BOARD AND STAFF BIOS
Colleen LaFontaine: Executive Director
Colleen joins One World Children's Fund as our first Executive Director. Colleen spent the last five years as the Director of Fundraising for Sparks, The Children's Medical Research Charity, in London, England. There she built the corporate fundraising program as well as launching several fundraising, technology and branding initiatives leading to a three-fold increase in revenue. Prior to her move to Europe Colleen held the role of Managing Director of Step Up Women's Network, a national nonprofit membership organization dedicated to connecting and advancing women and girls. Before her transition to the nonprofit sector Colleen spent over a decade in management and executive roles with a variety of start up companies across the country.
Colleen was born in New York and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Philosophy from Rutgers College, Rutgers University. Never afraid to take on a challenge, Colleen has cycled from London to Paris and from London to Barcelona as well as participating in over a dozen half marathons and other running events. She has yet, though, to complete a full marathon and will be taking on that challenge in 2010. She lives one mile from the OWCF office with her husband Paul and their Westie, Maddox.
Patricia "Savitri" Burbank: Co-Founder
Patricia "Savitri" Burbank is one of the co-founders of One World Children's Fund. During an extended stay in India in 1999 with her husband Michael Kilgroe, she was deeply moved by the living conditions of the poor. She also found several grassroots organizations doing great work in the most challeging situations, and wanted to create a forum for US residents to support their efforts. Out of that desire the "Champion" model was born.
Patricia graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Modern European History and MA in Education. She followed that with a Masters in Counseling Psychology from the University of Santa Clara, and then spent the next 30 years in private practice as a therapist. She and Michael were early proponents of holistic health at the first holistic health center, San Andreas Health Council. They also co-led transpersonal psychology groups for several years and co-taught the Enneagram for 15 years.
Patricia devotes her time at OWCF in fundraising and donor relations. She loves to connect people with grassroots efforts that are serving children in need. She is passionate about education, particularly for girls, and programs that address the needs of American teenagers in juvenile detention centers.
Favorite Quote: "Learn to love the questions;perhaps some distant day we can live into the answers." Rilke
Michael Kilgroe: Co-Founder and Vice President
Michael arrived in California in 1968 after attending Florida Atlantic University. He retired in 2004 after 32 years in private practice as a somatic therapist, a Rolfer and a teacher/group leader in transpersonal psychology. He and Patricia sold their house in Palo Alto and "went on the road" for some time.
Michael's travels to India with his wife Patricia inspired him to co-found OWCF with Shanti Cliff in 2000. Michael's particular contribution to OWCF is in the creation of the "Champion" model, and he devotes his time working with Champions and supporting their efforts in serving grassroots projects around the world. We call him the Champion of Champions!
Michael is a long time meditator, recently involved in a scientific study of meditation in a retreat setting with Alan Wallace and scientists from the University of California at Davis.
Wylie Greig: President
Wylie Greig joined the OWCF Board in September 2006 and focuses on its internal organization and operations. Wylie’s interest in grassroots economic and social development began when he and his wife, Janet, were Peace Corps Volunteers in India during 1966-68. His focus on village-level water supply led to a job as a Field Representative with CARE, Inc. stationed in Afghanistan and Jordan.
After the birth of their son in Amman, Jordan, Wylie returned to graduate school in the US, earning a Masters degree in City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA focused on real estate from the Wharton School. Following a long career as a land use economist and investment manager, Wylie retired from Deutsche Bank in 2006 as the bank’s global head of real estate research for their asset management business (RREEF).
Wylie and Janet will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary this year by revisiting the places they lived and worked in India. They are frequent travelers to Asia, South America and Europe and actively engaged in development projects in Tibet and Chile. “Americans are in a unique position to contribute to development of a more promising, peaceful world”, says Wylie. “It’s also vital to our national self interest to do so. Ultimately, our effectiveness and worth as a nation is going to be judged by our actions, not our words."
Janet Greig: Secretary
Janet was recruited to join the OWCF Board in September, 2006. She has had a life-long interest in the United States and its relationship with the world at large. Janet grew up on a family ranch in southern California. From her earliest years, she remembers ‘looking beyond’ her small town home. Janet was a High School exchange student in Berlin the summer the Berlin wall went up. She felt the unity expressed in Europe in response to this tragic event. Trips to East Berlin prior to the wall’s construction had exposed her to the universality of humankind. After graduating from University of California, Berkeley with a degree in Social Science Field, she set off to India in the Peace Corps.
In India, Janet was part of a village level United Nations nutrition program in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. She worked with women in five villages to improve the nutritional value of their diets through growing kitchen gardens and raising poultry. She also worked closely with the government extension worker to encourage women to come together to discuss how to better their lives. She established 5 feeding programs to provide a richer diet to young children, nursing mothers and pregnant women. It was in India that she married her husband and fellow OWCF board member, Wylie.
Janet returned to the United States as a full time mother after living in India, Afghanistan and Jordan. In the late 80’s with her children now in school, Janet entered the work force as a State Farm Insurance Agent. She retired in 2002 as an Agency Field Executive with State Farm, managing over 30 agents on the San Francisco Peninsula. Today, Janet divides her time between her grandchildren, gardening, traveling, church work and volunteering with OWCF. She chairs OWCF’s Project Committee, which evaluates new Champion projects.
Favorite quotes: "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Shakespeare
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Christ Jesus
Ken Becker: Treasurer
Ken Becker is the co-founder and former owner of Imagine Foods, Inc., one of the most successful natural foods manufacturing and sales companies in the industry. In running Imagine Foods, Ken was involved in all aspects of creating, developing, financing, marketing and operating a rapidly growing company. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Ken practiced law for eight years. He specialized in criminal, civil rights, labor and administrative law litigation, and ended his career as an Administrative Judge for the Federal Government.
After leaving Imagine Foods in 1998, Ken has been engaged in business, legal, financial and pro bono consulting, as well as devoting a substantial amount of time giving back to the community. He has served as a Board member, and in various officer positions, with numerous nonprofit organizations and joined the Board of One World Children’s Fund in March, 2008.
Anand Chandrasekaran: Board Member
Anand brings to OWCF a background in building successful entrepreneurial organizations, fundraising and using visual media to create social awareness and stimulate action. Between 2001 and 2008, Anand co-founded and helped build Aeroprise Inc. Since co-authoring the business plan and launching its products, Anand grew the company into the most-deployed mobility tool worldwide for service management with over 120 customers including Safeway, I.B.M., U.S. Air Force, Pfizer, Lockheed Martin, Harvard University and DirecTV. He was an Aeroprise board member and was named by MIT to the 2004 Global Technovators list of outstanding technology innovators. To date, he has worked for or been an advisor to Morf Mobile, MyToday SMS and e4e, a member of board of directors of Gestione Consulting (India), ReelSurfer and Indee.TV and is a sought-after advisor within startup communities in US and India.
Anand has also pursued a personal passion for transformative mass media and produced/exec. produced three feature-length independent films, including the acclaimed feature documentary "Tapestries of Hope" which is ready for release in 2009, has won several awards and is being featured on CNN as well as SnagFilms ahead of its world premiere. He has worked on several innovative efforts to build audiences and distribute niche media - including releasing "Carma" a feature thriller exclusively on an internet-based pay-per-view platform, raising financing for a documentary from its fans, and using a Flash Mob to promote a special screening. Anand is a member of and an SFO Chapter Co-Chair of the Producers Guild of America (PGA).
Anand’s entrepreneurial efforts have been covered by BusinessWeek, Business 2.0, Economic Times, CNBC Asia and Christian Science Monitor. He holds an MS in EE from Stanford University, where he was invited to co-teach MS&E 271 and as guest lecturer for E145 (both courses on entrepreneurship), and a BS with highest honors from PSG College of Tech, India. Follow Anand on Twitter
(http://www.twitter.com/anandc)
Stephanie Doering: Business Manager
Stephanie joined the OWCF in March 2008. She made the transition to the non-profit sector from the business world and brings with her over 10 years of experience in organizing and overseeing the operations of offices in various fields, including banking. Stephanie is responsible for managing all aspects of the OWCF office, the donation processing and donor database administration.
Having always been interested in working for a charitable organization, Stephanie found this role to be the perfect opportunity for her. “I’m really inspired by the mission of One World Children’s Fund and I am thrilled to be able to contribute my skills to an organization that is really making a difference in the lives of disadvantaged children. I look forward to learning as much as I can from this incredible group of people so that I can continue to grow with OWCF and the compassionate community they have created.”
