Marialuisa S. Gallozzi joined the Board of Directors in September 2022 and serves as President. She is Partner at Covington where she helps for-profit and nonprofit policyholders develop and execute efficient and practical insurance recovery strategies. As lead counsel, she has helped secure over half a billion dollars for high-value first-party losses and third-party liabilities. In addition to representing policyholders in insurance claims, she also advises policyholders in placing and tailoring insurance coverages for unique risks, transferring risk in contracts and transactions, and preparing for and managing crises. Business Insurance named Marialuisa as one of its Women to Watch in 2014. In 2019 and 2020, Washington DC Super Lawyers named her one of its Top 100 Lawyers and Top 50 Women Lawyers.
Frederick Keaton, Ed.D. serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors. He joined the Board in October 2021 and brings more than 30 years of experience in strategic human resources and organizational development. He is an experienced leader in management development, change management, succession planning and diversity and holds SPHR and SHRM-SCP certifications. Fred is adjunct faculty at the University of Maryland and has served as a distance learning instructor for 15 years. He has also served as adjunct faculty for Strayer College, Central Michigan University, Macomb Community College, University of Detroit, Mercy College, Oakland Community College, and Nyack College. Fred previously served in executive roles with The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars, USA Today, Technical Assistance Training Corporation, and Freddie Mac. Fred earned his B.A. in Economics at Howard University, M.A. in Industrial Management at Central Michigan University, and Ed.D. in Educational Leadership at Western Michigan University.
Laurina Spolidoro joined the Board in January 2021 and serves as Chair of the Governance Committee. She is an accomplished attorney with remarkable careers in the judiciary branch of government and the U.S. Coast Guard. Laurina is currently assistant general counsel at the Office of General Counsel at the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts where she is counsel to the Judicial Conference of the U.S. Committee on Financial Disclosure. She was a former special assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern Districts of Virginia and North Carolina, where she advised on criminal investigations, analyzed the law and evidence, and assisted in prosecutions. As an appellate judge on three-judge panels for the Coast Guard of Criminal Appeals from 2015-2017, she assessed the legal sufficiency of court martial convictions. She graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy with honors and went on to serve as a deck watch officer in USCGC MORGENTHAU, and later as executive officer in USCGC ADAK and USCGC NORTHLAND. Laurina is volunteers as court liaison/roster mediator with NVMS Conflict Resolution Center where she schedules roster mediators for in-person and remote mediation. She also mediates cases pro bono in the General District Court. Laurina lives in Arlington, Virginia.
Iche Chiu joined the Board of Directors in November 2022 to serve as Treasurer. He is a partner at MyAdvisor360LLC in Tysons, Virginia. His expertise is in compliance review and corporate governance internal control. He supervises managers and staff members who support various enterprises with revenues from $500K to $100M including startup companies, non-profit entities, professional offices, and government contractors. Iche shares his talents with developing budgets, forecasts and variance analysis, accounting, and tax support. He received his MBA in Professional Accounting from Rutgers University.
Patrick Cleary joined the board in June 2023. Pat is a former federal mediator with nearly two decades of hands-on dispute resolution and negotiation experience and served as a consultant for Fortune 500 companies. Beginning as an arbitrator of consumer disputes in 1978 and continuing through the handling of the national rail negotiations in l992, he has been involved in every kind of negotiation and mediation scenario. He is the author of The Negotiation Handbook (M.E. Sharpe, 2000). After three years as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Policy, in 1988, Pat worked with former Labor Secretary Bill Brock in mediating a series of safety accords at Eastern Air Lines. In 1989 he was appointed by President Bush to the National Mediation Board, mediating disputes in the airline and railroad industries. He served as Chairman of the agency from 1991-1992. While on the Board, Pat mediated dozens of high-level, high-profile disputes involving the nation’s airlines and railroads, including the national rail negotiations. In l997, he was named to a Congressional blue-ribbon panel studying the future of Amtrak. He also served as an arbitrator for the Better Business Bureau, hearing consumer disputes, for the DC Bar on attorney-client fee disputes and for the DC Superior Court, mediating civil disputes of all kinds, from small claims to multi-million-dollar cases. Pat appeared frequently as a media spokesman for business. These include CNN, all the major networks and the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, as well as interviews on NPR and other local and national radio programs. He has been frequently quoted in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. In addition, he has been a frequent lecturer on the topics of negotiation and dispute resolution at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, Georgetown Law School, and the San Francisco Academy. Pat is a graduate of Fairfield University, Hamline University School of Law and completed the Program for Senior Managers in Government at the Kennedy School at Harvard University. He is currently president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations.
Geoff Drucker is Senior Director of the American Health Lawyers Association’s Dispute Resolution Service and teaches mediation at the George Washington University School of Law. As former Board President, Geoff presided over the hiring of a new executive director and the 2022 strategic planning process, and also helped shape a new fundraising strategy.
Andrew H. Friedman joined the board in June 2023 and was with Covington & Burling as senior partner. He focused on corporate tax matters and transactions, with substantive industry experience in professional sports, e-commerce, and insurance companies and products. He served as head of the tax group, co-head of the corporate/tax/benefits umbrella group, and the partner in charge of the firm’s overall media relations and marketing activities. Representative clients in professional sports include all four major leagues — Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Football League, National Hockey League — as well as the United States Tennis Association, the Arena Football League, and professional sports clubs including the Boston Red Sox. Representative clients in other industries include Clark Enterprises, M Financial Group, MFS Investment Management, Sotheby’s, Sun Life Financial, and Yahoo! Andrew was recognized by both Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and Best Lawyers in America as one of the nation’s leading sports lawyers. Andrew received a BA, summa cum laude, as Valedictorian, from Trinity College in 1977 and his JD, cum laude, from Harvard University in 1980.
Arleen Ramirez Borysiewicz serves as Executive Director and is an ex officio member of the Board of Directors. Arleen has 30+ years of experience in the nonprofit sector, both in volunteer and paid positions. Her prior work includes serving as director of development and communications at United Community, a direct service agency supporting low-income families in Alexandria, Virginia. Before that, she was the fundraising officer at Ayuda, a Washington, DC-based legal immigration services nonprofit, and the vice president for external affairs at The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars, also based in Washington, DC. She has robust experience in board stewardship, strategic planning, fundraising, communications, and program and administrative management. Arleen serves on the Advisory Council of Ayuda and serves on the Board of Directors of Resolution Virginia.
Renee Kostick Reynolds is a licensed attorney in Washington, DC and specializes in family law cases. She served as an attorney for the National District Attorney’s Association in Alexandria, Virginia and The Counsel for Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington, DC. In 1997, she founded Dinner at 8, a dinner dating service in DC and Baltimore metropolitan areas and was the owner-operator for 10 years. In 2011, Renee served as the family intake specialist at NVMS Conflict Resolution Center and was certified by the Supreme Court of Virginia as a mediator in General District and Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. She has experience as a mediator in family, workplace, small claims and elder care cases. Currently, she is a mediator for the Colin Family Mediation Group, NVMS Conflict Resolution Center, Piedmont Dispute Resolution Center, Fairfax County Court Juvenile and Domestic Relation Court and the Family Division at the MultiDoor Dispute Resolution Office. Additionally, she is an adjunct professor at George Mason University – Antonin Scalia Law School.
Walter Tejada joined the Board of Directors in February 2021. He served on the Arlington County Board from 2003 to 2015, serving as Chair in 2008 and 2013 and Vice Chairman in 2007, 2012 and 2015. He has distinguished himself as a leader committed to enhancing the diversity of Arlington and the region’s community voice. He was instrumental in establishing the Office of the Public Defender for Arlington & the City of Falls Church, the Arlington Non-Profit Assistance Center, and the Community Volunteer Network. While an elected official, Tejada held leadership roles in the National Association of Counties (NACo) serving on the Transportation, Justice and Public Safety, and Healthy Counties committees. He was appointed chair of NACo’s Immigration Task Force in 2009 and 2012, and vice chair in 2015. Tejada also served in leadership positions in the Virginia Association of Counties and Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. Walter Tejada was the first chair of the Virginia Latino Advisory Commission, a member of the Governor’s Urban Policy Task Force and the Immigrant Rights Coalition of Greater Washington. He is currently the president of the Virginia Latino Leaders Council. The Governor of Virginia appointed him to serve on the Board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, where he serves as Co-chair of the Dulles Corridor and Sustainability Committees. He also serves on the MWAA’s Business Administration, Ethics Review, Human Resources, Risk Management, and Strategic Development Committees. Walter Tejada is a recipient of the Spirit of the Community Award from the Arlington Community Foundation, Outstanding Young Arlingtonian of the Year from the Arlington Jaycees, the Phyllis Campbell Newsome Public Policy Leadership Award from the Center for Non-Profit Advancement (twice) and the Immigrant Advocate of the Year Award from the Capital Area Immigrant Rights Coalition.
Laura Trask was elected to the NVMS Board of Directors by unanimous vote at its September 21, 2023 meeting. Laura is a nonprofit CFRE certified fundraising professional with 8+ years of experience in individual and corporate giving, major gifts, direct mail, event planning, and marketing communications. She is director of development at Ayuda, a direct-services nonprofit that provides holistic, culturally specific legal, social, and language access services to low-income immigrants in Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland.
Laura earned a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations with a specialization in Latin American Politics, and a Bachelor of Arts in Media Arts and Design with a specialization in Print Journalism, at James Madison University (JMU). She also earned a Master of Public Administration from JMU. In addition to earning a CFRE International certification, Laura holds a certification in effective management, outreach, and marketing, and a graduate certification on human rights and public policy from the Henry Dunant Foundation in Chile.
Laura Trask, CFRE on LinkedIn: #boardofdirectors #mediationservices #conflictresolution #peacebuilding…
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For more information about volunteer board service, please contact Arleen Ramirez Borysiewicz, Executive Director, at aborysiewicz@nvms.us. NVMS Conflict Resolution Center is actively recruiting candidates who are passionate about our mission and ready to bring unique talents and expertise in brand marketing, strategic communications, governance, finance, and fundraising to help us reach and serve more people and partners in the community. Join us!