JCC Association Biennial 2010

Speakers

Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank

Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, founders of The Home Depot are the first plenary speakers to be announced. These two partners launched the hugely successful home-improvement retailer in 1979, revolutionizing the industry with its warehouse-sized store concept. Their philosophy of customer service encouraged cultivating a relationship with customers rather than merely completing a transaction. As Bernie says, “At the end of the day, we’re in the people business.” Bernie Marcus almost single-handedly funded and launched the new Georgia Aquarium, which opened in downtown Atlanta in 2005. Arthur Blank is the owner of the Atlanta Falcons, and the Georgia Force of the Arena Football League. Harry Mazier, former president of the Marcus JCC, will moderate this keynote session. Don’t miss hearing these two business legends and philanthropists talk about the keys to building successful organizations.

Read more about Bernie Marcus.

Read more about Arthur Blank.

Reynold Levy

Reynold Levy is currently the president of New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the oldest and largest center of its kind. From 1977-1984, he was the executive director of the 92nd Street Y, and staff director of the Task Force on the New York City Fiscal Crisis. In addition to his work in the nonprofit world, Levy worked for AT&T in charge of government relations, and acted as the president of the AT&T Foundation.

Levy is overseeing a major $1.2 billion expansion of Lincoln Center, which is home to 12 independent arts organizations. For his stewardship of that extraordinary effort, he received the 2009 Design Patron Award granted by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum. His dedication to the arts expresses itself through his membership on numerous arts boards. “I was one of those kids at PS100, and at Abraham Lincoln High School. . . growing up in a working class family. And, were it not for the early exposure that I got to music and the arts out of the elementary and secondary schools, I never would have gravitated to where I am today,” Levy has said.

Levy has taught at the Harvard Business School, Columbia, New York University, and City College of New York. The author of several books, his most recent one is focused on fundraising, Yours for the Asking: An Indispensable Guide to Fundraising and Management (2008, John Wiley and Sons).

Vist the official website of Reynold Levy

Jerry Silverman

Jerry Silverman, President and CEO of The Jewish Federations of North America (formerly United Jewish Communities (UJC). Silverman was tapped to take the reins at the The Jewish Federations of North America, which serves as the North American arm of a federation system that raises and distributes about $3 billion annually from its general campaigns, endowments and special fund-raising drives. Since 2004 he has served as the executive director of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, overseeing the growth of the organization’s budget from slightly more than $1 million per year to more than $22 million. Silverman is a former high-level executive at Levi Strauss and Co. and the Stride Rite Corp.

Read more about Jerry Silverman.

Joel Chasnoff

Comedian Joel Chasnoff has taken the stage in seven countries at some of the world’s premier comedy venues: the Montreal Comedy Festival, a USO Comedy Tour of Japan and Korea entertaining American troops, Jewish and corporate events across North America and Europe, and hundreds of college and club dates nationwide. Joel has opened for such top-name acts as Jon Stewart and Lewis Black of The Daily Show and Gilbert Gottfried (Aladdin).

Joel attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was the director and head writer of the Mask and Wig Comedy Club, America’s oldest all-male comedy troupe. After graduating, Joel decided to relax a bit by serving in a combat unit in the Israel Defense Forces. Upon his discharge from the IDF, Joel took a quick trip through Southeast Asia, the Middle East, South America and Europe, hitting 21 countries in an experience that taught him the true value of open-mindedness and frequent flyer miles. Joel’s toughest and most rewarding adventure, however, is fatherhood. As the proud father of identical twin girls, Joel looks back fondly on his army days when he sometimes slept five full hours a night.

Joel currently resides in New York City, where he performs in local comedy clubs when he’s not touring the country.

Watch Joel on YouTube.com.

Ariel Beery

Ariel Beery is the co-founder and director of the PresenTense Group, as well as editor and publisher of PresenTense Magazine, and co-founder of the PresenTense Institute for socially-minded entrepreneurs. Ariel’s column appears in over a dozen papers around the world, including the Forward, the London Jewish Chronicle, the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz. He was named one of the 10 Jews to Watch by the World Jewish Digest, along with Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He is currently the director of strategy and assessment for MavenHaven, a Web-based start-up that connects speakers to the organizations that need them in the Jewish community.

Rabbi Sharon Brous

Rabbi Sharon Brous founded IKAR, a vibrant Jewish spiritual community in Los Angeles dedicated to the integration of spiritual and religious practice with the pursuit of social justice. She was included in the Forward’s annual list of the 50 most influential members of the American Jewish community for three years in a row, and was recently noted in Newsweek as one of the leading rabbis in the country. In 2008, she was the inaugural recipient of the Los Angeles Jewish Community Foundation’s Inspired Leadership Award. For the past seven years, Sharon has served on the faculty of REBOOT and on the religious council of Progressive Jewish Alliance. She serves as adjunct faculty at the Hebrew Union College and sits on the rabbinic advisory boards of American Jewish World Service and Hebrew College. She is married to David Light, a comedy writer, and they have two daughters and a son.

Kory Kogon

Kory Kogon is passionate about helping organizations grow their bottom line. As a consultant with FranklinCovey, the developer of the renowned 7 Habits of Effective People Course, The Speed of Trust, training, and consulting has proved beneficial at all levels throughout an organization from business owners, to managers, to staff. Kory has worked in the hospitality industry where she held executive positions in sales, sales management, and training.

In 2005, Kory was honored as one of the “Top 30 Women to Watch” by Utah Magazine. She is the president of the Tucson chapter of The American Society of Training and Development (ASTD). She is an active member of the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches as well as the National Association of Women Business Owners.

Kory lives in Tucson, Arizona. She loves the outdoors. She enjoys any sporting activity and is an avid racquetball player.

Daniel Cohen

Dan Cohen, an Emmy Award-winning veteran journalist and documentary filmmaker, is the founder of the documentary film and production company West Street Productions. Over the years, West Street has won top production awards ranging from an Emmy for PSA production, to six Telly awards for corporate, first responder and public safety advocate work, and numerous top industry honors. Dan’s most recent production work took him to the polar ice caps with environmental researchers.

Storytelling is Dan’s passion, and An Article of Hope is a labor of love. The seven-year journey to make the documentary included more than twenty interviews and on-location filming in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Northern Israel, Houston, Texas, Nacogdoches, Texas, The Kennedy Space Center, Florida, New Jersey, and Washington, DC.

Jeri Sedlar

Jeri Sedlar has been doing research on personal growth and transition for over 15 years. She understands the implications and challenges of both organizations and individuals as they experience the realities of an aging society, which is healthier, more educated, and more vibrant than any other generation in history.

Co-author of Don't Retire, Rewire! and senior advisor to The Conference Board on the mature workforce, Jeri travels the country inspiring individuals and organizations to "get creative" and rewire their thinking and action when it comes to planning for the future. With today's global economy and aging workforce, her mission is to ensure that both individuals and organizations discover how to leverage the opportunities created by the new retirement model. The former editor-at-large of Working Woman magazine, Jeri was a partner in her own executive search firm for ten years.

Gina Galgano Hoagland

Gina Galgano Hoagland has led strategic planning engagements for more than one hundred and fifty companies and not-for-profit agencies since joining Collaborative Strategies in 1993, and she has completed more than one hundred twenty-five highly successful placements in senior management, sales, finance, distribution, and other positions. She brings a results-oriented approach to planning, coaching, and execution. Through her partnership model, clients have grown firm value and capability. Gina was recognized in 2004 as a Woman of Achievement for Social Enterprise, and in 2003 was included among the St. Louis Business Journal's 40 Under 40 High Achievers. She hold an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia.

Ann Cohen

Ann Cohen is an executive business consultant who founded Ann Cohen & Associates in 1999 to enable nonprofits to identify and achieve their strategic goals. Working in partnership with her clients, she brings leadership and planning for effective strategy and governance. Her consulting spans organizational management effectiveness reviews, strategic planning, and board development for high performing governance, and the leadership training, coaching and learning required to lead and implement change. She believes in ‘making it work’ and thus delivers the tools to measure the results and continue learning.

Her clients include national, regional and governmental organizations including, AAUW, American Legacy Foundation, American Chemical Society, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, DOROT, Jewish Federations of North America, Learning Matters, Integrated Justice Information Systems Institute, as well as the United States Department of Justice, and the Department of Agriculture Cotton Board.

Robert Calabrese

Robert Calabrese has more than a decade’s experience developing corporate leaders and leadership teams. Robert helps corporate leaders, managers, work teams, and service teams to identify their core strengths and successfully apply them to their aspirations and strategic goals.

As former global director of Merrill Lynch Leadership & Development, Robert worked closely with national and international executive management teams. Robert holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy, and earned his master’s from Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University.

Paul Root Wolpe

Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D. is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Bioethics, the Raymond F. Schinazi Distinguished Research Chair in Jewish Bioethics, and the director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University. Paul also serves as the first bioethicist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He is co-editor of the American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB), editor of AJOB Neuroscience, and sits on the editorial boards of over a dozen professional journals in medicine and ethics.

The author of over one hundred articles, editorials, and book chapters in sociology, medicine, and bioethics, Paul’s work focuses on the social, religious, and ideological impact of technology on the human condition. Considered one of the founders of the field of neuroethics, which examines the ethical implications of neuroscience, he also writes about other emerging technologies, such as genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and new reproductive technologies. A dynamic and popular speaker, Paul has been chosen by The Teaching Company as a "Superstar Teacher of America" and his courses are distributed internationally on audio and videotape. He is also a frequent media contributor and commentator, most recently on 60 Minutes.

Liore Milgrom-Elcott

Liore Milgrom-Elcott is the project manager for COEJL, the Coalition for the Environment and Jewish Life. Liore’s environmental passions took root and grew during the summers she spent camping in the backcountry of America's national parks. During her time as an undergraduate at Cornell, she sat on the Hillel programming board and founded Teva, the campus Jewish environmental group. After graduating, she spent five months with American Jewish World Service, working in rural education and doing tsunami relief work in Kanchipuram, India, a conglomerate of fifty-plus individual villages. She has also worked in the Dominican Republic and Mexico on environmental and social justice projects. Most recently, she acted as community liaison for Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (D-Scarsdale) in her campaign, and worked in Paulin’s Assembly offices, focusing on environmental issues and advocacy. Liore also contributes to the COEJL blog To Till and To Tend.