Board

Hal B. Shear

Managing Director, Board Assets, Inc.

Hal Shear is Managing Director of Board Assets, Inc., which provides governance services to directors and boards throughout the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. He has served on more than 12 boards, and he currently serves as an independent director/advisor/chairman of three privately held companies, where he provides strategic and operational advice and counsel as well as governance expertise. He is a Fellow of Kennesaw University's Corporate Governance Center.

Hal is a founding director of Bioethics-in-Action, Inc., a nonpartisan organization that encourages a national dialogue on ethics in biotechnology.

Fred H. (Bud) Billups

Bud has most recently served as Treasurer of St. John’s College in Annapolis, and as President of the Historic Annapolis Foundation.

A former naval officer and Exxon Corporation executive, Bud also served as Executive Director of the Pew Charitable Trusts from 1976 — 1988. He currently serves on the boards of Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts; the Community Foundation of Anne Arundel County; the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra; Maryland Therapeutic Riding; St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church; and VisionWorkshops.

Griff Hall

Executive Director, Leadership Anne Arundel

Serving, teaching, coaching and connecting diverse communities of leaders underscores much of Griff Hall’s professional and volunteer focus. Griff is executive director of Leadership Anne Arundel, a non-profit organization that develops diverse networks of informed, proactive and resourceful community leaders. A faculty member in the Johns Hopkins University Carey School of Business, Griff teaches MBA courses in competitive strategy and has helped JHU develop a unique student-run business consulting practice.

Griff attributes much of his personal leadership development to experiences in service to community and faith organizations. He has been involved in many organizations as a board member and volunteer.

Kara Brook

President and CEO, Brook Group

Kara Brook is the founder and CEO of Brook Group, a leading provider of Web design and Web application development services to clients nationwide. A graduate of the Maryland Institute, College of Art, Kara fosters the development of young design talent through a class she teaches each fall. In 2000, she established a scholarship foundation in memory of her father, designed to assist MICA students in financial need to pursue studies in the arts and technology.

As part of their "Giving Back" program, Brook Group selected House Of Ruth, Maryland, as the recipient of a host of free Web services. House Of Ruth is one of the nation’s leading domestic violence centers, helping thousands of battered women and their children find safety and security. “Each year the Giving Back program provides a worthy non-profit with the type of Web site services that normally only a Fortune 500 company could afford,” said Kara. “Brook Group’s success is due in large part to the support of our community; therefore, we feel a deep responsibility to support those organizations that so selflessly serve others.”

Kirsten Elstner

Executive Director, VisionWorkshops, Inc.

Kirsten Elstner, Director of VisionWorkshops, has been a freelance photographer and teacher since completing her Master of Arts in Photography at Ohio University in 1990. Her work has appeared in Time, Life, and Fortune magazines, as well as others, and she spent five years shooting for the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Kirsten has worked in Bangladesh for the International Red Cross, and as a photographer for Brazil’s largest newspaper, O Globo, in Rio de Janeiro.

Kirsten has taught photography at the college level at the International Center of Photography in New York, The Corcoran College of Art and Design, Goucher College, The Art Institute of Boston, and The Massachusetts College of Art. Through VisionWorkshops, Kirsten mentors young people in her community, as well as nationally and internationally as Director of the National Geographic Photo Camp workshops. NG Photo Camp provides dynamic educational workshops for youth from underserved communities worldwide.

Sandy Huberfeld

Sandy is an avid photographer and has served as Vice President and Relocation Director for Merrill Lynch.  In 1989 she opened Ambassador Realty, a company serving individual’s real estate needs and corporations regarding their employee’s relocation needs.  Sandy has also been a Hearing Officer for the Board of Realtors, a Director, Chairman of the Professional Standards Committee, and one of the developers of the Maryland Real Estate Sales Contract.

Since returning from two and a half years sailing & photographing the South Pacific, she has been President of the Digital Photography Club of Annapolis. Sandy serves on the board of VisionWorkshops and is a member of the Advisory Council for the Senior Center.

Advisory Board

Sam Abell

Photographer

Sam Abell’s love of photography began due to the influence of his father who was a geography teacher who ran a photography club in Sylvania, Ohio.

Sam has worked with the National Geographic Society since 1970, photographing more than 20 articles on cultural and wilderness subjects for National Geographic magazine and several books. He has lectured on photography and exhibited his work to audiences throughout the world.

Sam has published nine books with National Geographic, and a book of his best personal and professional work, Sam Abell: The Photographic Life, was published in 2002.

Sam is also a gifted teacher, artist and author. A member of the board of trustees of the Santa Fe Center for the Visual Arts, Sam lives in Crozet, Virginia, with his wife, Denise.

Stephen Crowley

Staff Photographer, The New York Times, Washington Bureau

Stephen Crowley has been a staff photographer for The New York Times Washington Bureau since 1991. Stephen is a recent recipient of both the White House News Photographers Association’s Photographer of the Year Award, as well as a shared Pulitzer Prize in Photography for his work in Afghanistan. He has won 11 Pictures of the Year Awards and numerous awards from the White House News Photographers Association. Stephen has worked as a staff photographer for The Palm Beach Post, The Miami Herald, and The Washington Times, and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Texas and the International Center of Photography in New York.

Susan Reeve, Director

Explorers Program and Special Projects
The National Geographic Society

Susan Reeve is the Director of the Explorers Program and Special Projects for Mission Programs at the National Geographic Society.  In that capacity she is responsible for the development and oversight of all aspects of the Explorer-in-Residence Program, NG Visiting Fellows Program and the Emerging Explorers Program, including the creation of new program opportunities.  In 2004 she created the Emerging Explorers Program, an annual awards program which spotlights uniquely gifted, inspiring, visionary individuals while they are at the start of their careers and recognizes the next generation of storytellers. The Emerging Explorers Program was supported by Microsoft for several years and is currently supported by PNY. In 2007 she developed the NG Explorers Symposium, an annual, three-day conference featuring top explorers from around the world.

Susan helps develop and manage multi-year projects across all editorial divisions that have enormous impact and create opportunities for public participation or debate.  Projects have included the Genographic Project, The Gospel of Judas, the NG Foresight Institute, and the All Roads Photographers Program.  She is also responsible for NG Photo Camp, a series of photography workshops for youth from underserved communities both in and outside the United States. In partnership with local newspapers and community organizations, Photo Camp inspires young people to explore their communities through the camera’s lens, and to share their vision through public presentations and exhibitions.

From 1998 to 2001, Susan served as the National Geographic project lead to the Sustainable Seas Expeditions, a $10 million, five-year joint NGS/NOAA program of deep-water exploration and public education in the National Marine Sanctuaries system, using innovative submersible technology.  

Jay Badams

Wattsburg Area School District, Pennsylvania

Jay Badams is the Superintendent of Schools for the Wattsburg Area School District in Erie, Pennsylvania. He has conducted numerous workshops at statewide conferences on test score interpretation and data-driven decision making. He has worked as a consultant for public school districts throughout Pennsylvania, and was a featured presenter at several Pennsylvania Governor’s Institutes on Data-Driven Decision Making. Jay draws on his experiences in business and in the military, as well as in teaching and school administration, to make test scores and statistics understandable and to turn data into action.  Jay lives in Erie with his wife and four children.

Darsie Alexander

Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art

Darsie Alexander is Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art. She began as a photography curator, working first as assistant curator at the Museum of Modern Art and subsequently as associate curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art. While at MoMA she organized numerous exhibitions, including New Photography 14, Robert Cumming: The Clutter of Happenstance and Sets and Situations. In 2000, she moved to Baltimore, and began work on building the contemporary works on paper collection. In 2005, she organized the critically-acclaimed SlideShow, the first exhibition to explore the history of projected slides in post-1965 art. She is currently curating a retrospective of work by Austrian sculptor Franz West (2008). In addition to her exhibitions, Alexander has written on performance art, conceptualism, and new media. With Johns Hopkins University professor Michael Fried she has moderated an ongoing series of conversation with major figures in contemporary photography, including Jeff Wall and Tacita Dean. A graduate of Bates College (1988), she earned her MA in art history from Williams College (1991). She was on the 2006 advisory board for the Lucie Awards and participates regularly as a guest juror and portfolio reviewer in national exhibitions and events. Alexander is also a visiting critic for the MFA program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Lelen Bourgoignie-Robert

Director of Visual Journalism, University of Miami

Lelen Bourgoignie-Robert is an Associate Professor and Program Director of Visual Journalism at the University of Miami. Lelen has an MA in Visual Communication and an MFA in Photography from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

Lelen’s work has received honors in the Pictures of the Year International Competitions and was a judge for the 57th Pictures of the Year International. She has coordinated and directed various conferences, exhibits and workshops including the Wilson Hicks International conference on Visual Communication, Women in Photojournalism Exhibits 1995 and 1999 and El Taller Para las Americas: Fotoperidismo and Somosfoto, workshops for Latin American photojournalists.

Lelen and her husband Michel have created “Paperseed”, a non-profit which helps build and maintain cultural centers, schools and playgrounds in rural and marginal villages of Latin America.