Board of directors

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Marshall Strauss, President

Mikhail Kazachkov, Vice President

Richard O'Connor, Secretary

Jesse Sage, Treasurer

Henry Clark, Director

Donald Gay, Director

Mark Lyons, Director

Lori Piccolo, Director

Eve Spangler, Director

Michael Washburn, Director

Marshall Strauss – President

Marshall Strauss has been active in the not for profit field for more than a quarter century and has been involved in the CFC for much of that time. He is the CEO of the Workplace Giving Alliance, a collaboration involving several federations including this one.

Mr. Strauss served as chair of the National CFC Committee for two years and has helped found several CFC federations. He has also served on a number of national and local not for profit organization boards.

During the early 1990s, Mr. Strauss 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 former, 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 and philanthropy by, among others, the Associated Press, UPI, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, ABC News, Actuel (Paris), BBC, Russian National Television, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Mikhail Kazachkov – Vice President

In 1975, Mikhail Kazachkov sought permission to leave his native Soviet Union. A physicist and a Jew, Kazachkov was arrested and spent the next 15 years in the Gulag - the Soviet Union's longest serving political prisoner. Labeled "The Man in the Window" by New York Times columnist A. M. Rosenthal, Kazachkov emerged in the last years of the Soviet Union as a major international human rights figure.

Upon his release in 1990, Kazachkov traveled with his mother to the United States where he took up residence and began what he came to call his "third career" (theoretical physicist and Gulag inmate being careers one and two). For much of the 1990s he focused on human rights and political change in his homeland, increasingly traveling back to what had again become Russia. During this period, he was a Human Rights Fellow at the Harvard Law School and a Fellow at the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

During the 1990s Kazachkov played a key role in bringing technical advice, political support and financial aid to those in his native land seeking to build democratic institutions. He assisted in the production of over 20 Russian documentaries, aired nationwide, that educated viewers to a variety of human rights issues. He advised the Duma on telecommunications policy, including on how Russia's legislature could establish the equivalent of C-SPAN. He also assisted Russian efforts to accelerate the introduction of the Internet.

Much of Kazachkov's work occurred under the auspices of not-for-profit organizations. Most important was Freedom Channel, a U.S. 501 c3 organization which he helped establish and run. Its mission was to support Russian media and other groups active in building a civil society.

In the last few years, Kazachkov has added for-profit work to his not-for-profit activity, serving as a link between Russian entrepreneurs and businesses in the United States and European Union. He has specialized in communication and other advanced technologies, a not incidental link to his "first career" in physics.

Richard O’Connor, Secretary

Richard O’Connor has been in private practice as an attorney for two decades, 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. Before entering private practice, he spent nine years in federal service, with NOAA’s Office of Coastal Management.

Mr. O’Connor has been involved with the Combined Federal Campaign for many years. In addition to serving on this board, he is president of Children and Youth Services, a local CFC federation active in the metro Washington DC region.

Jesse Sage, Treasurer

Jesse Sage is the program director of HAMSA – Hands Across the Mideast Support Alliance – which is a project of the American Islamic Congress designed to promote civil rights in that part of the world. Before joining the American Islamic Congress, Sage served for seven years as associate director of the American Anti-Slavery Group, launching the web portal iAbolish.org.  

Sage has appeared on NPR, the BBC, and Black Entertainment Television; been featured in the Arabic-language magazine Hi!; and is co-editor of the anthology Enslaved: True Stories of Modern-Day Slavery (Palgrave-Macmillan). Recognized as one of Fast Company Magazine's "Fast 50" innovators, he has worked closely with the campus movement to stop the genocide in Sudan. He has also been extensively involved in grassroots human rights organizing, Internet-based advocacy, and efforts to end chattel slavery in North Africa. Sage is also a member of the advisory board of the Committee to Protect Bloggers.

henry clark, director

Henry W. Clark joined the law firm of Clark, Hunt & Embry in March of 1996.  A partner in the firm, which is based in Cambridge MA, Mr. Clark focuses his practice on the representation of not-for-profit education and human service corporations and families of individuals with disabilities.

Mr. Clark has advised numerous organizations providing special education and human services in Massachusetts and the Northeast. Prior to practicing law, Mr. Clark served for thirteen years as the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association of Chapter 766 Approved Private Schools.  This organization is comprised of over one hundred licensed private facilities providing services to mentally and physically challenged children in Massachusetts.

Mr. Clark serves as a member of the board of directors for numerous human service and educational organizations in Massachusetts.  A 1967, phi beta kappa, graduate of Illinois College and a Fulbright Scholar, Mr. Clark graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1971.  In 1984, Mr. Clark received his Ph.D. in Ethics from Boston College, and in 1989, graduated cum laude, from Suffolk University Law School.  Mr. Clark was admitted to practice law in Massachusetts and to the United States District Court, District of Massachusetts.

donald gay, director

Donald Gay is a Vienna Virginia Branch manager for Fairway Independent Mortgage, a nationwide firm offering residential financial services. He has been active in placing such loans for more than two decades.

Mr. Gay has been a supporter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) for over 9 years and is an advisor and major supporter of The Julie Duggan Memorial Fund, a Massachusetts 501c3 organization. The Julie Duggan Memorial fund was established in 2002 and seeks to raise donations to help find a cure for CF, and to support the education of children with CF.  

Mr. Gay serves on the board of directors of two other CFC federations: Children and Youth Services, Inc., and Peace and Reconciliation Charities, Inc.  He is a graduate of Northeastern University in Boston and currently resides in Arlington, VA with his wife and two children.

mark lyons, director

A practicing attorney for over 25 years, Mark Lyons is a founding partner of Lyons & Tzanoudakis, LLP.  He concentrates his practice in real estate, business, estate planning and estate administration and is admitted to practice law in all courts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, federal and state.  He is also admitted to appear before the United States Supreme Court.

Attorney Lyons currently serves as the Chair of the Topsfield MA Finance Committee.  Formerly, he served as Chair of the Topsfield Elementary School Committee, as well as a Member of the Topsfield Planning Board.  Attorney Lyons is also a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Real Estate Bar Association and the North Shore Association of REALTORS.

Lori Piccolo

The Director of Development for the Washington Office on Latin America for more than a decade, Lori Piccolo has been involved in the CFC since the early 1990s. She has been active in the not for profit field for most of her professional life: In 1996 and 1997, she was the Assistant Director of Development for Foundations and Corporations at People for the American Way. She also served as the Development Officer for the National Museum of Health and Medicine Foundation and as Major Gifts Manager for Public Citizen, Inc.

Since 1982, she has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Chicago-based Brian Piccolo Cancer Research Fund. In 1994 she became a founding director of Human and Civil Rights Organizations of America.

Eve Spangler

Associate Professor of Sociology at Boston College, Dr. Spangler's main interests concern human rights in diverse settings, including Israel/Palestine and within corporate workplaces. Her current work concerns the application of human rights criteria to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.  In previous work, she focused on occupational safety and health, particularly for women. Given the global nature of the issues she studies and material she teaches, she has worked extensively in Eastern Europe, Brazil, the Caribbean, South Africa and, most recently, in Israel/Palestine.

Dr. Spangler has served as Assistant Chair of the BC Department of Sociology and Director of the department’s graduate program. She also chaired Boston College’s Leadership for Change program which promotes socially responsible business practices. She was also a Visiting Fellow in Environmental and Occupational Health at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Spangler graduated summa cum laude from Brooklyn College, received her MA from Yale, and her Ph.D from the University of Massachusetts. She is the past recipient of a National Science Foundation Fellowship, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, the American Bar Foundation Fellowship, and a Herbert Lehman Fellowship.

Michael Washburn

Michael Washburn is Director of Sustainability at Nestlé Waters North America.  His work includes helping the firm to increase its recycling in the US, innovate in energy use and building design across its manufacturing facilities, engage in constructive water policy initiatives, and educate and engage with stakeholders about the environmental efforts of NWNA.

Prior to joining Nestlé, Michael spent 15 years working in conservation non-profits and universities on issues of sustainable forestry, land conservation, green building, and conservation leadership.  During this period he held senior positions at The Wilderness Society and the Forest Stewardship Council- US, where his work advanced the adoption of independent forest-certification and product labeling programs. 

Michael received his BS in Environmental Studies and MS in Forest Resources Management from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, and a PH.D. from Penn State in Forest Policy. While serving on the faculty at Penn State and later the Yale School of Forestry, he was an advisor to the USDA Forest Service.

Dr. Washburn serves on the boards of two other national CFC federations. He lives in Connecticut with his wife Natanya and their two children.