Board of Directors
 

Officers
Jean L. Gortzig, Board Chair, Women's Fund committee member, is retired from Cornell University, where she served as Director of Major Gifts in the Office of Alumni Affairs and Development. Jean has a 37 year association with Planned Parenthood of Tompkins County and is one of the founders of the organization.  She has a long and varied history of involvement with Planned Parenthood, including serving as interim director. She is currently a member of it's current Board of Directors, as well as serving on the Historic Ithaca/State Theater Campaign Steering Committee and the advisory council of the History Center in Tompkins County.  For 12 years she was an active member on the Board of Directors of Ithacare/Longview.  Jean and her husband Carl, Professor Emeritus of Horticulture and Director Emeritus Cornell Plantations, have lived in Ithaca since 1965.  Separately and together they are committed to philanthropy and civic involvement in the community that they believe has so greatly enriched their lives.

 

  
George A. Ridenour, Board Vice Chair and Human Resources Committee Chair, a Cornell Graduate, is a self-employed search consultant and, since 1995, has primarily supported the recruitment programs of client companies in the Ithaca area.  Previously, George served in overseas assignments with the US Agency for International Development, as Director of Admissions and Student Affairs for the Graduate School of Management at Cornell, and as Vice President of the Environmental Fund in Washington , D.C.  George comes from a family with a longstanding history of community and civic involvement. In the Spring of 2002, The Ridenour Family Fund was established at the Community Foundation to facilitate the family's charitable giving to deserving organizations. With a particular interest in long-term care for the elderly and end-of-life issues, George also serves on the Board of Directors of Hospicare and Palliative Services of Ithaca, NY.  
   
Mary Pat Dolan, Board Secretary, Grants Committee Chair, Strategic Planning Committee Chair, retired in late 2003 after nearly 20 years as the Commissioner of the county's Social Services department and many more years in public administration in other communities.  She has served on and led numerous not-for-profit boards. She finds the opportunity to serve as a Director of the Community Foundation particularly rewarding because of the critical importance not-for-profit entities play in the fabric of our community for everyone, but particularly for the most vulnerable of its citizens. Her education includes an MSW from Marywood University and BA from LeMoyne College.  Her husband, David Kerness, works for Lockheed Martin in Owego. They live in the town of Ulysses and their two grown daughters live on the West coast.

 

  
Joanne James, Board Treasurer, is the Business Administrator at Newfield Central School where she is responsible for all the financial and service related activities.   She is also a Certified Public Accountant having worked for six years with a regional CPA firm specializing in school and not-for-profit accounting.   Joanne and her family have lived in the Newfield community for over 25 years. She is active in several community programs including the newly restored fall Fiddler's Festival.  Joanne is pleased to be working with a community foundation that encompasses both not-for-profit and educational needs.

 

  
 

Committee Chairs

 

  
Samantha Castillo-Davis, Nominating and Governance Committee Chair, is  Associate Director for Alumni Affairs and Development at Cornell University, College of Human Ecology. Samantha has used her marketing and management skills to benefit a variety of non-profit activities in both a professional and volunteer capacity. She has a special passion for youth programs. Having graduated from Cornell, Samantha has chosen to make Ithaca her home. Samantha is also involved with the Kappa Kappa Gamma of Cornell Foundation, Light in Winter, the Ithaca Downtown Partnership, and the TC Convention and Visitors Bureau.

 

  
John Hinchcliff , Development Committee Chair, is an attorney with a substantial "trusts and estates" practice, including expertise in gift and estate tax issues and the development of estate plans that use charitable tools to meet clients' tax and charitable goals. His law firm, Miller Mayer, established a donor advised fund with the Community Foundation through which several grants have been made to local charities. He has been active in the Tompkins County Bar Association and several other community boards. He has lived in Ithaca since 1987, when he moved here from New York City with his wife Robin and triplet daughters.
   
Helen Saunders, Finance Administration Committee Chair, Women's Fund Community Outreach and Education Committee Chair, certified financial planner, is a self-employed investment consultant with Linsco Private Ledger.   She has been in the financial services field for over fifteen years.   An Ithaca native, Helen has served numerous local not-for-profit organizations through boards and committees.  She brings an important depth of knowledge of the Tompkins County business and human service networks to the Community Foundation.
   
Diane Shafer, Women's Fund Chair, PR and Marketing Chair, is a full-time community volunteer.  Diane and her family moved back to Ithaca from Connecticut in 1997.  Prior to this move, she worked extensively with educational associations and not-for-profit organizations, including service as president of the New Canaan Community Foundation.  Locally, Diane served as the board president of the Family Reading Partnership, and is board president of the United Way of Tompkins County and the leader and co-creator of its Youth and Philanthropy Leadership Project.  Diane believes strongly in the ability of a Community Foundation to strengthen a community's capacity to address all areas of needs and concerns within that community.  

 

  
 

Board Members

  Beverly Baker,  new Board member
   
Don Barber, PR & Marketing Committee, grew up on the family-owned-and-operated dairy farm in Danby. He went to SUNY at Alfred University, earning a BS and MS in Ceramic Engineering. For 10 years, he worked at Corning Inc. as an engineering manager during which time he received a US Patent.  Don established Sunny Brook Builders, a residential construction firm in Ithaca, in 1983. The business employs 12 full-time and 2 part-time employees.   Barber has served on several Tompkins County Advisory Boards, including Ag & Farmland Protection Board, Environmental Management Council (which he chaired), Water Resource Council.  He was elected to the Caroline Town Board in 1993 as councilman. He has been Caroline Town Supervisor since 1997. Barber serves on the Board of Directors of the Tompkins County Area Development Corp. and the NY Municipal Insurance Reciprocal, and he is the current chair of the Tompkins County Council of Governments.

 

  
Percy Browning, Development Committee, has served on chamber orchestra and theater boards for 30 years in Kentucky, Connecticut and Maine before moving to Ithaca in 1995. While in Kentucky she raised four children, all of whom subsequently married and produced 14 grandchildren. Her youngest son Peter lives in the Ithaca area with 4 of her "grands" and runs Viva Taqueria! Percy has been on the Kitchen Theatre Board since 1996. She also served on the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra board from 1996 to 2001 and was President for 3 years. She is also on the board of Planned Parenthood of the Southern Finger Lakes. Her many associations with Cornell University include co-reunion chair for her class, Advisory Councils for the College of Arts and Sciences and the Womens' Chorus, and House Maintenance Officer for her sorority, Pi Beta Phi.
   

Tommy Bruce serves as Vice President for University Communications at Cornell University.  Tommy has channeled his interest in community service by serving on a number of boards, including 15 years as chairman of the board of directors of Sasha Bruce Youthworks, the largest private agency in the District of Columbia working with runaway children.  Born in Midland, Texas, Tommy grew up in Paris.  He was educated at the University of Paris and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he earned his bachelors degree from the School of Foreign Service in 1979.  His fields of study were international relations, Arabic and Middle East studies. Tommy is married to film producer and former National Geographic Television executive Constance L. Bruce and is the father of Louise and Charlotte Bruce.

 

  
David Call,  new Board member
   
Mariette Geldenhuys,  new Board member
   
Brad Grainger, Investment Committee, is Senior Vice President at GMAC Commercial Mortgage.  This is Brad's third year as a Board Member of the Community Foundation of Tompkins County.
   

Howard Hartnett, Development Committee, is the vice president and regional manager of M&T Investment Group.  He is a lifelong resident of Tompkins County and has worked on many not-for-profit boards including the Paleontological Research Institute and the TC Public Library Foundation. Howard has enjoyed many years as a volunteer in local philanthropy and created one of the first Community Foundation donor advised funds. He feels that a community foundation will be an effective vehicle to increase charitable giving in Tompkins County.
   
  Mimi Melegrito-Palmer, Grants Committee.  Since her arrival in Ithaca in 1979, Mimi has been active in the community from singing in Nursing homes to presenting programs on the Philippines. An employee of the City of ithaca for the past twenty five years, she is presently a match manager in the Big Brothers,  Big Sisters program of the City Youth Bureau.  Mimi joined the Kiwanis Club of Ithaca in l988 and became  its first female president. The founding president of Cayuga Kiwanis in 2000,  she was also a distinguished Lt.Governor for Kiwanis International, Chemung Division in 2004.  Mimi was the first recipient of the Cornell Tradition Community award and the Marjorie Penalver award of the Human Rights Commission. She is presently on the  advisory boards of the Salvation Army, Women's Opportunity Center,  Ithaca Festival, and the Tompkins Community Action program.
   
Risa Mish is a Lecturer of Leadership and Director of the Leadership Skills Program at the Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management, and Principal in a management training practice focused on leadership and employee relations issues, including effective supervision, talent identification and retention, critical thinking and strategic problem solving skills, and labor and employment law matters.  Before returning to Ithaca in 2001, Risa practiced law full-time for 13 years, including as a partner in the New York City law firm of Collazo, Carling & Mish LLP, where she represented corporations, foundations and non-profit organizations on a range of labor and employment law issues, and ran a corporate training practice educating senior management and human resources officers on employee relations best practices.

 
John Rogers, Nominating and Governance Committee, Grants Committee, is an independent construction consultant with 20 years experience in affordable housing work at INHS where many local community connections were established and nourished. He has served on boards of the Finger Lakes Land Trust, Cayuga Trails Club, On Site Volunteer Services, Greenstar Coop, and an inter-municipal youth service agency. He served as a trustee for the Village of Trumansburg and has led international wilderness outings with the Sierra Club. John's married to Claudia Stoscheck and they have two children who they have taught to live lightly, be well traveled, and be in touch with nature. John wishes to help promote local philanthropy and connect this gracious giving with local community needs.
   
Tom Torello,  PR and Marketing Committee, is the Executive Director of Marketing Communications at Ithaca College.  Prior to joining Ithaca in November of 2002, he was Director of Marketing at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York for more than 7 years.  Mr. Torello has a bachelor's degree in communications from the Park School of Communications at Ithaca College.  Prior to joining Rensselar he worked in account management at several marketing firms in New York.

 

  
 

Professional Staff

George P. Ferrari, Jr., Executive Director, has been a committed and active participant in our Tompkins County community since 1980 with a special focus on nonprofit organizations that combine alleviating individual suffering with working for societal change. He strongly believes in the potential for good and for community problem-solving and the obligation for all to work for a more just society. He combines academic knowledge, community resources, and practical experience, so that a shared moral vision may be crafted which can guide our community to bring greater health to individuals, more justice to our economic and legal institutions and wisdom to our personal and collective decisions. George has been committed to building a stronger community through leadership employment at Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service, AIDS WORK of Tompkins County , and Catholic Charities. In addition, his extensive and varied volunteer board experience gives him a great vantage point from which to strategically plan for organizational development in a changing environment. George lives in the City of Ithaca with his partner Daniel Hirtler and Daniel's daughter Aryana.

   

Janet Cotraccia, Program Officer, is the most recent addition to our staff, joining us in the fall of 2007. She joins us part-time, after an eight year stint as a stay-at-home mom. During that time she has been an active member of local non-profit boards, most recently serving as the Board Treasurer of the Advocacy Center. Janet has a bachelors degree in Social Work from RIT and a Master's Degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. She came to Ithaca in 1997 to work as the Assistant Director of Finance at the Franziska Racker Centers. Janet has been active in advocating for individuals with developmental disabilities, low-income families, as well as in community building.  She is excited to build on the philanthropic vision at the Foundation and to play an active role in supporting local non-profits and this community. Her husband, Tony Cotraccia, is a psychotherapist in private practice. They enjoy raising their two daughters in this thriving community with its many family resources.

 

  

Esther Haney, Financial Officer, brings over thirty years of accounting experience to her position as Financial Officer of the Foundation. She and her husband owned and operated service and retail businesses in Ithaca during those years. Esther handled all of the businesses' financial administration and bookkeeping needs. She has been an invaluable staff member of the Foundation since February of 2005.