Contact Board Members
To contact any of the board members, contact Konoka Izumi at 703-525-3268 ext. 8003 or konokai@ecnv.org and leave a message with her.
ECNV Board Members
- Michel Bagbonon, Treasurer
- Matthew Barkley, 1st Vice President
- Tapan Banerjee
- Cindy Daniel
- Marcie Goldstein, President
- Jessica Hunt, 2nd Vice President
- Lee Jones
- Elizabeth Leef
- Lenore Levin
- Erica Midboe, Secretary
- Tony Schaffer
- Steve Yaffe
- Tony Young (Board Member Emeritus)
Michel Bagbonon
Michel Bagbonon’s 15+ years of international development experience in the public and private sectors includes financial management, program design, implementation, and evaluation. His clients include USAID, USDA, UNSO, The Mitchell Group, African American Institute (AAI), the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), Africare, other Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and national governments.
Mr. Bagbonon has extensive experience in training needs assessment and conduction of workshops including training of trainers. Field experience with NGOs & PVOs, in the field of food security and HIV/AIDS, includes assignments in Benin, Burkina-Faso, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Haiti, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, and Togo.
Mr. Bagbonon has periodically served as a volunteer at ECNV and he works earnestly on his own independent living goals. Fluent in two languages (French and English), he also possesses a working knowledge of Portuguese and Arabic. He lives in the City of Alexandria.
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Matthew Barkley
Matthew Barkley currently serves on the Endependence Center of Northern Virginia’s governing board as well as the board for the Spinal Cord Injury Network of Metropolitan Washington, D.C.. As a person with a disability and as an advocate for people with disabilities, he has worked on policy and legislation impacting the lives of people with disabilities on the local, state and federal level for more than 10 years. At this time, he is the Director of Disability Services Planning and Development for Fairfax County and is the lead staff support to the Fairfax Area Disability Services Board.
Before working with Fairfax County, Mr. Barlkey was a Material Specialist for the National Council on Independent Living; a Statewide Systems Advocate for the New York State Independent Living Council; Assistant to the Director of Development, an Educational and Transportation Advocate and for ARISE, a Center for Independent Living in Syracuse NY. He was also instrumental in the creation, and served three terms as President, of the Spinal Cord Injury Network of Central New York.
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Tapan Banerjee
Dr. Tapan Banerjee serves as a Senior Advisor for Whirlwind Wheelchairs International, San Francisco State University, CA. He served as the former Executive Director of the US International Council on Disabilities (USICD). He has over 25 years of experience in the field of international business development with a special focus on creating opportunities for people with disabilities in corporate and public ventures. He is a wheelchair user as a result of a spinal cord injury.
Dr. Banerjee is also involved with several organizations addressing disability advocacy issues. In addition, he serves as consultant to a variety of agencies and organizations including: Counselor, Senior Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), Wash., DC; Consultant, National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), US Dept. of Education; local representative for Wheels of the World; Board of Directors, Excel, an employment opportunity program for disabled persons; Program Manager, MGM consulting company that trains and creates opportunities for persons with disabilities; Representative from Dranesville District to Fairfax Area Disability Services Board and member of Long Term Care Coordinating Committee of Fairfax County, VA. He also is an advisor for E-Car Corporation for golf carts for disabled golfers; Member, Board of Directors, National Spinal Cord Injury Assn. (NSCIA), USA; Consultant, World Bank's Disability Program, Washington, DC and Member of WMATA Metro Accessibility Advisory Committee.
Prior to his present responsibilities with disability communities, Dr. Banerjee was the Regional Commercial Counselor for West Africa for the American Embassy in Ivory Coast, Director of the US Commercial Liaison Office to the African Development Bank (ADB), US Dept. of Commerce, Commercial Counselor, American Embassies in Abu Dhabi, UAE and Amsterdam; Director, US Export Assistance Center in Atlanta; First Secretary/Commercial Attaché, American Embassy, New Delhi, India, and First Secretary/Senior Commercial Officer for the American Embassy in Helsinki, Finland.
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Cindy Daniel
Cindy Daniel, a current resident of Springfield and graduate of Oklahoma State University and the University of Kansas, has been active in the disability community for nearly two decades beginning with her position offering support and implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service (National Forests of North Carolina) in January 1992. Since then, Ms. Daniel has continued to work as an advocate for people with disabilities in both the public and private sectors. She served on the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities where she promoted leadership and empowerment of people with disabilities.
Ms. Daniel currently serves as the Nat’l Disability Coordinator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) since 2007. In this position, she provides guidance and coordination on matters related to individuals with disabilities in emergency planning and relief efforts in the event of a disaster. She does this by interacting with FEMA staff and various disability organizations throughout the country.
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Marcie Goldstein
Marcie Goldstein is running for the Board of Directors of ECNV for a second term. She is not new to the independent living movement, her involvement dates back to the mid-Seventies when she was on the founding Board of the Directors of the first Independent Living Center in New York state. In the past couple of years her interest has been in the area of employment of people with disabilities in the federal government and federal contracts.
Ms. Goldstein has worked with ECNV on this issue, meeting with various Hill staffers to encourage them to work with government agencies to improve the numbers of people with disabilities and promotion opportunities.
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Jessica Hunt
Jessica Hunt grew up in Kentucky with a disability and “had to push the envelope to force school administrators, authority figures, and even my peers to afford me the same respect and opportunities as my able-bodied counterparts.” She has a strong devotion to disability issues and very strong advocate for others with disabilities who cannot speak for themselves.
Ms. Hunt has served as Chairperson of the Youth Advisory Committee to the Presidential Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities, as a member of the Board of Directors of the Kentucky Assistive Technology Loan Corporation, and as a spokesperson for the Workforce Recruitment Program. She secured a Fulbright Assistantship in Europe and taught English to sixth and tenth graders in Chauny, France.
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Lee Jones
Lee Jones is a former Senior Executive for HUD and a Certified Government Financial Manager with successful management and executive experience in banking, corporate, government, consulting and not-for-profit organizations. A recognized thought leader in government financial management and systems, data warehousing and cash management, he has served as the director of federal systems for DecisionPath Consulting.
As the Assistant Chief Financial Officer for Systems at HUD, Mr. Jones managed over $30 million in procurements annually and 100 staff and contractors to operate, maintain, enhance, integrate, develop, administer and evaluate HUD’s core financial systems, and was responsible for all budget, procurement and HR activities, including a multi-million dollar project to assess and replace HUD’s core financial systems. He acted as the financial advisor and coordinator/monitor for major departmental systems applications.
During his tenure at the Department of Labor, where, as Director of Office Financial Systems, he was responsible for systems that processed 18,000 biweekly payroll payments that accounted for $37 billion per year, Mr. Jones received the Secretary’s Exceptional Achievement Award. He was a winner of Government Executive’s Federal Technology Leadership Award and has presented at over 20 professional conferences and meetings, including The Data Warehousing Institute and the Association of Government Accountants.
Mr. Jones was a Senior Executive Fellow at Harvard University, and holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (BA, Psychology) and The George Washington University (MBA). He is also an active volunteer, serving as Commissioner of the Arlington Disability Advisory Commission and on the Board of Directors of Community Residences, Inc., an organization that provides group housing and other services to mentally challenged adults.
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Lenore Levin
Lenore Levin is running for the Board of Directors of ECNV for a second term. She has been committed to the rights of the Disabled community. She has seen both sides of disabled care: as giver (her older brother had a spinal cord injury) and recipient.
Ms. Levin is a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist, Volunteer Administrator, Public Relations Director and as a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator. “Recently I found myself as a patient in a rehabilitation hospital after brain tumor surgery. As a result I now live with both physical and visual disabilities.”
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Elizabeth Leef
Elizabeth Leef lives in Alexandria and works at the U.S. Administration on Aging (AoA) within the U.S Department of Health and Human Services as an Aging Services Program Specialist. She serves as a Project Officer managing grants within the Office of Planning and Policy Development and acting as a disability liaison. Prior to her position at AoA, Ms. Leef worked with National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) as a Health Care Policy Analyst. One of her duties was staffing the NCIL PAS Subcommittee, which focuses on ending the institutional bias. Prior to this, she completed internships with U.S. Senator Tom Harkin and with the Office on Disability at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC.
Paraplegic as a result of a car accident at a very young age, Ms. Leef has extensive experience within the Independent Living Movement working as a peer counselor and an independent living specialist in three Centers, as well as serving on the Statewide Independent Living Councils in both Colorado and New Mexico. She is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado.
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Erica Midboe
Erica Midboe received her B.A. from the University of Virginia in 2005, where her coursework in Psychology and Education led to her accepting a position at the Ivymount School in Rockville, Maryland. At the Ivymount Autism Program, she taught students with autism using Applied Behavior Analysis. She returned to the University of Virginia to attain a Masters in Teaching, with a concentration in Special Education. During her student career, Ms. Midboe was honored with the Elsie Hughes Cabell Endowed Scholarship and the Delta Kappa Gamma Virginia Scholar Award. She also served as a volunteer in an adaptive sports program at the University of Virginia, spending weekends at Massanutten Resort skiing with individuals with sensory, physical, and intellectual disabilities.
Currently, Ms. Midboe teaches students with autism, learning and intellectual disabilities in Fairfax County Public Schools. She is dedicated to achieving the highest standard of community integration for individuals with disabilities.
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Tony Schaffer
Tony Schaffer, a resident of Loudoun County, and his wife Becky own Schaffer Construction Designs for Life, a remodeling company specializing in providing access modifications for older Virginians and Virginians with disabilities. Mr. Schaffer earned the Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS) designation in 2008. He advocates providing more resources to realistically address the physical barriers that people who encounter life changing events experience when they return home.
Mr. Schaffer is a co-founder of the Northern Virginia Fall Prevention Coalition, a nonprofit organization, advocating for fall prevention at the local level. He has been aggressively pursuing a statewide consensus on this issue working with local, state, and national partners to reduce the number of fall-related injuries and deaths among the elderly.
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Steve Yaffe
In addition to his service on the ECNV Board, Steve Yaffe is a board member of the Fairfax Area Long Term Care Coordinating Council, a member of the Community Transportation Association, the Transportation Research Board Paratransit Committee and has also reviewed project proposals for Easter Seals - Project Action. He is currently the Arlington County Transit Services Manager, overseeing contract operations of Arlington Transit (ART) fixed route and Specialized Transportation for Arlington Residents (STAR) paratransit services.
Mr. Yaffe is also the Pro-bono consultant for the Southwest Action TEAM’s Shuttle-Bug, a one-bus shuttle service, primarily funded by developers, to connect a neighborhood to a metrorail station, grocery store, pharmacy and bank while the neighborhood's pedestrian pathway is recreated. He had a short stint with WMATA, during which their board decided to implement Door-to-Door service for MetroAccess, and was the FASTRAN Planning Manager in Fairfax County for 16 years.
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Tony Young
Tony Young was a Co-Founder of ECNV and subsequently served as ECNV's first Executive Director. Currently Mr. Young works as Director of Governmental Activities for NISH. Formerly he worked in advocacy and policy development for the United Cerebral Palsy Association, and he was previously the Director of Residential and Community Support Services for the National Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, where he also served on the Board of Directors.
Mr. Young is a Fellow with the World Institute on Disability with special expertise in Personal Assistance Services and Technology-Related Assistance, and his expertise has helped guide the development of personal assistance services at ECNV. His leadership on the Ticket to Work and Workforce Incentives Improvement Act (TWWIIA) is only one of his more recent disability-related legislative achievements.
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