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.

	The Reverend Luis Cortés, Jr. is the president and CEO of Esperanza USA, the largest Hispanic faith-based community development corporation in the country. Beginning in Philadelphia with programs targeted to address the many unmet needs in Philadelphia's Hispanic community, The Reverend Cortés has become a leader in building Hispanic owned institutions nationwide. Today, with a national network of 10,000 Hispanic faith and community based agencies; Esperanza USA is one of the leading voices for Hispanics in America. In January 2005, The Reverend Cortés was featured as one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals" and was honored to be asked to speak at the National Prayer Service the morning after the President's Inauguration. Esperanza USA's cornerstone initiative is the Hispanic Capacity Project. With operations in Orlando, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, Southern California, Northern and Southern New Jersey and Seattle, the project provides capacity building, technical assistance and small grants to Hispanic faith-based agencies. In July, 2004 Esperanza USA launched Esperanza Trabajando (Hope is Working), an $11 million, 9-city 3-year project working with Latino at-risk and adjudicated youth. Funded by the Department of Labor, the project is transforming lives from unemployed aimlessness and a troubled future into career-oriented lifetime employment. The project will expand Esperanza USA's operations to Chicago, Dallas, Denver and Houston. Other Esperanza USA national projects include Hogares de Esperanza (Homes of Hope), a national homebuilding, mortgage and financial counseling initiative and Pacto de Esperanza (Pledge of Hope), a national HIV/AIDS education initiative. Esperanza USA began in 1987 in Philadelphia when The Reverend Cortés founded Nueva Esperanza. Today, the Philadelphia operations include a charter high school, a junior college, homebuilding, mortgage counseling and employment training programs. A $28 million economic development project is creating a Latino Corridor in North Philadelphia transforming vacant lots and abandoned buildings into a vibrant commercial corridor surrounding by new and renovated homes. The Rev. Cortés recently served as Vice Chair of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board of Pittsburgh. Governor Rendell has nominated The Rev. Cortés to the Pennsylvania Minority Business Development Authority. Philadelphia Mayor John Street named Rev. Cortés to the City's Workforce Investment Board. The Rev. Cortés is the founder and executive director of the Hispanic Clergy of Philadelphia and is also one of the founders of United Bank, the first African-American owned commercial bank in Pennsylvania. Raised in Spanish Harlem, The Reverend Cortés credits his childhood experiences, a stable family life and the Latino faith community for his many successes. He has devoted his life to empowering others to acquire economic stability, so they may also encourage their family and community to achieve that same goal. The Reverend Cortés graduated with honors from City College, NY, earned a Masters of Divinity as an Urban Theology Fellow from Union Theological Seminary, and an MS in Economic Development from New Hampshire College.

	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.

	Samuel Kaymen, Founder and Chairman of Stonyfield Farm, was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He studied Chemistry at Brooklyn College and Electrical Engineering at City College of New York. In the 1960’s he founded Spacewhite Industries, which built clean rooms for the Aerospace Industry. He is founder and past President of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the American Association for Contamination Control. He studied Bio-Dynamic Agriculture with Herbert Koepf and Peter Escher, and went on to serve as a Director on the board of the Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association. In 1971 he founded the Northeast Organic Farmers Association and served as President for ten years. He founded and served as Director of The Rural Education Center, an organic farming school in Wilton, NH. He served on the administrative council of the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program of the USDA, and is presently Vice-President of EARTH University Foundation, a nonprofit international university contributing to the sustainable development of the humid tropics through education in the agricultural sciences and natural resources. Samuel founded Stonyfield Farm in 1983. Samuel, his wife Louise and their six children milked, fed and cared for the small herd of Jersey cows, and made the first batches of Stonyfield Farm Yogurt in a little room off their barn. After 17 years in the yogurt-making business, Samuel is going out to pasture with the rest of the cows! Samuel and Louise are growing their own food, cutting their own firewood and getting their electricity from the sun. They are the grandparents of six beautiful, lively children, who are being raised on Stonyfield Farm Yogurt!

	Kate McKee – World Bank, Senior Advisor on Policy, Poverty Outreach and Aid Effectiveness, CGAP, USA From 1998-2006, Kate McKee served as Director of the Microenterprise Development (MD)Division of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). MD provides technical leadership and field support for USAID's comprehensive microenterprise development programs, which average annual funding of $180 million and support microfinance, business development services, and microenterprise enabling environment improvements in over 50 countries. Before joining USAID, Ms. McKee was a senior manager at Self-Help, a $1 billion-plus nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) in North Carolina. She also took leave from Self-Help to lead establishment of the federal CDFI Fund, which provides equity, debt and grant financing to CDFIs across the US. From 1978-1986, Ms. McKee spent eight years with the Ford Foundation, including three years in its West Africa field office in Lagos, Nigeria, supporting programs in the areas of finance, rural development, civil society-building, smallholder agriculture, and women's empowerment. Ms. McKee is an economist with a Bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College and a Masters in Public and International Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University. Kirsten Moy heads the Economic Opportunities Program at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., which promotes learning about highly promising poverty alleviation, self-employment, and employment strategies. She came to the Aspen Institute directly from the Community Development Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative (CDIII), where she served as director of a national research project on the future of community development and community development finance. She joined EOP in April 2001. Kirsten has been a distinguished visitor with the Human and Community Development program of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, and served in the Clinton administration as director of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI) at the US Department of Treasury.

	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). He 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.

	Ellen Seidman is the Senior Managing Director/National Practice at Shorebank Advisory Services (SAS). SAS is the consulting affiliate of Shorebank, the first and largest development bank in the United States. Prior to joining SAS, Ms. Seidman served as Senior Counsel to the Democratic staff of the Financial Services Committee of the United States House of Representatives. From 1997 to 2001, Ms. Seidman was the Director of the U.S Treasury Department's Office of Thrift Supervision, heading the 1,200 person bureau responsible for regulating more than 1,000 savings associations around the U.S. Simultaneously, she was a Director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Chairman of the Board of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation. From 1993 to 1997, Ms. Seidman served as Special Assistant for Economic Policy to President Clinton. She has also held senior positions at Fannie Mae, the United States Treasury Department and the United States Department of Transportation. Ms. Seidman sits on the boards of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Center on Federal Financial Institutions, and on the Board of Overseers of the School of Community Economic Development at Southern New Hampshire University and the Eastern Regional Board of Operation Hope. She holds a bachelor's degree from Radcliffe College, a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and an MBA in finance and investments from George Washington University. She has also completed the Senior Executive Fellows Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Dan Sheehy has 20 years of community economic development experience and 30 years of senior management experience in the financial services and public benefit sectors, Mr. Sheehy is an industry leader known for developing creative investment opportunities that are attractive to private capital markets. Since taking over as President and Chief Executive Officer of Impact in January 1999, Mr. Sheehy has tapped into his extensive expertise in the fields of banking, real estate and state housing finance. A nationally recognized expert in community development finance, Mr. Sheehy has been featured in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, the Journal of Commerce, and Community Investments (published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco). Highly regarded by senior staff of rating agencies, Mr. Sheehy has served as a key speaker and panelist for conferences around the United States including the National Association of Independent Insurers, the Association of California Life and Health Insurance Companies, and the Property Insurance Report National Investment Conference. He is the former president and founder of ARGO Partners, Inc., a firm that provided advisory services to governments and agencies located outside the continental United States, as well as financial entities within the United States. Mr. Sheehy also served as principal and co-founder of TIBOR Partners, Inc. between 1993 and 1997. From 1987 until 1997, he was senior vice president of the State of New York Mortgage Agency where he managed a public benefit corporation and a major originator of residential mortgages for affordable housing with a portfolio in excess of $4 billion par amount. Steven Shulman is active in investment banking through his wholly owned company The Hampton Group. Currently Mr. Shulman serves as a Director of Ark Restaurants Corp., Beacon Capital Partners, and several private companies. He is also on the advisory boards of Trimaran Fund II, LLC and the Latona Fund. Mr. Shulman is a graduate of Stevens Institute of Technology where he received a Bachelors Degree in mechanical engineering, a Masters Degree in industrial management, and was awarded a Doctorate in engineering. Mr. Shulman serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Stevens Institute of Technology.

	Gregory M. Stanton is the director of a foundation-funded program called the Capital Markets Access Program (CMA). CMA is a specialized financial technical assistance provided to nonprofit organizations with medium to large economic development initiatives seeking access to the capital markets, in the form of debt and other forms of structured finance. He founded a financial thinktank for comprehensive financial markets product R&D efforts. Advisor to entrepreneurs and start-up companies. Recently President and CEO of Dover Finance Corporation, a financial services, a structured finance thinktank to underwrite through Merrill Lynch the hard-to-finance assets of highly leveraged companies. He was capital markets banker with Drexel Burnham Lambert during the 1980’s and Daiwa Securities America during the early 90’s. Mr. Stanton received his MBA from Babson College, and BA from Boston College. He is a board member of NCBDC, Children’s Progress, and Chair of the Wall Street without Walls Advisory Board. He is a Visiting Lecturer to Georgetown McDonough MBA Program and the New School University Milano Program, a Lead Speaker at Asset Securitization, Emerging Markets Conference, Ireland.

	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.

	Joseph C. Wheeler is a Senior Consultant. His assignments have included The Rockefeller Foundation, UNFPA, Earth Council, UNDP, UNCHS (Habitat), OECD and USAID. He received a BA from Bowdoin College, M.A. and M.P.A. degrees from Harvard's Littauer School of Public Administration (now the Kennedy School of Government), and studied at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. Mr. Wheeler had a long and illustrious career for over thirty years with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Peace Corps and the United Nations. At USAID he served as Mission Director in Jordan, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Near East and South Asia, Mission Director in Pakistan, Assistant Administrator for the Near East, and Deputy Administrator of USAID. He worked at the Peace Corps in Washington and India. He served as the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director. Other United Nations roles included Chairman of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in Paris, Director for Program Integration of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit) in Geneva, and serving in the Environment Program. He is a member of the boards of Population Action International (Emeritus), Pathfinder International (Emeritus), The Thoreau Society, The Thoreau Farm Trust, and the Town of Concord Historical Commission.

	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.