Jeannie M. Adams joined the board in June 2023. She is an accomplished conflict resolution practitioner with over 30 years experience working in the public sector with state and federal agencies, courts, and municipalities. She was most recently director of the Multi-Door Dispute Resolution Division of the Superior Courts of the District of Columbia. As a professional mediator, facilitator, trainer and dispute system designer, Jeannie has planned, coordinated, and presented training seminars to 100’s of government employees and mediators. She oversaw the development and implementation of Court ADR Programs for the District of Columbia Courts and the Massachusetts Trial Courts. In addition to her private alternative dispute resolution professional practice, Jeannie was the director of public sector alternative dispute resolution programs at the Massachusetts’s Office of Dispute Resolution in Boston. Jeannie is passionate about providing leadership in the area of conflict prevention, conflict management, conflict resolution and program development, and promoting the use of dispute resolution systems and processes to help individuals and organizations prevent and manage conflict effectively. In addition to numerous ADR training she had conducted over the years, Jeannie also presented at various national conferences on such topics as Mediating Cases with Intimate Partner Violence and Family Law Mediation. Further, Jeannie developed and designed ADR programs for a variety of local, state, and federal agencies. Jeannie earned an MA in Dispute Resolution from the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a BA in Legal Education and Paralegal Certification, College of Public and Community Service, University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Eugenia Blackstone is a marketing professional with corporate, brand, product, and field marketing experience. Her primary focus includes developing and coaching effective operational marketing teams, aligning marketing goals to company objectives, and finding creative ways to navigate change and deliver results. She is chief marketing officer for Global Identity and Cyber Protection from 2020. She held other positions within the company – from marketing manager to vice president – between 2011 to 2019. Former corporate employers include New Holland Agriculture and Caterpillar, Inc. Eugenia received a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from North Carolina A&T State University (Summa Cum Laude). She is a member of the American Marketing Association and the International Association of Privacy Professionals.
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 as President of the Board of Directors of Resolution 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 served as president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations for ten years through 2023.
Amy Dawson is Secretary of the Board. She launched d’nitiatives® in 2010 to help nonprofit leaders and organizations become more visionary and effective. The name d’nitiatives® highlights the importance of designing initiatives that convert vision to action, investable opportunities, and impact. Previously, Amy served Georgetown University as assistant vice president in the office of advancement to help to shape and build capacity for a $1.5 billion philanthropic campaign. She also served as a senior program manager at the Academy of Educational Development. Early in her career in San Francisco, Amy helped to start up the Miriam and Peter Haas Fund’s operations and programs, then served as a consultant to help local leaders plan forward-looking initiatives that secured public and private funding. Amy earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Biology from Stanford University and a Master in Public Policy degree from The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Amy’s real-world heroes are many, including a diverse array of leaders and colleagues whom she has served and collaborated with in California, North Carolina, and the Washington, DC region. Their dedication to mission, courage to imagine, resilience through change, and ethical integrity are among the lasting impressions that inspire Amy and countless other people in their spheres. Amy grew up in Sacramento, California. Her sense of purpose is rooted in her parents’ example.
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.
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.
Nathan Jenner is a Senior Principal at ghSMART where he advises boards and CEOs on executive assessment and development, senior team effectiveness, and organizational leadership. Earlier in his career, Nathan was Chief Operating Officer for Electronic Markets at Bloomberg LP and a Vice President in derivative markets at JPMorgan. He helped lead industry transformations arising from shifts in market structure and regulation. He was appointed a member of the Market Risk Advisory Committee, created by the government’s financial markets regulator (CFTC), to advise on technology and financial market functioning and structure. Nathan also served as a mediation & conflict resolution practitioner at the New York Center for Interpersonal Development and led restorative justice interventions as a Peacemaker at the Center for Court Innovation. Nathan earned an MA in Organizational Psychology & Change Leadership from Columbia University in New York and a BSc in Psychology and Business from Aston University in Birmingham (UK). He studied Executive Coaching at The College of Executive Coaching in Santa Barbara (CA) and Advanced Mediation at the New York Center for Interpersonal Development.
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.
Abrar Omeish is a legal fellow with the National Center for Youth Law and serves on its legal advocacy team. She works on litigation involving policies that have wide ranging impact on youth. From 2020 to 2023, Abrar was an at-large member of the Fairfax County School Board, representing 1.2 million constituents in nine school districts. She was an equal access/opportunity champion, a decision-maker on complex and diverse legal issues, and successfully returned 180,000 children to school safely, post pandemic. Abrar Omeish is the youngest at-large board member for the Girl Scouts of the United States. She is also co-founder and president of GIVE (Growth and Inspiration through Volunteering and Education), a youth-run, youth led organization. Abrar earned a Juris Doctor and Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science/Modern Eastern Studies from Yale University. She attended the James W. Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax County.
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.
Michael D. Solomon brings over three decades of experience as a senior advisor, counsel, policymaker, and manager in the supervision of federal financial institutions, including extensive regulatory and legislative expertise and negotiation of complex disputes. While at the Federal Reserve Board, Michael led development of regulation and policy regarding “living wills” to address “too big to fail” financial companies. He also led the development of new standards for accountability and performance by boards of directors at financial firms, and for setting parameters for incentive compensation for senior officers of those firms. At the Federal Reserve Board, Michael also led administration of the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering laws, including compliance programs related to terrorism financing. Earlier in his career Michael was a chief legal counsel to a 200-person nationwide division in the FDIC charged with resolution of failing and failed banks. He personally negotiated a 2-year settlement and resolution of the then-largest financial dispute recovery in the history of the FDIC. Michael has deep experience advising agency heads on policy concerning risk management, regulatory capital, credit, liquidity, and interest rate risk affecting regulated financial companies. Before that, he worked for several years for the House of Representatives, as both counsel to the House, and counsel to a committee on banking. Michael began his career in the private practice of law working on matters that included constitutional litigation on voter redistricting through the Supreme Court of the United States. Michael is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College and the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law.
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.
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 Certification in Nonprofit Management 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…
***
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!