Board and Staff    |     Committees     |     Leadership Bios

PSA Board of Directors and Staff

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Committees

* Board Member

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PSA Leadership Bios

Larry G. Brown received his B.A. and J.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota. He is a retired senior officer (chairman of the board, president, or senior vice president) and general counsel and secretary of a number of large companies, both public and private, mostly in financial service businesses. Mr. Brown is also a former member of the boards of directors or trustees of a number of business corporations and numerous civic, cultural, and charitable organizations. He has served as Pierian Spring Academy treasurer, executive committee member, and registrar since 2002.
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Robert V. (Bob) Carlson, the director of the Pierian Spring academy, is an emeritus professor at the University of Vermont as well as president of ABC Associates, Inc., an educational consulting firm. He has had wide experience as a teacher and educational administrator over the last 25 years. He was a full professor at the University of Vermont, a visiting professor at the University of Oulu in Finland, a laboratory school administrator at the University of Iowa and has also had experience as a public school administrator and an elementary classroom teacher. Dr. Carlson is an author of three books in the educational field as well as many articles and research papers. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo, a master’s degree from S.U.N.Y. at Brockport, and a doctoral degree in education from the University of Rochester.
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Janis Cohen, the director designate of the Pierian Spring academy, is a retired attorney, formerly vice-president and managing counsel of the investment lawyers at Unum Group in Chattanooga, Tennessee and Portland, Maine, where her work focused on commercial real estate. In addition to working at Unum, she was in-house counsel at a non-profit educational and social services corporation, served as compliance director for the State of Maine on a right-to-treatment consent decree case, and was in private practice. She has served, and continues to serve, on a number of boards and commissions, including the Maine Civil Legal Services Fund Commission. Janis holds a J.D. degree from the University of Maine School of Law, an M.A, degree in psychology from West Georgia College, a M.Ed. degree in Guidance and Counseling from the University of Southern Maine, and a B.A in English from the University of Illinois.
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Debbie Cowles retired from a career in higher education administration.  Most recently, she managed an online program for the preparation of school administrators with an enrollment exceeding 600 students and 90 instructors.  Mrs. Cowles has extensive experience in the management of academic operations, student relations, marketing, and website administration. She received Wright State University President’s Award for Excellence in Innovation and has served on numerous local and national committees/boards.  Ms. Cowles presently serves as the Senior Program Administrator for Pierian Spring Academy.
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Mary Jane De Genaro received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and her M.A. from Teacher's College, Columbia University. She has served as a consultant for National Piano Foundation, International Piano Foundation, Henson Associates, and the MIT Seymour Papert Hennigan School Project. Ms. De Genaro is the founder of the Greenwich Arts Council, Greenwich, Connecticut. She also designed and developed MusicShapes, children' s software for Apple Computer. In addition, she has written a novel (Call It Paradise, published by Kensington Press, 1995), and composed the original musical, Rajah, which was produced by Royal Palm Players, Boca Grande, Florida, in 1997.
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Leon R. Ellin is a semi-retired  corporate executive who has served as chief financial officer as well as in other senior management positions in numerous major U.S. corporations.  He has held leadership roles of both Fortune 100 and smaller companies in strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, and divestitures and joint ventures.  He is a graduate of the University of Chicago (A. B., history) and received his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  Mr. Ellin and his wife reside in Sarasota.
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John Gartner was self-employed as a marketing consultant more than 25 years, supporting corporations, government agencies and non-profit institutions with market research, strategic planning and marketing communications services. Previously, he served as a commissioned engineering officer in the U.S. Public Health Service and was a marketing manager for several companies. Mr. Gartner holds a B.S. in Engineering from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University. He has held leadership positions in several professional and religious organizations, the Princeton Alumni Association of Western NY and the Burchfield-Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College.
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Edward Hoerr served one year as interim president of Beloit College in his former life. The rest of Mr. Hoerr' s career was in business in Illinois where he spent much time as a volunteer board member on many cultural and educational organizations, 10 years on a public school board and many years on boards of a college and two theological seminaries.
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Daniel R. Idzik is presently serving as president of the board of directors of the Pierian Spring Academy.  He is former senior vice president and general counsel of Booz Allen Hamilton, a global strategy and technology consulting firm. His extensive experience in not- for-profit organizations includes board memberships and presidencies of the Longboat Key Center for the Arts, the Neuberger Museum of Art, Philharmonia Virtuosi, Council for the Arts in Westchester, and the Rye Art Center. He is currently a member of the Board of the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and the Pierian Spring Academy. He is also a member of the Harvard Club of Sarasota and the Harvard Club of New York City.
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Joel Larus is emeritus professor of international relations, New York University. He is the founder and first executive director of the Pierian Spring Academy.
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Barry Levin, M.D. has been a licensed physician for over 30 years.  He is a Fellow in the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.  He earned his B.S. in Physical Sciences from the University of Maryland in College Park, MD and his M.D. degree at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.  He received Residency Training in Internal Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL.  He then completed a Fellowship in Occupational and Preventive Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and earned a Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) degree at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD.  Dr. Levin was a Medical Officer at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in Washington, DC and the first Chief of Occupational Medicine for the City of Baltimore.  Afterwards, Dr. Levin worked in the Pharmaceutical industry for most of his career.  He was the Vice President of Employee Health at the Warner-Lambert Company (currently part of Pfizer Company).  He also served as a Medical Director at Merck and Company and at the Pharmacia Corporation. 
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Stan Nikkel received his M.A. from the University of North Carolina and his Ph. D. from the University of Maryland. He taught at the universities of George Washington, Maryland and Massachusetts at Boston. He was President of Urbanistics Foundation, an organization serving the language and employment needs of over 4500 clients from 58 countries and their employers. He has authored two books,a college text and an historical guide. After retirement he taught at Pierian Springs Academy for three years serving as Dean for the last two years. He has bicycled 500 miles along the route of the Santa Fe Trail,the length of the Connecticut and Hudson Rivers, the Erie Canal, along the Missouri River following the Lewis and Clark route and is presently attacking the Appalachian Trail in modest bites.
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George Stassa is a retired Radiologist who was the founder of a private imaging center in New York City. As Clinical Professor of Radiology and Anatomy at the Cornell University(Weil) Medical College, he taught both medical students and resident physicians..  He was an attending radiologist at the New York Hospital Medical Center for 46 years. His passion has been the study of history, music and government since his undergraduate days at Columbia College.
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Joanne Swick was a Senior Staff Aide for the Board of Supervisors, Fairfax County, Virginia. Prior to that she worked for United Airlines and was a Realtor for Mt. Vernon Realty. She was involved in Community Organizations such as PTA Boards, Boy Scouts of America, Virginia Crisis Hotline, and Civic and Homeowner Associations. Her degree is from George Mason University, Fairfax VA, with a special emphasis in American History.
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Peter Tannen is a writer by profession, having worked in advertising and marketing in the U.S., Sydney, Australia and Toronto, Canada. He also helped create TV shows for the Children's Television Workshop in New York and for ABC television.  His humorous newspaper and internet column, The Tannen Weekly, was honored by awards from the National Press Club in Washington, as well as by press associations in New York and Florida. You can also hear it on WSLR-FM in Sarasota.  Pete is President of the ACLU of Sarasota, and is Chairman of the Public Education Committee of the Florida State Board.  He has served on the Board of Governors of the N.Y. Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (Emmy Awards), and is a long-standing member of the Writers Guild of America.  Most recently, he founded a non-profit organization, the "Clear Language Institute, Inc.", whose goal is to make sure voters understand what they are voting on when they read amendments and referenda on the ballot.
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Enquiries please call: 941-716-2471 or e-mail: info@pierianspringacademy.org