Board of Directors

Roy Assad

Born in Syria, Roy overcame unimaginable obstacles and immigrated on his own, without money, unable to speak a word of English, to the United States when he turned 18.  Roy moved to West Palm Beach in 2001 after living and working in New York for over 25 years, primarily as a successful insurance agent and insurance agency owner.  Roy’s vast experience also includes The Haberdasher, a custom clothing company he formed in 1995 then successfully sold in 2001 as well as being a restaurateur, opening Leila in 2004, an award winning Middle Eastern restaurant, followed by l’Opera in 2006.  He founded The Human Capital Group, an executive coaching company in 2003.

Roy is extremely committed to his community, serving either on the Board or Committees to organizations and charities such as the Palm Beach County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Dress for Success, 2% Solution, Downtown development Authority, West Palm Beach, International Coach Federation, South Florida, Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, Palm Beach county, Arthur Marshall Foundation and the Governors Club, West Palm Beach.

David D. Burstein

David 23, is a writer, filmmaker, and advocate. In 2006, he founded Generation18 (formerly known as 18 in ’08). Generation18 (www.generation18.com) is the nation’s largest youth run nonpartisan not-for-profit young voter engagement organization. It started as an outgrowth of the documentary film of the same name, which David directed and produced. In 2008, Generation18 led a major national campaign to register, engage, and mobilize young voters for the 2008 election. This initiative succeeded in registering over 25,000 new voters, hosting over 1,000 events at high schools, colleges, and in communities in 35 states, holding youth policy forums with Senatorial and Congressional candidates, and a celebrity get-out-the-vote Public Service Announcement series featuring Olivia Wilde and Maggie Gyllenhaal among others stars.

He won a 2009 Do Something Award for his work with Generation18. Early on, David co-founded the Westport Youth Film Festival (WYFF) in Westport Connecticut. WYFF, now in its ninth year, is the world’s premiere film festival run by high school students for high school students. David is a frequent speaker and commentator on millennials, social innovation, and politics, he has appeared on CNN, FOX News, ABC Evening News, NPR, C-SPAN and been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Politico. He is also a contributor to the Huffington Post and writes the Change Generation profile series for Fast Company. He regularly consults for not-for-profits and companies on how to understand and engage millennials. He currently serves as co-director of the Bluhm/Hefland Social Innovation Fellowship @ Chicago Ideas Week.  His debut book, Fast Future: How the Millennials are Remaking Our World will be released in fall 2012 by Beacon Press. He is a senior at New York University.

Lisa Carter

Lisa is currently a Social Studies teacher at Housatonic Valley Regional High School where she teaches World Cultures, Modern European History, Sociology and The Comparative Philosophy of War. She has frequently traveled to China with students as an extension of her World Cultures class. Ms. Carter’s work at the high school also includes some experience in assisting students in the production of documentary films on topics related to civic discourse within a democratic system. She has also worked in the corporate world as a general management consultant and in the oil industry. She has a B.S. in Mandarin Chinese from Georgetown University and an MBA from the University of Southern California.

Patricia Redd Johnson

Patricia has had the pleasure of being a director of admission and an advisor to the Black and Hispanic Student Alliance (BaHSA) at Hotchkiss for the past sixteen years. Ms. Johnson's educational career began when she earned an A.B. in English from Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania. Having gone on to receive an M.A. in supervision and administration from City University of New York while teaching in New York City, she decided to begin a new career as an administrator at The Dalton School. Later, she enrolled at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education and was graduated with an M.A. in administration, planning, and social policy.

Ms. Johnson enjoys meeting prospective students and hearing about their ideas, their value systems, and their desire to do something with their lives. "It gives me a great feeling of pride when a student is able to accomplish a goal that, early on, he or she might not have been able to attain. That I get a chance to have these experiences with young men and women, who are from all over the globe, makes me very content with my work."

Ever the student, Ms. Johnson recently completed a master's degree in English literature at the Middlebury College Breadloaf School of English. During her five summers studying through Middlebury, she was able to travel to Oxford, England; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Juneau, Alaska; and Ripton, Vermont. She enjoys travel, art, and spending time with her three children and granddaughter.

Charlene LaVoie, Secretary

After graduating with degrees in liberal arts and science, Ms. LaVoie earned a masters degree in public administration and then attended law school.  As a trial lawyer in private practice, she specialized in employment law.

She has directed the Community Lawyer/Advocate Project in Winsted, Connecticut since 1990.  The community law office is a resource for citizens that works to strengthen their self-governing capacities, resources and institutions to promote good citizenship, teach about democratic tools and provide free legal and technical assistance for select community causes. The Connecticut Law Tribune wrote that the Office of the Community Lawyer is “one of the more powerful institutions to come down the pike”.

Charlene serves on the Board of Directors and is a speaker for the Connecticut Consortium for Law and Citizenship Education (now Civics First) and the Secretary of State Speakers Bureau.  She also sits on the Board of Directors of Professional Learning Services, which provides continuing education for health care practitioners and for which Ms. LaVoie lectures on topics ranging from legal issues and employment law to the impact of managed care on patient care.  As well as serving on the Curriculum Committee of the Women’s Campaign School at Yale University, Charlene is an instructor of the para-legal litigation course at Northwestern Connecticut Community College.

Jamie Lehrer

Jamie is the Director of Development at The New Group Theatre company.  She moved to New York after 25 years living abroad in Switzerland, Singapore but mostly London where she was Head of Development at the Lyric Hammersmith. Her working life began in publishing as an editor for an international literary magazine and as a freelancer for major UK publishers. She has authored a children's book, The Magic Costumes (published in the USA, UK, Australia, Portugal & Spain in 1996 and reprinted in 2004). Jamie grew up in Dallas and Washington, DC and went to Vassar College.

Emilie Mead Pryor

Emilie has been involved in the non profit world for almost 30 years, both professionally and as a volunteer.   After receiving a BA from the University of Vermont in Environmental Studies and Geography, she worked at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington D.C. for nine years.   At WWF she was a program officer for Asia and supervised grants to non governmental organizations in the areas of environmental education, organizational development, and strategic planning.  She also designed workshops and texts to help these organizations strengthen their institutional capability.  After WWF Emilie attended graduate school at the Bank Street College of Education and received a BS in Museum Education in 1995. Emilie has served as a director on many non profit boards including the Connecticut Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, RARE Center for Tropical Conservation, Open Space Institute, Miss Porter’s School, Indian Mountain School, Prime Time House, Cornwall Library, Cornwall Child Center, and the Cornwall Conservation Trust.  She also worked for six years on the Planning and Zoning Commission in the town of Cornwall, and is a substitute teacher in Connecticut public schools, region one.  Since 1995 Emilie, her husband Joe, and children Lee and Elsie have lived in West Cornwall.

J. Samuel Ray, President

Born near Asheville, NC and a graduate of Lawrence University - Sam joined Citibank in the 70’s as Asian Regional Economist, based in Hong Kong, following a Thomas J. Watson research fellowship on developmental economics in Asia. From a merchant bank he established in Singapore (with affiliates in England and Australia), he developed and led over three dozen M&A /Divestment/Joint-Venture projects - in Asia, Europe, the Caribbean and the Middle East.   Subsequently, he also led the strategy, planning and corporate development functions from London for the British National Group. In the 80s, Sam served as CFO and GM - Technology and Human Resources for that corporation's Asian and Pacific divisions, and subsequently consulted to foreign companies doing business in China.

In the 90’s, Sam became VP/Senior Strategy Consultant with Kepner-Tregoe in Princeton, and launched their Financial Services practice in New York. Later, he became Managing Director of Nagdeman & Company for a decade and then Managing Director of the New York / Northeastern practice of FTI Consulting based in Annapolis, MD.   Eventually, he formed The Strategy Partners Group, LLP, now Pareto Chart Benders, LLP , where  he continues to consult to CEOs and their C-level direct reports on strategy, business development and financial matters.  Sam has also served as Regional Chair (NY, NJ & PA) and Executive Coach with Mike Milken's "Vistage International" issue resolution and decision-making advisory groups and collaborates with Aptus Analytics to customize state-of-the-art business intelligence E-T-L applications from ZAP, Tableau, and Talend.  He has also served on the Boards of numerous academic, business, charitable, cultural, and artistic organizations in Asia, Europe and North America.

Pamela Tatge

Pamela is currently the Director of the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where she oversees programming in an arts complex that includes a theater, a cinema, two music halls, and a contemporary art gallery. She has also spearheaded the development of the University’s Green Street Arts Center, a 12,000 square foot community arts center established to serve as an anchor to revitalization efforts in Middletown’s North End.  The Center opened in January of 2005.

Also in 2005, the Center for the Arts became a Hub Site for the National Dance Project in recognition for their ongoing commitment to the creation and presentation of new dance work, and one of three pilot institutions for the Center for Creative Research, an initiative designed to foster partnerships between established choreographers and universities.  This led to long-term residencies with Ann Carlson, Liz Lerman and Eiko Otake of Eiko & Koma. Partnering with the University’s Environmental Studies program, she developed an eighteen-month campus-wide exploration of climate change through the arts entitled Feet to the Fire.  In 2010 she was awarded the William Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence and Sustained Achievement in Programming from the Association for Performing Arts Presenters.