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National Peace Corps Association > News > Community News > Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Thailand, Ukraine
Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Thailand, Ukraine
By JoAnna Haugen on Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
BULGARIA
Donna Steiger (00-01) recently received an honorary doctorate in human rights and was named an honorary professor at the University of National and World Economy in Sofia, Bulgaria, for her work to improve life for people with disabilities there. She has worked with the International Executive Service Corps and assisted as a consultant with the development of western tourism standards in Bulgaria, Slovakia and Poland after the Berlin Wall came down. Steiger has been founder, co-founder president or owner of several organizations and businesses including the San Francisco Municipal Theater, San Francisco Blind Acting Troupe and Travel Central School in Seattle, Wash. She has operated Steiger and Associates since 1975 and has worked with events such as the 1984 Olympic Games and the U.S. Goodwill Games in 1989-90.
ETHIOPIA
Doug Eadie’s (64-67) latest book, Leading Out-Of-The-Box Change, will be published by Governance Edge Publishing and released in January 2012. The book provides hands-on guidance to nonprofit and public leaders in accomplishing significant innovation.
LESOTHO
David J. Chard (86-90) was named to the Board of Directors of the National Board for Education Sciences by President Barack Obama. Chard is the Leon Simmons Endowed Dean and a professor at the Southern Methodist University’s Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development. Prior to that position, he served as the director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Special Education, associate dean of the College of Education and director of Middle-Secondary Education at the University of Oregon. Chard also served as the director of Research and Evaluation of the Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts. He is a member of the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities, a member of the American Mathematical Association and president for the Division for Research at the Council for Exceptional Children. Chard received his bachelor’s degree from Central Michigan University and his doctorate degree from the University of Oregon.
MOROCCO
Jeff McCusker (86-88) is the new trail manager for the North Country Trail, a 4,600-mile, seven-state trail running from New York to North Dakota. The trail is overseen by the National Park Service. In addition to his time in the Peace Corps, McCusker spent a year in Mongolia working for the United Nations on plans to build the first national park in the country. He also worked on trails in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. In addition, McCusker has plans to travel to Mozambique to help locals learn trail-building techniques at Gorongosa National Park for a trail system that will go around Mount Gorongosa.
NIGER
Laura Lewis (00-02) is the new director of the Washington State University Jefferson County Extension. She has most recently been working at the University of Maryland’s Baltimore campus where she was an assistant professor of biogeography. Lewis has experience conducting research for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington state and California, and she has worked with farmers in Central and Eastern Washington who manage fruit trees and cereal crops.
SENEGAL
Cheryl Fattibene is an active volunteer for the Friend Fitness Program, serves on the Youth Committee of Main Line Unitarian Church and is a fundraising liaison for Camp Unirondack. She has also volunteered for Run Philly Style. Fattibene is the district manager of operations for the 13 Minute Clinics of CVS Pharmacy in the Philadelphia area. She has a master’s degree from Yale University.
SIERRA LEONE
Judith Weber has been appointed by the Supreme Judicial Court to head the Chelsea Housing Authority as its receiver, the first in CHA history. A housing expert from Newton, Mass., Weber is presently employed by VIVA Consulting of Cambridge. She has worked for many housing authorities across the nation, most recently with the Cambridge Housing Authority. Weber also presently serves on the public housing committee of the Commonwealth Housing Task Force and is director and vice president of the Newton Community Development Foundation. Prior to her current position, Weber consulted with the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development. She also worked for a year in the office of the late Congressman Joseph Moakley and served as a director of the Boston YWCA. Weber received her bachelor’s degree from New York University.
SOUTH AFRICA
Steven Gerner is the co-owner of Squarz Pies, which is based in Mesa, Arizona. The pies come in several varieties including steak fajita, steak, spinach and feta, pepperoni pizza, chicken and mushroom, chicken, breakfast, BBQ pork and apple. Right now, Squarz Pies products can only be bought at farmers’ markets in the Phoenix Valley.
THAILAND
The Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative has named Marcia Nielsen, Ph.D., MPH, (88-90) as executive director of the organization beginning January 2, 2012. She most recently served as associate dean for health policy at the University of Kansas Medical Center, and she was named the department of health policy and management’s Professor of the Year for 2011. Prior to that position, Nielsen was the executive director of the Kansas Health Policy Authority. She was also a Senate staffer for Bob Kerrey during the health care reform debate of the 1990s, assistant director of legislation for the AFL-CIO and first board chair of the Kansas Health Policy Authority before becoming executive director the organization. Nielsen holds a master’s degree from George Washington University and a doctorate from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
UKRAINE
Jeremy Gleason was named Alaska Youth Soccer Association’s coach of the year. He has been coaching the Juneau Soccer Club’s Capital City Strikers (a team of 12- and 13-year-old boys) for three years. This year Gleason’s team won the Alaska Airlines Cup in June, and it was a runner up in the State Cup tournament in August. Gleason is also a volunteer assistant coach for Juneau-Douglas High School and a volunteer coach for the Juneau Soccer Club. He actively organizes games between the team he coaches and boys and girls teams from other age groups within the club and with high school teams as well. Gleason is a certified teacher and works with students in the Juneau School District who are in jeopardy of dropping out of high school.
The RPCV’s from the training program of summer ’65 for Senegal and Niger, at Carbondale, Illinois, on the campus of Southern Illinois University would like to compile as complete a list of those returned volunteers as possible. We are hoping to establish a means of communication between those people we got to know during training and then lost contact with for these many years. Please write to either Clarke Kerr or Ruth Mentley About 3/4 of the Carbondale group have been contacted so far. We will share contact with you as soon as we receive your reply.