About Us

 

Board of Directors

 

Officers

 

Lezli H. White, Founder and President, possesses more than twenty-five years of progressive experience in the areas of marketing communications, public relations and media relations.  After spending most of her career at Fortune 500 companies, she retired to devote herself to writing and creating.  She subsequently applied her marketing skills to two nonprofits.  She has won a National Endowment for the Arts and two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships among other awards for her poetry and fiction.  She has a M.B.A from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, a M.S.J. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. from Williams College in psychology.

 

Reba S. Herndon, Vice President, possesses over twenty-five years of experience in engineering and continuous improvement projects with Fortune 500 companies. She specializes in process problem solving with a passion for training and development.  She is a recipient of The Women of Color award and holds three patents. She has a M.S. from Elmira College in Education and a B.S. in Polymer Chemistry from Syracuse University. She is also a Certified Six Sigma Green Belt and Lean Bronze Belt.

 

Elaine H. Russo, Treasurer, has over twenty-five years of experience in information technology, accounting, and project management.  She has applied her data, process and analytical skills to help businesses realize cost reductions, increase efficiencies and implement improvements.  Her wide-ranging experience includes work with teams in Asia, Europe, and South America.  She has an M.B.A. in Accounting from Syracuse University and a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Ohio State University.  She is also a Six Sigma Green Belt and Certified Kepner-Tregoe Process Facilitator.

 

Directors

 

Andrea Bempong possesses nearly 30 years of experience in the administration and development of health care delivery systems.  She works for a company that helps community health centers, and nurse practitioner-run clinics install electronic health records. A former Peace Corps volunteer, she believes in the need for active volunteers in national and international projects.  She is a founding member of the Chicago Regional Safety Net Council which improves access for low-income residents in a six-county area to safety net providers; and the Health Care Consortium of Illinois which provides various social and advocacy services.  She holds a B.A. in history from Williams College, a M.B.A from Northwestern University Graduate School of Management, and a M.S. from Northwestern University Graduate School of Communications.

 

Ernest A. Roberts, Jr. has 33 years experience in Information Technology, including systems programming, development, communications, and support for multi-platform applications. His concentration has been programming subsystems on IBM Mainframes. His responsibilities have included applications maintenance and development. He has developed utilities to enhance application function, automate processes and enhance debugging. He has implemented and supported network connectivity software and various connectivity enhancements, system security subsystems and written APIs for application-specific user authorization and verification. He has also written and implemented terminal connectivity programs, in addition to developing and implementing disaster recovery, forward recovery and datacenter migration strategies as a member of support teams.

 

Albert Howe White, Jr. possesses more than three decades of wide ranging experience in human resources, training, community counseling and improvement initiatives.  He has developed and directed rehabilitation, care and programming for the developmentally disabled, the homeless, at-risk youth, and addicts.  He holds a B.A. in Sociology from New York University and a Master’s degree in Education from Alfred University.  He is a New York State Certified School Guidance Counselor (CSC) and a New York State Licensed (Limited) Therapist. (LLMHC), and has taught on the elementary, middle school and corporate level.  He is currently a Social Worker at Greenwich House.