Meet the Project Redwood Board

My entry into nonprofit began in 2008, I was hooked after seeing Bruce Springsteen in concert shouting, “Nobody wins unless everybody wins.”  Bruce reminded me that with privilege comes responsibility, that those fortunate enough to have a Stanford MBA have much to give back. Gandhi said that the mark of any civilization is how it treats its most vulnerable citizens — are there any citizens more vulnerable than the impoverished?  

Project Redwood offers us the unique opportunity to pool our time and talent, wealth and wisdom, in the fight against poverty. This isn’t just about writing checks; the vision is much bigger. Our aspiration is to become the GSB’s signature social impact platform, rallying mission-minded alums to take on poverty in a way that actually moves the needle. Forget chasing unicorn status—we’re chasing a world where fewer people go to bed hungry. 

Our work is an epic showdown between the Immovable Object and the Unstoppable Force. The Immovable Object is everything we’re up against: hate, darkness, poverty, injustice. The Unstoppable Force is everything we stand for: love, light, compassion, justice. The age-old battle between good and evil — and we can’t let the bad guys win.

So please join us! We want your energy, ideas, and passion. Let’s create a movement that even Springsteen will shout about.

Social Impact Experience

• Executive Director New York Mortgage Coalition 
• Executive Director NYPACE
• Founding Chair of the Yale Alumni Nonprofit Alliance – YANA

In early 2025, I retired from a 30-year IT career and transitioned to nonprofit work, seeking to improve lives in disadvantaged communities.  With four grown boys, my wife and I now divide time between our 25-year home in the Chicago area, Miami, and Traverse City, Michigan.

Besides my work at Project Redwood, I serve as a board member at grant recipient THRIVEGulu and an advisor to our family’s private school in Northern India serving 1,300 under-resourced students.

I learned about Project Redwood in April 2022 and have increased my respect and interest in the organization steadily since.  To me, the most striking thing about Project Redwood has been the team of GSB alumni making it all happen.  The high-functioning results-oriented leadership of Project Redwood far exceeds that of all the other non-profit volunteer programs I’ve seen.

I am honored to be the first non-1980 alum to serve as Project Redwood Co-Chair.  To me, the most important issue for us over the next few years is finding people from numerous classes who value our mission and appreciate the camaraderie of working alongside fellow GSB alumni.

I’m a founder – proud to have been part of Project Redwood from our class’ first conversations about “what might we do together to give back?”

Why?

To put myself through college I took the best part-time job I could find – at a hospital – and lived near a community burned out after ML King’s assassination. And there I learned about resilience and the great potential of smarts, talent, and love in that community,  like so many around the world. Project Redwood’s  goal: release it!  Bottom up.

My work at Project Redwood has been administrative: liaison to our fiscal sponsors Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and Tides as we learned about grant-making, and CFO now as I helped PRW emerge as an independent 501c3  Keepin’ the wheels on – and keepin’ ‘em rollin’.

I’m a Midwestern native but have spent my life in California since graduating from the University of Missouri.  After a short time working as a computer programmer at UC Irvine, I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where I became a project leader, then programming department head in the insurance industry.  I applied to the GSB and was accepted into the Class of 1980.  Following graduation, I served as VP of Administration for a newly formed company, again in the insurance industry.  I retired early and began devoting my time to the non-profit arena.

I have volunteered for 30 years, including recently as Board Chair, at Until There’s A Cure Foundation, a non-profit which sells products to raise funds for and to build awareness of HIV/AIDS (UNTIL.org).  I am also part of the initial group from the GSB Class of 1980 that created Project Redwood following our 25th reunion.  I have served as co-chair of Project Redwood, on the Board, and on many committees.

Project Redwood has become a significant part of my life for multiple reasons – the significant impact that we have had in alleviating poverty around the world, the chance to meet remarkable social entrepreneurs working on the ground to increase standards of living in poor and underserved populations, and the reward of working with amazing GSB alumni who are committed to our common cause.

My involvement with Project Redwood began 4 years ago when I retired. I have volunteered with and served on the boards of other not-for-profit organizations, but what drew me to Project Redwood is its wide reach, investing in the United States and International organizations, and its mission to support programs that directly impact poverty.

I began my career in Public Health but after eight years of decreasing federal and state funds, I began looking into opportunities in private sector health care. I applied and was admitted to the GSB, graduating in 1988. I continued to focus on health care and spent 30 years consulting and working with low-income and underserved populations in the US and overseas, building health management and prevention programs. 

Project Redwood has opened my eyes to the extent and depth of poverty around the world and the myriads of organizations that are using new methods and technologies to assist people in improving their standard of living. The experience with Project Redwood has been especially rewarding as I am fortunate to work with like-minded, smart, and resourceful GSB alumni.

What first drew me to Project Redwood was the opportunity to learn about effective management of philanthropy. No surprise that I found GSB alumni involved with Project Redwood to be compassionate, highly organized, as well as successful in grantmaking, project oversight, and fundraising.  Working with and learning from this diverse group of GSB alumni has been such a pleasure!  

Now that I’m semi-retired after careers in litigation consulting, management consulting, and civil rights enforcement, I’m free to devote much more time to good causes I can be passionate about. That includes not only Project Redwood, but also GSB Women’s Circles, and Multicolores, which supports indigenous women artists in Guatemala and develops markets for their ingenious and colorful work.  What I’ve been fortunate enough to learn through Project Redwood has truly benefited work for other causes and, most important, the people they serve. 

I’ve been a member of Project Redwood since 2019, and currently serve on the Executive Committee of the Board and as Co-Chair of the Grant Review Committee.  A New England native, I have lived in New York City since 1998, where I have volunteered for local organizations that provide educational and job training opportunities for disadvantaged youth and young adults.  

After graduating from Stanford’s GSB, I worked in telecommunications product management before pursuing a career in finance.  As a Managing Director at MidCap Advisors, LLC, I provide mergers and acquisitions advisory services to entrepreneurs and owners of middle market companies.  I’m an avid tennis player and outdoors enthusiast.  

I retired in 2019 from a varied career in tech, publishing, consulting and non-profit leadership.  Throughout my paid work life, I had a parallel career as a non-profit board volunteer in social impact organizations working for equity and social justice for women and girls. 

I’m proud to be among the founding leaders of Project Redwood in 2006. We designed the fledgling organization to address a human need that would attract a broad number of GSB alumni: global poverty. Once I retired from paid work, I was able to step up my Project Redwood commitment, bringing development experience from my career CEO position.

It’s wonderful to see the commitment of GSB grads at all life stages, from recent grads to the long-retired. In addition to feeling very gratified by the meaningful work we’re doing, I’ve deepened friendships with classmates I barely knew when we were busy at the GSB. And I’ve gained wonderful relationships with GSB alumni from many classes.  I should have known that alumni from all GSB classes are organized and quite clever! 

For twenty years, I served on the Board of Trustees of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and the TCS Education System.  Over that period, this institution grew from three hundred students to ten thousand students and six locations nationwide. 

For more than ten years, I distributed groceries at Heartland/Vital Bridge’s food pantry to folks who are HIV positive in what was then the most dangerous neighborhood in Chicago.  I’ve been involved with a community organization on the west side of the city, particularly in their economic development programs. Also, I have volunteered on dozens of consulting efforts for non-profits, in which projects included a compensation study for a community group in Pilsen, and a strategic plan for a university security department.  For several years, I was Treasurer and Clerk of Stewardship (building and grounds) for 57th Street (Quaker) Meeting.

Professionally, I am a private equity investor, first in leveraged buyouts, and later in healthcare startups.  I graduated from Amherst College in addition to being a Sloan Scholar at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.  On a personal note, in the summer, I have a weakness for blueberry pie.

I bring a broad spectrum of professional experiences to Project Redwood.  While raising 2 daughters, I earned my entrepreneurial stripes as owner and president of a company that developed children’s bath products.  Earlier in my career, I spent several years at McKinsey & Co. where I had the opportunity to serve clients in Texas, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.  I currently serve on the board of a privately-held polyurethane manufacturer.

My family has made Pacific Palisades, CA our home for over 25 years.  I’ve supported our local community in various volunteer roles around education, domestic violence and homelessness.  I was delighted to be introduced to Project Redwood a few years ago, and now am honored to serve on the Board.

I love running on the trails near home and swimming in warm water (for which I have to travel).

I joined Project Redwood in 2021, and became a member of Project Redwood’s Board in 2024. My initial role with Project Redwood was as a member of the Grant Review Committee, under the leadership of Barnaby Grist and Rich Jerdonek. I have served on this Committee since 2022, as we annually evaluate and recommend which applicant nonprofits should receive grants.   Along the way, I was fortunate to sponsor Women Initiating Success Envisioned, Inc (WISE), a women’s reentry program led by Executive Director Jackie Reed. Their mission is to help formerly incarcerated women in the San Diego area get their lives moving in a positive direction through employment, housing and other support services. As sponsor of WISE, I have known and supported Jackie over time in growing the grantee organization she founded.  

What has  particularly impressed me about Project Redwood, is how this volunteer organization utilizes resources and individual talent to effectively fund projects that  address poverty. I get tremendous satisfaction from being a part of Project Redwood and the work undertaken to combat poverty globally, as well as in the U.S.A. I also enjoy the collaborative and inclusive spirit of my peers in Project Redwood, exemplified by Carla Williams and Mary Pruiett.  “

On a business trip to the Bay Area, I squeezed in time to meet two GSB classmates at the Cantor Arts Center on the Stanford campus before getting on a plane back to the East Coast.  We roamed the galleries, chatting about our lives and interests.

I had toggled in the insurance industry between advising consulting clients on growth and assuming executive responsibilities for driving growth.  But more recently I had been contemplating how to step away, devote more time and energy to supporting people in need and re-till my relationships with friends and acquaintances that I had allowed to go fallow.

My GSB classmates, both Project Redwood volunteers, exuded that strong camaraderie that comes from working together on a worthwhile pursuit.  They spilled over with stories of their admiration for resourceful grantees and their never-ending efforts to make Project Redwood even better.  They were full of funny vignettes about working closely with talented and caring colleagues.  

I concluded on the spot that I wanted in on fighting global poverty alongside fellow GSB alumni.  As I approached retirement over the next couple of years, my husband and I added Project Redwood’s mission to fight global poverty to our philanthropic interests in land conservation and preparing enlisted veterans for success in higher education, which we support with our time, experience and resources.  

My pre-Stanford-GSB education was in psychobiology at UC Santa Cruz, and the neurophysiology PhD program at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. I switched from science into biotech way back when.  My first business trip was to Karachi, Pakistan, for a WHO program in developing-country contraception.

I never looked back from the mixture of health, business, and patient care.  40 years later, I’m just retiring after 3 CEO jobs, multiple COO jobs at large med tech companies and 4 venture capital companies.  I was never rich, but did well and loved most of it.  I found my way back to Project Redwood once life slowed down. Here, I have not only great colleagues, but the mission is pure and achievements inspiring.  

Professionally, I am Executive Director for the Downtown Association of Santa Cruz, CA. (www.DowntownSantaCruz.com) 

I’m proud of leading Opportunity Collaboration for over a decade, supporting a global network of leaders building sustainable solutions to poverty (www.ocimpact.com).