Corrado GiganteActing Deputy District Director,New York District Office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Alma JosephFormer Assistant Commissioner for Human Resources at New JerseyDepartment of Human Resources
Jonathan MetschAdjunct Professor, UMDNJ; ClinicalProfessor, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Ferlanda F. NixonPublic Relations Specialist, Rutgers-Newark Office of Communications
Robert PedenDeputy Director, Office of Management and Budget, State of New Jersey
Isabelle StraussFounding Member, Trustee, Officer of Lawyers in Defense of Animals, Inc.
Travis ReidOperations Specialist, Newark Workforce Investment Board, Newark
Thomas Banker has spent his entire career working in and around the public sector. He started with the City of Newark in 1974 as manager of an internal management consulting unit, became the City's Budget Director in 1976, and three years later, was promoted to Assistant City Administrator. Upon leaving Newark, Banker launched a private consulting firm, specializing in turnaround management of troubled organizations. In 1991, he accepted a full-time post as Executive Director of the Essex County Improvement Authority, a regional redevelopment authority with the power to act as a conduit financier for other governmental units. Banker returned to private practice in 1999, with an emphasis primarily in the area of real estate and development. Throughout his career, Banker has split his time between the office and the classroom. He has taught at the college level for over twenty years, first at his alma mater, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and later at Rutgers-Newark and Columbia University, where he has taught in their Masters programs in public administration since 1988.
James M. Davy is president of James M. Davy Associates, a firm specializing in strength-based collaboration and group process facilitation. Davy works with public, private and nonprofit organizations in such areas as: strategic planning, team building, leadership development, organizational design, implementation planning, and internal/external stakeholder and community engagement. He uses such positive, strength based collaboration tools such as Appreciative Inquiry in guiding and facilitating organizational change. Davy spent nearly 30 years in local and state government as a city manager, senior advisor to the Governor and Commissioner of the NJ Department of Human Services.
He is the director of the Center for Applied Appreciative Inquiry (CAAI) at Rutgers SPAA.
jdavy@andromeda.rutgers.edu
732-754-8969
Corrado Gigante presently serves as the Acting Deputy District Director of the New York District Office of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The district office covers a region inclusive of offices in New England, New York and New Jersey. He previously served as the Area Director of the Newark Area Office of the USEEOC for nearly 23 years. The EEOC enforces federal civil rights laws covering employment in all phases, from recruitment to post retirement benefits. He received a BA in 1971 and a MPA in 2006, both from Rutgers University-Newark.
Alma Joseph joined the part-time faculty of Rutgers University in 1991 while working full-time at the New Jersey Department of Personnel. In 1994 through the Intergovernmental Exchange Program, she spent a year teaching full time in the Public Administration Program. She retired from state government in 2006 after serving for 29 years in a variety of capacities including Assistant Commissioner for Human Resources in the Department of Human Services, Executive Director, Human Resource Development Institute and Director, Performance Management. Dr. Joseph holds a BS degree from the College of Mt. St. Vincent, two Master of Arts degrees from Columbia University and an Ed.D. from Rutgers University.
ajoseph@andromeda.rutgers.edu
Leland McGee is a State of New Jersey Administrative Law Judge. He formerly served as a Deputy Attorney General and as an in-house attorney for the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights. He previously served as the Interim Executive Director of the City of East Orange Water Commission. Judge McGee formerly served as Assistant Corporation Counsel in the City of East Orange, a Municipal Public Defender in the City of East Orange and Irvington Township, as Managing Attorney in the New Jersey Division of the Ratepayer Advocate, and as the Director of the Division of Development for Small, Women and Minority Businesses, New Jersey Department of Commerce and Economic Development. He also served on the Board of Public Utilities Cable/Telco Task Force, Executive Committee.
As a private attorney, Judge McGee was the Managing Partner in the New York and New Jersey law firm of McGee & Jacobs. He also served as the Managing Partner of an entertainment management business and an import and retail sales company.
Judge McGee's professional and community affiliations include: the Education Enrichment Foundation of Scotch Plains & Fanwood Board of Trustees (President – 2008 to 2011); the Hansel and Mildred McGee Foundation Board of Trustees (Secretary 2000 to present); the Associated Alumni of Brown University Board of Directors; Leadership New Jersey; the YWCA of Essex and West Hudson Board of Trustees; the Urban League of Essex County Board of Directors (Board Chairman-1989); the Newark Day Center Board of Trustees; the New Jersey Public Policy Research Institute Board of Directors; the New Jersey Small Business Development Centers Advisory Board; and the Girl Scouts Council of Essex County Board of Trustees.
Judge McGee is ADR Certified by the State of New Jersey Superior Court Mediation and Conciliation Skills Training Program, and the State of New Jersey Board of Public Utilities/New Jersey Office of Dispute Settlement, Alternative Dispute Resolution Training Program.
lmcgee@andromeda.rutgers.edu
973-648-6024
Jonathan Metsch is Adjunct Professor, Health Systems and Policy, UMDNJ SPH and Clinical Professor, Preventitive Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Dr. Metsch was President and CEO of LibertyHealth/ Jersey City Medical Center from 1989-2006 during which time Jersey City Medical Center: was designated as a Regional Perinatal Center, Level II Trauma Center, Teaching Hospital Cancer Program, Children's Hospital, and a Medical Coordination Center (for statewide disaster preparedness); started cardiac surgery/ interventional cardiology; and became a major teaching affiliate of Mount Sinai School of Medicine. A total replacement hospital was opened on a new site in 2004.
Dr. Metsch was Chairman of the Board of the New Jersey Hospital Association and served on the Boards of the Seton Hall University School of Graduate Medical Education, the Hudson County AIDS Consortium, the State Health Planning Board, the Hudson County Perinatal Consortium, and The Hospital Alliance of New Jersey. Dr. Metsch served on the Governor's Advisory Commission on Hospitals, the Task Force on Affordability and Accessibility of Health Care in New Jersey, the Governor's Advisory Council on AIDS, and the Department of Human Services HMO-Hospital Workgroup.
Currently, Dr. Metsch is a Commissioner of the Hoboken Municipal Hospital Authority, and was the organizer and co-chairman of the Hoboken H1N1 Swine Flu Task Force. Dr. Metsch is a Board member of Jewish Family Service of MetroWest and Associated Camps, a LeadershipNewark Coach, the Founder of Hudson Cradle, and served on the Board of the Hudson County Child Abuse Prevention Center, and the Steering Committee of MetroWest CARES.
From 1972-1989 Dr. Metsch worked at The Mount Sinai Medical Center (NYC) as: a faculty member of the Baruch-Mount Sinai M.B.A. Program in Health Care Administration; Administrator of Mount Sinai Services, City Hospital Center at Elmhurst; Associate Dean for Administration of Mount Sinai School of Medicine; and Senior Vice President for Administration, MSMC.
From 1967-1970 he was on active duty in the U.S. Air Force leaving with the rank of Captain.
Dr. Metsch earned a B.A. from Queens College of the City University of New York; an M.P.A. from the University at Albany, State University of New York; and a D.r.P.H. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (from which he received the School of Public Health's 2005 Harriet Hylton Barr Distinguished Alumni Award).
jonathan.metsch@mssm.edu
Ferlanda F. Nixon is Public Relations Specialist at the Rutgers-Newark Office of Communications. She is also founder and chief executive officer of Ferlanda. Through an array of customized services, Ms. Nixon provides total leadership consultancy to businesses, organizations, and individuals in the areas of diversity and inclusion; leadership and professional development; communication, presentation and meeting facilitation skills; event planning; marketing and new business development; and general business strategy and administration.
Robert Peden has served as the Deputy Director of OMB since 1999. He also serves on the School Employees Health Benefits Commission, created in 2007 to formulate new rules, regulations and benefit levels for 150,000 New Jersey state and local employees. He leads OMB's effort to implement Governor Christie's initiative to measure agency performance against state agency core missions. He served on Governor Corzine's Blueprint for Health Care Reform, and has made contributions covering many topics including Civil Service reform, Division of Motor Vehicles reform, Medicaid waivers and welfare reform. He received the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Association of Government Accountants (2005) and the John E. Burton Award from the National Association of State Budget Officers (1996). Courses taught for the Rutgers Newark SPAA program include Strategic Planning for Nonprofits, Nonprofit Budgeting, Political Economy and Ethics.
Isabelle Strauss Founding member, trustee and officer of Lawyers In Defense of Animals, Inc. (LIDA) ( www.njlida.org), Ms. Strauss maintains a practice of law devoted exclusively to the handling of select animal rights cases. She wrote the amicus brief on behalf of LIDA in the 2009 Houseman v. Dare matter which explored the role of the courts in animal custody matters. Past representations of import have included the guardians of Taro, New Jersey's "death row dog"; the guardian of two elephants, Tory and Dutchess, whose story were told in the book entitled, At Large; and the guardian of Rocky, a boxer who was fatally injured by the police of a New Jersey municipality. Through the auspices of LIDA, Ms. Strauss devotes much of her firm's resources to providing the defense of dogs charged under the state vicious dog act and to advocating on behalf of animals whose lives are threatened in a myriad of situations.
anrtesq@aol.com
Travis Reid is Operations Specialist at Newark Workforce Investment Board, Newark.
reid.travis@gmail.com
Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
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