Leadership
 

Board of Directors
 

President: Dr. Jerry Lieberman: Dr. Jerry Lieberman received his Ph.D from New York University in 1973.  During his career he served as a university level professor and administrator.  He also was the principal of an investment banking company and an importer with the former Soviet Union. During his lifetime he has served on numerous government and corporate boards, and has raised over 100 million dollars from public and private resources to support activities he is engaged with. Dr. Lieberman presently serves as chairman of the IHS Fund Committee and is a board member of the Secular Student Alliance. (He had been the Treasurer for the HFA Board since 2001 and became President of the board in 2003.)

Vice President: Chuck Cooper: Chuck Cooper’s thirty year career began as an engineer with a major chemical company and culminated as Director of International Sales for various Global Regions and Director for Sales for all of the global regions in some assignments.  Several years ago, he took an early retirement and moved to Florida.  In his post retirement career he has been a Child Abuse Investigator, Labor Union Organizer, Interim Executive Director – Lawton Chiles Foundation, and Realtor with Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate, Inc.  He is Tri-lingual (English Spanish, German) and is very familiar with North American, European, Latin American and Asian social and business cultures.  Finally he volunteers on the following boards - Manatee South County Redevelopment Agency, Suncoast Partnership to End Homelessness, the state governing board for Common Cause of Florida, HFA and is a former board member of the Manatee County Boys and Girls Club. 

Secretary: Tom Walker:  Tom Walker received a BS in psychology from Duke University in 1964. He worked for the General Electric computer department in their Charlotte, NC office before moving to Dialcom, Inc. in Washington, D.C., a time-sharing company where customers paid by the hour to connect a "dumb" terminal to a central computer via the telephone.  In 1972 became VP of product development, and given part ownership. During the Dialcom years he helped develop, among other things, "The Source," a precursor to AOL. In January 1986, he left corporate life to start his own company, Watson & Walker, with his wife. He moved to Tampa in 1989 and then to Sarasota in 1991. He is on the board of the local brush painting society, and for several years has served on the board of FCAN (Florida Consumer Action Network.)

Treasurer Bob La Salle:  Bob worked for what is now Verizon, for a total of 37 years, retiring in 2000.  While he was working, he attended school nights and achieved an Associates degree in Electronics, and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Business Management. He has taught some computer and management courses at the college level and has extensive teaching experience with the phone company where he trained engineers in the nuances of telephone and computer programing skills.  In addition, he worked for H & R Block as a Tax Professional for 2 years after he retired.  He has been your Treasurer since June of 2004 and was recently elected Treasurer of The Lemon Bay Playhouse in Englewood, FL.

Carole Mehlman: Carol Mehlman is a lawyer that specializes in immigration and domestic violence issues.  She is also a certified mediator, and long time Humanist, active with HFA and a variety of progressive causes.  She has served on several boards, including HFA and has a Master’s degree in non-profit management. (Carole is the former secretary of the HFA board and has been a board member since 2003.)

Richard Hull PHD: Richard Hull is the current executive director of the Text and Academic Authors Association.  He has a Ph.D and has a long history as an educator and published author.  He is a long time Humanist with many ties to the Humanist community.  His strong background in nonprofits and ethics make him a perfect candidate for the board.

 

Louis Altman:  Louis Altman is a retired patent attorney who shares his time between Sarasota and Chicago.  He attended both Cornell and Harvard Universities before becoming a respect patent attorney.  When he finished his tenure as a patent attorney in the corporate world, he took an academic position at John Marshall Law School and subsequently Loyola Law School.  He is a long time Humanist and has been involved with Humanistic Judaism in Sarasota.

Jan Kalnbach: Jan Kalnbach is a former elementary school teacher who spends part of her year in Florida and the other portion of her year gardening up north.  She is an avid gardener and has a keen interest in science and science literacy.  She has been involved in many progressive issues around the state and is active with the National Organization for women.

 Vacant:

Dennis Deshaies: Dennis  Deshaies served as President of HFA from April 2000 to April 2003. He is also a founder member and former President of the Humanists of Northeast Florida and has been a lifetime advocate/activist for civil and human rights. Dennis retired in 1994 after a distinguished career in Human Resources.  His career afforded him the ability to earn an income while fulfilling his personal commitment to existential humanism by applying humanistic and social science principles in significant areas of social organization. After earning a Masters degree in Sociology at the University on Chicago, in 1962 he became a Field Research Associate with the Institute For Social Research, the University of Michigan, which conducted a 6 year social research project to evaluate the effectiveness of the Chicago Youth Development Project, an outreach program directed at delinquent street gangs in Chicago.  Next he spent 14 years directing a research and development department, at the Chrysler Institute, the Chrysler Corporation, developing programs to recruit train and assimilate economically disadvantaged, minorities, women, and the disabled into the mainstream work place. During the last ten years before retirement he was the Director of Human Resources for Boysville of Michigan, a multi-center, program for the rehabilitation of delinquent youth and their families. Dennis currently resides in St. Augustine, FL and has three adult daughters and two grandchildren who live out of state. He is a licensed private pilot, currently active in sports aviation.  He enjoys reading suspense and action novels and nonfiction literature on social, political and philosophical subjects. 

HFA Projects
 

Carl Sagan Academy Tampa - School Director: Dr. Kelly Browning – Tampa: Kelly Browning was a consultant with Florida social-service agencies and a doctoral student in the University of South Florida’s criminology department.  She wants the Humanists of Florida Association to connect humanism to issues and public policy affecting children, in addition to continuing the work of coalition building that has started in the last few years. (She has been an At-Large member of the board since 2002, and Vice President of the HFA board from 2003 - 2005)
 

Director Center for Humanism - Torben Riise, PhD


 

Directer Humanist Celebrants - Bob La Salle


 

 

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