Paul R. Ballasy,CPA, is a partner with Haggett Longobardi, A Division of J.H.Cohn. Paul has over 19 years experience and spends most of his time servicing not-for-profit audit engagements and closely held corporations. Paul was one of two CPAs who served on the Connecticut Nonprofit Human Service Cabinet, a group that was instrumental in the development of the new cost standards implemented by the State of Connecticut Office of Policy and Management (OPM). He has conducted numerous educational seminars on the new cost standards for the not-for-profit community. Paul began his career at Haggett Longobardi in 1989 after graduating from the University of Connecticut with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting.  Paul serves as treasurer of the Mutual Housing Association of Greater Hartford, Inc. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants.  

Mike Bangser is a consultant to foundations and Nonprofit organizations, specializing in issues related to program design, grant making, strategic planning, and evaluation.  He is also visiting professor of public policy at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, currently teaching senior seminars entitled Inside the Nonprofit Sector and Policy Implementation Workshop.  From 1989 to 2005, Bangser was president of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, the community foundation serving the City of Hartford and 28 surrounding towns.  Before coming to the Hartford Foundation, he was senior vice president at MDRC, a major Nonprofit organization that designs and evaluates programs throughout the country in the fields of education, job training, welfare reform, and other human services.  

Bangser received a B.A. with honors in economics from Williams College in 1974 and a J.D. from Columbia University in 1977.  He is the author, most recently, of “Evaluating the Impact of Interventions that Promote Successful Transitions from High School” (National High School Center, 2008) and “When is an Outcome Evaluation Essential?” (Grantmakers for Education Notebook, 2008).

Mitch Beauregard, Director of Finance for the Access Community Action Agency, is an accounting and business professional with broad experience in accounting, financial management, retail operations, human resource management, and the development and implementation of strategic plans to ensure long term sustainability. His ability to effectively promote mission, commit people to action, and convey complex information in easily understood terms are some of his strengths.

He represented Access at the National Symposium to End Poverty, is a 2007 graduate of the STRETCH Community Leadership Program, and is President of the Willimantic Food Co-op.He is currently an honor student at Eastern Connecticut State University, studying business and anthropology, focusing on the non-profit sector and Native American Affairs. He is appointed as both a Notary Public and a Justice of the Peace in the State of Connecticut.

Ellen Boynton, is the Training Program Director for the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services in the Office of Multicultural Affairs. Her current responsibilities includes developing curriculum and training programs to assist all levels of workers in becoming culturally competent, and having a positive impact on health care disparities.

She has over 25 years of program management, training, and facilitation in CT and the New England Region.

She is the former Executive Director of Common Ground, a youth leadership program for high school students, which she ran for eleven years. The Common Ground program is referenced in four publications, and was selected as one of President’s Clinton’s Promising Practices for “The President’s Initiative on Race”, 1998.

Ellen has worked with the Anti-Defamation League, A World of Difference Program over 15 years training teachers and students across Connecticut.

Mike Burns is a partner in the firm of Brody Weiser Burns. The firm’s Nonprofit practice focuses on strategic and social enterprise planning and Nonprofit governance with an emphasis on board-executive relations.  Mike’s primary expertise is in facilitating planning for large complex organizations where inclusion and process are as important as the end products of planning.   Recent customers include Amnesty International, USA, and the National Council of Churches. 

Prior to joining BWB in 1994, Mike was the Executive Director of the Development and Technical Assistance Research and Resource Center, based in New Haven, CT.  For 10 years, Mike was Associate Professor of Management at the Antioch-New England Graduate Schools of Organization and Management and Environmental Studies. 

Mike has 25 years of consulting experience; he has written and edited several books on Nonprofit management and fundraising.  He is a board member of the Social Enterprise Alliance, the leading national organization of Nonprofit practitioners operating social ventures. For two years in a row, he has been the consultant to two of the Yale Goldman-Sachs Social Venture grand prize winners.

He has a BA from Marquette University in Business Administration; MA from Lesley College in Nonprofit Management and Governance and a Graduate Certificate from University of Hartford in Nonprofit Marketing.

Ted Carroll is president of Leadership Greater Hartford, a non-profit community leadership training group for people in business, government and non-profit organizations.  Prior to joining LGH in 1986, Mr. Carroll served for five years as the executive director of Southend Community Services, a neighborhood social service agency in Hartford.

Mr. Carroll has also served in a variety of volunteer roles.  From 1989 to 1997, Mr. Carroll was an elected member of the Hartford Board of Education where he chaired the Board’s Strategic and Physical Planning Committee, Legislation and Policy Committee and the Board’s Operations, Management & Budget Committee during various periods.  More recently, he has served as a Little League coach and a mentor to city youth. His community leadership training expertise is well recognized, having served as the chairman of the annual conference for the Community Leadership Association in 1999 and again in 2002, President of this international organization from 2004-2005 and host for its annual conference held in Hartford in 2006. 

He has been a trainer and mentor for community leadership programs throughout the United States and beyond, including Ottawa, Canada and Sao Paulo, Brazil.In addition to his community leadership activities, Mr. Carroll has conducted training in areas of diversity, organizational development, strategic planning, and team-building for groups throughout the northeast. 

His work has been recognized by such groups as the Junior League of Hartford, which presented him with the President’s Award in 1996, the Hartford chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, which presented him with its Merit Award in 1997, the Community Leadership Association, which gave him the Preceptor Award in 2003, and the Spiritual Life Center which presented him  with its Living Spirit Award in 2006.  In addition, he was Hartford’s Town Honoree in the 2003 St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Mr. Carroll received his B.A. in Sociology in 1976 from the University of Connecticut and his M.S.W. from the UConn School of Social Work in 1980. He lives in Hartford with his wife Jane, a retired public school teacher. Their  two daughters live in Hartford, with Meaghan serving as an elementary school teacher and Emily as a nurse.

Peter S. DeBiasi, lead instructor, has worked in the Nonprofit field for his entire 30-plus year career. After earning his Bachelor degree from Boston College, his journey has included serving the homeless and teaching High School in inner-city Boston, earning a Master of Education degree with an administrative focus from Harvard University, directing large-scale annual and capital fundraising campaigns, serving as Vice-President of United Community & Family Services and as Chief Professional Officer for the Mystic Community Center and The CT Council of Family Service Agencies. Peter is currently the Executive Director of northeast CT’s Access Community Action Agency. His volunteer community service has included membership on a number of Nonprofit boards, representing Connecticut as a delegate to the National Nonprofit Congress, and most recently completing four years as an elected member of the Ledyard Board of Education.

David Garvey, Ph.D., lead facilitator, ,is the Director of the UConn Nonprofit Leadership Program. The program is housed at the Center for Continuing Studies at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Garvey has over twenty years experience as a practitioner, editor, advocate, researcher, teacher and education developer focused on the workforce learning needs of the Connecticut and American Nonprofit sector.

Garvey is an active member of the National Nonprofit Sector Workforce Coalition, Association for Research of Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), University Continuing Education Association (UCEA) and is co-founder of the State of Connecticut Nonprofit Sector Symposiums. Prior to joining the University of Connecticut, Garvey founded and was executive editor of the New England Nonprofit Quarterly, now known nationally as the Nonprofit Quarterly.

Garvey earned his Ph.D. in Educational Administration from the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut, focusing his research on the dynamics of Nonprofit strategic networks. He is a graduate of Harvard’s Management Development Program (MDP), and holds an MBA from Southern Illinois University and a Bachelor degree in English from the University of Rhode Island.

Doe Hentschel, Ph.D., is the Vice President of Leadership Greater Hartford, a non-profit organization that conducts regional leadership development programs. Having joined the staff after retiring from higher education in 2000, she designed and implemented The Third Age Initiative, a system to identify, develop and engage older adults as community leaders which has served more than 200 older adults since its inception in 2001.

Dr. Hentschel’s responsibilities also include coordinating Leadership Greater Hartford’s Consulting and Training Services, its program for young professionals called OnTrack Hartford, and the Hartford Encounter which introduces groups to Hartford’s assets in half- and full-day tours. In collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce, Windham Region, LGH conducts STRETCH, the Windham Region Community Leadership Program, which Dr. Hentschel directs. A certified Lifeworx Enneagram trainer since 2002, she also manages Lifeworx Associates, a new program service of LGH. As Vice President, she oversees curriculum development, program implementation and evaluation of all of LGH’s programs and supervises LGH program directors.

A seasoned administrator in higher education, she retired from a long and distinguished career during which she served as Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs at Pine Manor College; Dean of Extended and Continuing Education at the University of Connecticut; and Dean of Adult and Continuing Education at SUNY College at Brockport. Her degrees are B. A. in Speech and Dramatic Arts, University of Missouri at Columbia; M. A. in Speech, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; and Ph. D. in Urban Education, concentration in Administrative Leadership/ Adult Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She attended the Institute in Educational Management at Harvard University in 1992.

Shawn M. Lang is the Director of Public Policy with the CT AIDS Residence Coalition (CARC).  She has been with CARC for 18 years and is currently responsible for the coordination of CT’s HIV/AIDS public policy and advocacy activities on the state and federal levels.  Shawn co-chairs the AIDS LIFE (Legislative Initiative and Funding Effort) Campaign, Connecticut’s statewide AIDS policy group and was a member of the Red Ribbon Task Force on HIV/AIDS.

She is President of the board of the National AIDS Housing Coalition; is a member of the Communities Advocating for Emergency AIDS Response (CAEAR) Coalition; Co-Chair of the CT HIV Planning Consortium; and on the Executive Committee and Community Advisory Board of Yale’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS.  Shawn has been an activist on issues impacting battered women; G/L/B/T communities; homelessness and HIV/AIDS.  Her other areas of expertise include coalition building, public policy, and community organizing.

W. David LeVasseur,has served as the Undersecretary of Intergovernmental Policy  at the Office of Policy and Management for the State of Connecticut since 2001.  He previously served as the first selectman of the Town of Killingworth, Connecticut from 1995 – 2001. He received his B.A. from University of Connecticut and his J.D. from Western New England College/School of Law.  He is admitted to practice before the Connecticut Bar and served in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate Generals Corps. His staff is responsible for the preparation and submission of the Conservation and Development Policies Plan for Connecticut 2005 – 2010 and he represents or has represented Secretary Robert L. Genuario on several boards and commissions including: the Municipal Finance Advisory Commission; the Connecticut Regional Institute for the 21st Century; the Water Planning Council and the Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Burdens and Smart Growth Incentives. David has overseen the state office of Responsible Growth since its inception in 2006 and was recently appointed stimulus ombudsman to local and regional officials to help them navigate the regulations of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

Sandra Wood, philanthropy consultant, has counseled Nonprofit organizations and donors on effective philanthropy for thirty years.  She was the first Vice President for Philanthropic Services at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, the largest community foundation in Connecticut, from 1992 to 2006. She also served as the Director of Development and Capital Campaign Director for the Hartford Stage Company and for Watkinson School. A graduate of Yale College and the University of Connecticut School of Law (JD), and a member of the Connecticut Bar, she has concentrated in gift planning throughout her career in charitable development.  In her current consulting practice, she advises the full range of Nonprofit organizations on effective individual giving, organizational development and strategic planning for resource development and marketing.

In addition to the Connecticut Nonprofit Program’s Advisory Board, Ms. Wood currently sits on the boards of the Connecticut Center for School Change and the Nutmeg Foundation. She served for many years as a member of the board of the Planned Giving Group of Connecticut, and is a member of the National Committee on Planned Giving.  She worked on the Charitable Giving Task Force of the Connecticut Bar Association's Estates and Probate Section, and the Executive, Program and Community Involvement Committees of the Greater Hartford Estate and Business Planning Council.  She has conducted a number of seminars and conference sessions with those organizations, the Connecticut Association of Nonprofits, the New England Association of Hospital Professionals, and the Connecticut Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals..