Working together
for a better community.

ABOUT US

The American Coalition on Aging was incorporated in Maryland in 2006 as a not-for-profit organization. We seek to help organizations active in the aging field by connecting them with new potential donors through workplace fundraising campaigns. We are beginning with the nation’s largest, the Combined Federal Campaign – the CFC.

We are governed by a volunteer board of directors and supported by an advisory committee.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Robert R. Aptekar

Bob Aptekar is nationally known for his work in the human services field. Over the years, he has held several senior posts in both the public and not-for-profit spheres including Commissioner of Family and Children’s Services in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare; Director of the U.S. Office of Child Development; Executive Director of the Berkshire Mental Health Center, Berkshire County, Massachusetts; and Director of Standards Development for the Child Welfare League of America.

While with the Child Welfare League, Mr. Aptekar helped form and lead Generations United. A coalition of 130 national organizations (e.g., Child Welfare League, Children’s Defense Fund, AARP, National Council of Senior Citizens), Generations United seeks to address issues of common concern, especially the setting of government priorities in the human services field.

In the early 1980s, Mr. Aptekar founded a for-profit firm aimed at helping older Americans remain in their home. “Independent Seniors” grew quickly, with a staff of 1,500 serving 3,500 families in multiple states. While initially focused on families that could afford to pay for services on their own, Independent Seniors expanded to include families that required public support. In many ways, Independent Seniors was a precursor to the many organizations now found across the country supporting older citizens.

Mr. Aptekar received his bachelor’s degree from Wayne State University and two masters degrees from the University of Michigan. He has volunteered extensively, serving on numerous local and national boards. For 10 years he was a board member of the Council on Accreditation of Services to Families and Children (COA). He has for years advised the leadership of many not-for-profit organizations on issues of strategic direction and operational management.

Judi Holley

Judi Holley is president of the Latin America Fund which acts as a CFC federation for U.S. organizations active in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. For several years in the 1990s and early 2000s, she was a board members and the president of Do Unto Others (DUO) – another federation representing international emergency relief, development and humanitarian charities.

A retired federal employee, Ms Holley has been involved in the Combined Federal Campaign for nearly 30 years. In addition to her extensive work with CFC federation’s, she has been a CFC donor and a local CFC volunteer. During her tenure as DUO's president, she participated in the National CFC Committee as the designated representative of her federation

Ms. Holley is a long-time participant in nonprofit organizations in her home state of Washington. These activities include; The Governor's Advisory Council for Vocational Rehabilitation, the Criminal Justice Training Commission, South Puget Sound Cultural Diversity Coalition, and the Pierce County Sheriffs Advisory Board and Jail Citing Task Force. She is currently leading a Pierce County pilot program for community involvement sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Park L. Gerdine

Park L. Gerdine, M. D., has been active in elder communities since his retirement in 1982 from three decades of medical practice. For several years in the 1980s and '90s, he served on the board of directors of the Shepherd's Centers of America, a network of interfaith, community-based organizations dedicated to empowering older adults to use their wisdom and skills for the good of their communities. He also served SCA as its Florida state representative, and his initiatives more than doubled the number of centers in the state.

In 1999 Mr. Gerdine moved to a not-for-profit continuing care community in Asheville, NC, where he currently resides. He was instrumental in founding a local Continuing Care Community Residents group, which is now one of the larger memberships in CCCR of North Carolina. He also has taught computer skills to his fellow residents and created a web site for the community. In addition, he has served as a court-appointed volunteer in North Carolina's Guardian ad Litem program, where he advocated for children brought into the criminal justice system as a result of neglect, abuse or abandonment.

In earlier years he was twice elected to the school board in the Central Texas town where he lived and volunteered as the high school football team physician. Mr. Gerdine was born in Korea to missionary parents. His memoir of returning to Korea after World War II was published in the 2005 Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society – Korea Branch.

Edward Novak

A Federal employee for 30 years, Edward Novak has been actively involved in the Combined Federal Campaign - as donor, loaned executive, community campaign leader, and national volunteer. A member of the National CFC Committee, Mr. Novak is also a member of the campaign's National Advisory Council, which includes senior volunteers from around the nation.

Since 1997, Mr. Novak has been helping to direct the Baltimore area campaign, one of the largest segments of the CFC in the nation. He chairs that campaign which, under his leadership, has expanded substantially, both in money raised and percent of the workforce participating.

During his federal career, Mr. Novak has managed operations and policy staffs involved in the administration of a national labor management relations program. In addition, he was directly involved with the development and implementation of an alternative dispute resolution program aimed at addressing and resolving workplace conflict in non-adversarial ways.

Mr. Novak is a practicing attorney in Maryland, serves as an ad hoc hearing examiner for a local Board of Education and is an arbitrator with Better Business Bureau. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the Maryland State Bar association and the Association for Conflict Resolution. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Latin America Fund, another CFC federation.

Richard O’Connor

Richard O’Connor has been in private practice as an attorney for 15 years, with an emphasis on civil, not for profit and environmental law. A partner in the Rockville, MD firm of Shure, Perez and O’Connor, he is admitted to practice law in Maryland and the District of Columbia at both the state and federal level.

Mr. O’Connor has advised numerous not for profit organizations, and in several instances served as a member of the board of directors.  He is a director of the CFC federation, Human & Civil Rights Organizations of America, having served as both treasurer and secretary. Before entering private practice, he spent 9 years in federal service, with NOAA’s Office of Coastal Management. Mr. O’Connor was the incorporator of American Coalition on the Aging.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Lori Piccolo

Lori Piccolo is a founding board member of two CFC federations: Latin America Fund (where she served as the first president) and Human & Civil Rights (where she has served since 1994).

Ms Piccolo has extensive experience in nonprofit fundraising. Currently, she is the Director of Development for the Washington Office on Latin America, where she has been since 1998. Prior to that, in 1996 and 1997, she was the Assistant Director of Development for Foundations and Corporations at People for the American Way. Ms Piccolo has also served as the Development Officer for the National Museum of Health and Medicine Foundation and as Major Gifts Manager for Public Citizen, Inc.

In addition, Ms. Piccolo has volunteered elsewhere in the non for profit world. Since 1982, she has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Chicago-based Brian Piccolo Cancer Research Fund.

Marshall Strauss

Marshall Strauss is president of two CFC federations: Human & Civil Rights Organizations of America and the Israel Fund. He is also a former chairman of the National CFC Committee.

Active in human rights and the charity field for most of three decades Mr. Strauss has held a number of senior posts and served on several not for profit boards. During the early 1990s, he helped establish and served as the initial CEO of two international organizations whose programs supported democracy activists overseas: The Democracy for China Fund and Freedom Channel. As executive director of the China Fund, he organized and participated in the 1991 human rights delegation to China led by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. During his tenure at Freedom Channel, that organization produced and aired on nationwide Russian television numerous human rights documentaries.

During the 1980s, Mr. Strauss served as associate director of Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Child Welfare League of America. Earlier, he served as special assistant to Massachusetts Governor Francis Sargent and special assistant to U.S. Senator John Durkin, among other positions. Strauss was a research associate at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy from 1994-96, and an adjunct member of the faculty of Emerson College in 1995. Here and overseas, he has been interviewed extensively on issues of human rights by, among others, the Associated Press, UPI, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, ABC News, Actuel (Paris), BBC, and Russian National Television.

Michael Washburn

Michael Washburn is the founding president of the Disabilities Fund of America, a federation providing access to the Combined Federal Campaign. For several years he was also a member pf the board of directors and officer of Human & Civil Rights Organizations of America, another CFC federation.

Mr. Washburn is President of Washburn Consulting-- a practice dedicated to assisting progressive companies and not for profit organizations in meeting their missions through strategy development, research, and education. He is the former Vice President of Brand Management for the U.S. office of the Forest Stewardship Council. He was previously the director of the Program on Forest Certification and a Research Scholar at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He has served as an advisor to the USDA Forest Service on issues related to sustainable forest management. He is the former national coordinator of the Sustainable Forestry Partnership; His involvement in sustainable forest management began with his work on the Mac Arthur Foundation business case studies project in 1996, which sought to document how forest industry could be profitable and sustainable

Mr. Washburn received a B.S. in environmental studies and an M.S. in forest resource management from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. in forest resources from Penn State. His research includes work on forest recreation in the Adirondack Forest Preserve in New York, and doctoral research on private forest landowners in the US. He is widely published on topics of forest certification and forest management in the US and globally.

Washburn, who is legally blind, founded the Learning Enhancement
Organization at the State University of New York College at Oneonta.  This group, now nearly 20 years old, provides mentoring and support for disabled students.  Washburn has served on university committees addressing accessibility issues at both Oneonta and at the College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse University.  He has mentored countless students and individuals with physical and other disabilities for two
decades.