Our Leadership – dev

STAFF

The Board of Directors thanks One Can Help staff. They run all the day-to-day details that make One Can Help so effective.

Isil Waxman, Program Director
Ms. Waxman has 15 years of experience in hospital operations, facilities planning, project management and development, strategic planning and fiscal management. Isil has devoted her time to family and community through her volunteer efforts. For several years, she organized toy and clothing drives for the underserved in Boston. She has also worked with nonprofits on their strategic plans and branding. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Meadowbrook School of Weston, the Board of Trustees for ThinkGive Inc, a local, small nonprofit dedicated to teaching kindness to children, and the Board of Trustees of the Country Garden Club of Weston. She holds a B.S. in Applied Physiology from Boston University and an M.B.A. from Suffolk University.

Jennifer Martin, Project Manager
Ms. Martin (no relation to Anne), has managed various projects for One Can Help since 2012, including foundation relations, database creation and event registration. Prior to working with OCH, she was the project manager at Princeton of a large, federally-funded national survey of legal immigrants. Ms. Martin received her B.A. in French and Chemistry from Grinnell College, her M.S. in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her Master of Liberal Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania with a focus on community organizing. She lives in Newton with her husband and young children and volunteers her time with several community-building organizations.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS
We are grateful to all our board members, past and present, who helped create One Can Help. Without everyone’s special talents, we would never be able to do this important work. One Can Help truly stands on the shoulders of giants.

Theresa Fitzpatrick
Ms. Fitzpatrick operates an event planning business for the personal and corporate markets, bringing knowledge and experience of developing creative, unique solutions that are optimized for locale, budget and tone. With her corporate client base, she has applied her years in industry to the disciplines of realistic budgeting, vendor and venue selection, logistics and contingency planning, producing results which meet or exceed the expectations of her constituents.

Corie Fletcher
Mr. Fletcher is a financial service tax technology professional with KPMG, an international public accounting service firm. His work experience, skillsets, network, and passion for helping others will surely expand One Can Help’s reach to help more families. He lives in Charlton, MA with his wife and two young children.

Barbara Gaffin
Ms. Gaffin is a four-decade veteran of Jewish organizational life, particularly in community relations, international affairs and public policy. Currently, she is the principal of Gaffin Consulting, which provides project management in the public interest and, in addition to serving on numerous regional and national boards, is a creator of custom-made Judaic art. She served on the Advisory Council for One Can Help prior to joining the board.

Diane Gardener
Ms. Gardener is a newly retired attorney with early career experience at DCF followed by 30 years at the Boston University Office of the General Counsel. She attended law school at the University of Pennsylvania and has been interested in helping One Can Help serve its mission for some time.

Ray Molly Goldberg, Founding Board Member
Ms. Goldberg has practiced child welfare law for more than 30 years in the Juvenile Courts of the Commonwealth. A graduate of Boston University School of Law, she has served as mentor to and coordinator for attorneys representing children and parents through the Children and Family Law (CAFL) program of the Committee for Public Council Services. She earned her bachelor’s in Women’s History from SUNY-Buffalo.

Brian Goldstein
Mr. Goldstein is co-chair of the Business and Technology Group of Choate, Hall & Stewart, LLP, an AmLaw 200 law firm, has over 30 years of experience in the areas of general business, venture capital, technology and life sciences transactions, and M&A. He is listed in The Legal 500, Best Lawyers in America and is named Massachusetts Super Lawyer. He holds both a B.A. with Honors and a J.D. from The University of Virginia.

Ken Hodge
Mr. Hodge provides strategic support to new companies as a consultant, and has worked pro bono with a number of nonprofits in the last decade focusing on women and children. He holds both an M.B.A. and a J.D. from Harvard University. Prior to joining the board, he served on One Can Help’s Advisory Council for four years.

Ann Kurland, Founding Board Member
A freelance writer and contributor to The Boston Globe’s food section, Ms. Kurland turned to journalism after working in medical settings as a counselor in a women’s health clinic, as well as in the social service department at Mass General Hospital. She has covered Metrowest community issues for the Globe’s West section. Ms. Kurland also studied at Cordon Bleu in France. She earned her bachelor’s from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, majoring in social work, and a master’s in journalism from Boston University.

Debbie Levenson, Founding Board Member
Ms. Levenson runs Levenson Wealth LLC, a boutique wealth management firm in Newton. As an experienced financial planner and investment manager, she helps her clients to prepare for (and enjoy) financial independence after their working years. Her prior experience includes corporate marketing and management consulting. She earned her B.S. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Judy Manelis
Ms. Manelis is a freelance writer and a correspondent for The Jewish Advocate. Prior to her return to Massachusetts ten years ago, she worked as an executive in several nonprofit organizations in New York City. She was a national executive of Hadassah, executive director of communications for both National UJA and UJA-Federation of New York City and program director of SHARE: Self Help for Women with Breast or Ovarian Cancer. Ms. Manelis also worked as a geriatric social worker, a counselor to teenage girls in a NYC Alternative High School and as editor of Kulanu News, a magazine focused on isolated and emerging Jewish communities around the world. Ms. Manelis has a B.S. from Simmons College, a Master’s degree with distinction from UC Berkeley and an M.S.W. from Hunter College School of Social Work.

Allison Myers
Ms. Myers, attorney-at-law, is VP/Associate General Counsel at Fidelity Investments and head of the product tax group in Fidelity’s Legal Department. She also works with Fidelity’s Public Policy group to develop its responses to relevant tax legislation. Before joining Fidelity, Ms. Myers worked for large law firms in Boston and New York. Her clients were private equity funds, hedge funds, fund managers and institutional investors. Ms. Myers received her B.A., summa cum laude, from Brandeis University and her J.D. from Emory University School of Law, with honors.

José Portuondo, Founding Board Member
Mr. Portuondo is the President of Decision Analytics, Inc., a management consulting firm focusing on business, marketing and strategy development and implementation, business process redesign and organizational effectiveness. He has more than 30 years of experience working with clients in the private and public sectors in Europe, the United States and Latin America. Mr. Portuondo’s industry expertise includes telecommunications, healthcare, pharmaceutical and high tech, working with companies ranging from start-ups to Fortune 100s, as well as nonprofits. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Susan Sayers
Ms. Sayers is a fundraising professional of many years’ experience and currently Chief Development Officer at Ceres, a nonprofit organization that mobilizes leading businesses and investors to tackle climate change, water scarcity, and other global sustainability challenges. Prior to joining Ceres, she was Chief Development Officer at Partners in Health. She received her B.A., summa cum laude, from Vanderbilt and holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Harvard.

Greta Schnee
Ms. Schnee is a licensed mental health counselor who has worked with children and families who receive services from DCF since 2007. She is currently at Metrowest Behavioral Health Center in Acton, which is a satellite program of the Trauma Center and on the faculty of Lesley University as a clinical supervisor, working with interns who are also working with children and families involved with the DCF system. She sees first-hand the lack of funding that leads to pervasive isolation and disconnection from peers in addition to lost opportunities to practice social skills.

Jan Moidel Schwartz
Ms. Schwartz is a professional fundraising consultant. She has been involved with One Can Help since 2016. Her 25 years of fundraising experience working with nonprofits and high net worth individuals provides her with the meaningful opportunity to help One Can Help widen its exposure to the philanthropic world and find new sources of support.

Belle Soloway
Ms. Soloway is an attorney-at-law practicing in the Juvenile and Probate Courts for over thirty years. She is keenly aware of the struggles faced by her clients and the economic hardships they endure.

Alyssa Zardiackas Westermann
Ms. Westermann is an Adolescent Supervisor in the Lowell Area DCF Office. She has worked for DCF for seven years, during which time she also graduated from the Simmons Master’s of Social Work program with certificates in both Urban Leadership and Relational and Multi-Contextual Treatment of Trauma. Alyssa is a member of the CSEC Task Force, TILT, JDAI, and the Critical Incident and Trauma Response Team at the Lowell DCF office. As she is an adopted person, OCH resonates with Alyssa and her passion to finding solutions to the barriers that may impede keeping families intact or from being reunified.

ADVISORY COUNCIL
We thank our Advisory Council for assisting the Board to further One Can Help’s mission.

Lisette Cooper
Lisette Cooper, Ph.D., is founder and managing partner of Athena Capital Advisors, an investment advisory firm serving private clients and institutional investors. Athena Capital is an award-winning and nationally recognized OCIO (outsourced Chief Investment Officer) and wealth management firm. Lisette has helped to establish the firm as one of the leaders in the field of impact investing. She has appeared many times on national television and been widely quoted in news media. Lisette holds the CFA designation as well as several patents, and holds a Ph.D. in geology from Harvard. Lisette is a board member of the Garrison Institute, Boston Youth Sanctuary, the Mind and Life Institute and former chair of the board of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. She served as an Expert in Residence for the Harvard Innovation Lab. Lisette has three children, one of whom was adopted from DCF foster care in Massachusetts who is now thriving, working, married, and in school. Lisette resides in Lincoln, MA.

Anne F. Fishman
Ms. Fishman, in a career spanning more than twenty-five years, has held positions of senior leadership and served as a consultant to organizations large and small. Currently principal of .edu Integrated Marketing, Anne provides an array of services to complex organizations as well as start-ups, focused on strategic planning, competitive analyses, integrated communications protocols, public and media relations, and branding. Anne pioneered the use of cross-functional teams integrating the often separate channels of public relations with print, electronic, social, and mobile media. A brief listing of Anne’s clients include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the National Education Association, Foundation for the Improvement of Education, Pratt Institute, Springfield College, and salary.com. She has held full-time appointments at Tufts University, Mount Holyoke College, and Northeastern University. Anne is currently consulting to the Sonesta Hotels, Inc. focused on one of its international acquisitions. Anne holds an M.Ed. from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education and an A.M. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. Her undergraduate degree in English Literature is from Brandeis University. She sits on the board of the Integrated Heritage Program.

Moshe Gordon
Mr. Gordon is a technology consultant in website development and marketing, as well as in photography. His career spans software maintenance, performance and capacity planning, operations management, and sales engineering support. Moshe holds a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from Columbia University. As a founding board member of One Can Help, Moshe created the innovative system One Can Help utilizes. Moshe continues to provide One Can Help with technical support.

Steven A. Lerman
Mr. Lerman is a lawyer and philanthropist who grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. He is Senior Counsel to Lerman Senter PLLC, a communications law firm founded in 1982, and was the Firm’s Managing Partner from 2000 to 2017. Steve received a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a J.D. with honors from The George Washington University Law School. Steve has served as a Director of three publicly-traded corporations, as well as outside General Counsel of CBS Radio Inc. From 2007-2018, Steve has been designated a “Super Lawyer” by Washington, DC Super Lawyers Magazine, and selected as one of America’s Leading Lawyers for Business by Chambers USA. He is also listed as one of Washington, DC’s Best Lawyers in the 2009-2017 Editions of The Best Lawyers in America. Steve has received the Joseph Wharton Award from The Wharton Club of Washington, DC, for outstanding service to Penn and the Washington, DC, community, as well as the Distinguished Leadership Award from Penn for raising $7.5 million to assist financially disadvantaged students. Steve founded and chairs the Newton South High School Alumni Scholarship Fund and Mentoring Program, providing financial aid and mentoring services to college students. He is also the Chair of Active Minds, Inc., a global nonprofit providing mental health outreach to more than 16,000 college and high school students.

Joyce Nardine
Ms. Nardine, MSW, LICSW is the Area Director of the Framingham Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. Joyce has been in the social work/child advocacy field for over 35 years; initially, working in inpatient adult and child psychiatry and then, in child protection work. Ms. Nardine had in the past practiced as a psychotherapist and had maintained a clinical practice. For the past 31 years, Ms. Nardine has had experience in all aspects of child protection, including crisis and case management, childhood trauma, adoption work, family resource recruitment and development, permanency planning; clinical supervision, management and administration, and community outreach initiatives. Ms. Nardine has developed and supported a number of family- centered, strength based, child driven alternatives to practice in child welfare. These include Multidisciplinary Assessment Teams, Family Group Conferencing, Strength Based Service Planning, Permanency Planning initiatives, Community Connections, Family Success Partnership and Continuous Quality Improvement, among others. A major theme in Ms. Nardine’s practice is the belief that “all families have strengths”. She is and continues to be committed to bridging the gaps to ensure more seamless transition for young people moving into their adulthood. In her current capacity as Director, she oversees over 100 staff and she manages a large budget servicing children and their families residing in 23 surrounding towns and cities.

Rebecca Pries
Ms. Pries, LMHC, serves as Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Alliance of Juvenile Court Clinics, an advocacy organization that educates legislators, providers, and consumers about the services provided by the Juvenile Court Clinics with the goal of increasing these services statewide. She is a Certified Juvenile Court Clinician I and Mentor involved in training new Juvenile Court Clinicians. Up until 2016, Rebecca served as Executive Director of Adolescent Consultation Services (ACS), an agency operating the Middlesex County Juvenile Court Clinics. These clinics provide mental health and substance use evaluations for court-involved youth and their families. She is co-author of the book, Kids and the Law: A User’s Guide to the Court System, a practical guide to laws and court practices that affect juveniles.

Suzanne Reiss
Dr. Reiss, MD, is a board-certified child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist. She is part of the teaching faculty and steering committee for The REACH Institute (Resources for Advancing Children’s Health) and trains primary care providers evidenced based behavioral health around the country. She is also a member of the Walker Professional Advisory Council dedicated to the issue of permanency for all children in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a representative of the Walker Board. She currently lives in Lexington, Massachusetts with her husband and has three young adult children and two grandchildren.

Roland Stark
Mr. Stark specializes in statistical analysis, survey research, and program evaluation. He has contributed to a Harvard professional development program for teachers and school leaders; to higher-education consulting firm that helps colleges attract and retain students; to a health care program providing hospital administrators with insights into patient outcomes; and, freelance, to a variety of clients in education, health care, psychology, business, law, and archaeology. Roland has a B.A. in History from Harvard and an M.Ed. in Educational Research, Measurement and Evaluation from Boston College.

Veronica Zolina
Ms. Zolina is an attorney in solo practice for over 10 years. The main focus of her practice is criminal defense in the District Courts of Middlesex County, where she represents both private and court-appointed, indigent clients. Her legal work also includes landlord/tenant advocacy and estate planning. In 2014 and 2015 she was selected for inclusion in the SuperLawyers Rising Stars list for Massachusetts. Having grown up in low-income housing and attended the Boston Latin School, she went on to graduate from Harvard College and the Northeastern University School of Law. Veronica co-chairs the Middlesex County Committee of the Women’s Bar Association and serves on several nonprofit boards and advisory committees. Prior to pursuing her legal education, she built a career as a marketing communications professional with financial services institutions as well as nonprofit organizations in the Boston area.