business, government, and the public interest. He is on the Board of Overseers of the School of Community Economic Development at Southern New Hampshire University; the CRA Advisory Board for BB&T's Washington DC area; the Advisory Board for Impact Community Capital and for Partners for the Common Good; and a member of the Economic Development Assistance Consortium. Mr. Nelson is President of the William James Foundation, promoting the development of socially responsible businesses by young adults, including a nationwide business plan competition among business and graduate schools. He is also Chairman of the Board of the newly formed National Mall Conservancy. Mr. Nelson graduated from Yale College and recently co-chaired the class reunion; received his MA degree from the University of Michigan where he also taught social psychology; and has a certification in Community Development Finance from the Milano Graduate School of New School University. He has been a guest lecturer in community development finance at the McDonough Business School at Georgetown University from 2001 to 2008.

	Gus Newport is General Manager of the nation's oldest listener-sponsored radio station -- KPFA 94.1 FM in Berkeley. He is a civil rights leader, former Mayor of Berkeley, California, and a veteran community development advocate, with a 30-year career in public service, academia, and urban regeneration. Gus led the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, a major redevelopment project in Boston, and taught at the University of Massachusetts (Boston), the University of California (Santa Cruz), and Portland State University (Oregon). Prior to KPFA he was a Senior Associate at the Urban Strategies Council in Oakland and an independent consultant in community development.

	William A. Ninacs, Ph.D. is a consultant, researcher and trainer in the fields of community development, community economic development, and the social economy, currently working out of a worker co-operative in Victoriaville, Québec (Canada) that he chairs. He is also the Associate Director of the Canadian CED Network (CCEDNet). His background includes management positions in both the private and the public sectors as well as extensive experience in the community sector where he has helped establish a number of advocacy groups, consumer and worker co-ops, and other community organizations. He has been involved in CED in Canada for over 25 years, notably as the coordinator of Québec's first community development corporation, and as a researcher and an educator in this field, with published works in both French and English. He has taught at both his alma mater, Southern New Hampshire University's School of CED and at Concordia University's Graduate Diploma Program in CED (Social Enterprise Development), an educational program that he helped set up. His Ph.D. is in Social Work (Université Laval) and his dissertation was on the types of empowerment in CED initiatives in Québec. It is one of the few doctoral studies on CED to have been accepted at a Canadian university. For a number of years, Bill chaired the CED training institute based in Montréal, and also helped found the Québec Council on Social Development. He is currently a member of the Advisory Board of Concordia University's Institute of Management and Community Development and of various committees for organizations such as United Way of Montréal, the Québec Public Health Institute and the University-Community Research Alliance (Social Economy) in Québec. As a person with multiple disabilities, Bill has also been involved in numerous social movements concerned with the rights of physically-challenged individuals.

	Joan Parker is Senior Vice President for Organizational Learning of Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI). She is a development economist with 15 years of experience in economic strengthening and growth programming with a focus on microenterprise, microfinance, agriculture, and multi-sectoral HIV/AIDS responses. Dr. Parker leads DAI's initiatives in global technical leadership and excellence. As founder and Director of DAI's HIV/AIDS Response Team (HART), Dr. Parker also heads a global practice in economic responses to HIV/AIDS. HART efforts include pioneering programs integrating HIV/AIDS responses into microenterprise, microfinance, agriculture, natural resource management, legal reform, civil society, and public sector strengthening programs. From 2002-2004, she served as internal director for DAI's corporate Board of Directors. She serves as adjunct faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in the International Development program. She holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State University. She has worked extensively across Africa. Joan is the mother of two sons, Alex and Charlie.

	Roy O. Priest is President & CEO of the National Congress for Community Economic Development (NCCED). He joined NCCED in 1997 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development after 17 years of distinguished service. Previously, he served as director of the Office of Economic Development, where he was responsible for supervision of the Community Development Block Grants and Urban Development Action Grants programs, as well as Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities. He directed the Buffalo HUD office from 1980-1985, where he gained experience with small cities, to complement his experience with large urban areas. Before beginning his tenure at HUD, he worked for the District of Columbia city government, directing such offices as Resource Development and the Office of Policy, Planning, Program Development and Evaluation. He is well known and respected both within Washington and around the country.

	Clifford N. Rosenthal joined the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions (NFCDCU) in 1980 and has served as Executive Director since 1983. NFCDCU represents over 200 credit unions specialized in serving low-income communities. He helped design and later managed one of the earliest community development finance intermediaries in the United States –the Capitalization Program for CDCUs, which invested over $30 million in low-income credit unions. Under his leadership, the National Federation has developed a broad range of programs, ranging from Individual Development Accounts and microlending support to a campus-based professional development program –the CDCU Institute at the School of CED. He has assisted in organizing a dozen new CDCUs, is the primary author of Organizing Credit Unions: A Manual, and coauthored “People’s Credit”: A Study of the Lending of the Lower East Side People’s FCU, 1986-89. He served on the Consumer Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve System, where he won recognition for investments in CDCUs under the Community Reinvestment Act. He has been a member of the Community Advisory Board of the Chase Manhattan Bank (previously, of Chemical Bank) for over a decade, and is a co-founder of the national Community Development Financial Institutions Coalition, which spearheaded the formation of the federal CDFI Fund under the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He also initiated the New York State CDFI Coalition, which won the establishment of a state CDFI Fund. He holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University, where he trained as a Russian historian. He was a Charles Revson Foundation Fellow for the Future of the City of New York and received postgraduate training in the management of financial institutions at Columbia University.

	Denise Viera is Executive Director of the Housing Authority of the Town of Windsor, and a principal with Viera Consultancy. She has over 20 years of housing and community development experience. She has held positions as Community Builder Fellow with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, founding Executive Director of the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, Director of Housing and Community Economic Development for the City of Hartford (CT), Executive Director of the Hartford Neighborhood Housing Coalition, and community organizer in Connecticut and Michigan. Ms. Viera has served on numerous boards and committees including as a gubernatorial appointee to Connecticut's Central Housing Committee, legislative appointee to Connecticut's Blue Ribbon Commission on Affordable Housing, Vice-Chairperson of the Connecticut Housing Coalition and past Vice-Chairperson of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. In addition to her role on the School's Board of Overseers she has also been an adjunct faculty member for the program. She earned a BA in political science and communications from the University of Michigan, an MS in community economic development from New Hampshire College, a JD from the University of Connecticut School of Law and graduate certificates from the Pratt Institute and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

	Kenneth D. Wade is Executive Director of Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation (NRC). As the chief executive, he oversees its multimillion-dollar grant programs and training activities in support of the national NeighborWorks® network of affordable housing and community development organizations. He joined NRC in 1990, and has over 25 years of experience in community development. He served as NRC's Director of National Programs, Initiatives, and Research. In this role, he directed all national programmatic initiatives for the Corporation, including the NeighborWorks Campaign for Home Ownership, the Multifamily Initiative, the Insurance Alliance, the Rural Initiative, and the Resident Leadership Initiatives. He has also overseen the development of national partnerships on behalf of the NeighborWorks network. He served for eight years as District Director for NRC's New England district. Prior to joining NRC, Wade worked for nine years with Boston's United South End Settlements. He participated in the development of the Community Investment Plan in Boston established by local banks and the Community Investment Coalition. He has served as a community board member of the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation (a consortium of banks that provides financing for affordable housing development) and the State Attorney General's representative on the Home Improvement Contractor Advisory Panel for the State of Massachusetts. He also served on the advisory committee for the Affordable Housing Program of the Boston Federal Home Loan Bank and the Boston Federal Reserve Bank Community Development Advisory Committee. He studied at Springfield College and University of Massachusetts College of Public and Community Service.

	Robert Zevin heads his own investment advisory firm specializing in socially responsible investing. He has been a founder and leader of the socially responsible investment movement since 1967, served on the boards of twelve foundations and more than a dozen other social change organizations in the public and private sectors, usually as chair or treasurer. Robert has always been a social change activist. In the movement against the war in Vietnam he founded Resist and the United States Servicemen's Fund. He wrote and testified extensively during the anti-apartheid struggle, especially about divestment of South Africa related securities. The for-profit companies on whose boards Robert has served were all small firms with a focus on social change or environmental responsibility. Robert has also been active in Affirmative Investments, which he founded to advise investors interested in these kinds of small companies, and in Shared Interest, which he helped found to provide support to microlending programs in South Africa. Robert is trained as an economist and mathematician. He is the author of two books and numerous articles in popular and academic journals about contemporary affairs or economic history. He has taught at six colleges and universities, including Berkeley, Columbia and Harvard.