Founding Members
Chuck Beedy
Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association
John Bloom
RSF Social Finance
Antonio Elmaleh
Entrepreneur
Katrina Frey
Frey Vineyards
Gene Gollogly
SteinerBooks
Gene Gollogly is CEO and President of SteinerBooks (Anthroposophic Press), as well as Chairman of Booklight, Inc., Lantern Books, Lantern Media, and the Small and Independent Publishers Committee of the Association of American Publishers. He was formerly President of The Continuum Publishing Company and Executive Vice President of Crossroad Publishing. He has had marketing consultancies with Reader’s Digest and Green Tiger Press.
Jeffrey Hollender
Seventh Generation, Inc.
President and CEO of Seventh Generation, Jeffrey Hollender has led Seventh Generation from its humble beginnings to its current position as the leading and fastest-growing brand of natural products for the home. An entrepreneur at heart, his first business ventures were rooted in adult education. He began the not-for-profit organizations Skills Exchange of Toronto, a learning exchange that offered practical and professional development classes, and Network for Learning, New York City, an adult education and audio-publishing company; both were social and financial successes. After his tenure as president of Warner Audio Publishing, New York City, Jeffrey acquired a small mail order catalog of energy conservation products, Renew America, which eventually blossomed into Seventh Generation. One of the country’s first self-declared “socially responsible” companies, it is a business that operates according to a new and different set of principles and values that in many ways are a marked departure from those long considered “traditional.” Its business practice is focused on offering people avenues to express their idealism, passion, and commitment to causes larger than themselves at every point along its supply chain-from suppliers and partners to shareholders, customers and its own staff.
Charlton Hughes
Consultant, visionary
Chaddie Hughes resides in Baltimore, Maryland where she was raised. She graduated from Washington College with a BA in Humanities and from Teachers College, Columbia University with an M.A. in Education. She taught children with a variety of learning disabilities. But, it was with the eye of a parent that she found Waldorf education and became actively involved in the growth of the Waldorf School of Baltimore, focusing on organizational and development work and community building. She later became active with the Development Committee for The Association of Waldorf Schools of North America and eventually joined its board. She is a student of energetic healing practices, delights in brainstorming and designing solutions, and enjoys collaborative envisioning. Chaddie received her nickname at a young age when her twin sister tried to pronounce her given name, Charlton. She lives in the house her grandparents built with her husband, Patrick; their only daughter lives in Chicago.
Paul Livadary, Esq.
Consultant
Paul J. Livadary, a native of Los Angeles, is a member of the California Bar where he has practiced law for over 40 years, initially with O’Melveny & Myers, and currently has his sole practice in Century City, California. He received his B.A. in Economics from Stanford University in 1959 and his J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) in 1965. His philanthropic interests have focused on various organizations, boards and issues involving children, and he founded the Pasadena Waldorf School in 1979. Paul is married and has four adult children and three grandchildren.
Patrice Maynard
Association of Waldorf Schools (AWSNA)
Patrice Maynard, M.Ed., is the leader for Outreach and Development of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA) and is the elected secretary of the Board of the Council for American Private Education (CAPE). She was a class teacher as well as a music teacher, taking one class through a complete cycle of eight grades and a second class through 5th grade at Hawthorne Valley School in upstate New York. Ms. Maynard is the parent of three Waldorf graduates.
Jason Miller
Nova Naturals
Jason Miller is general manager, photographer, and copywriter for Nova Natural Toys & Crafts, a Vermont-based purveyor of wooden toys and craft products. Prior to relocating to Vermont in late 2005, he spent his life in Texas, attending UT Austin and starting a family. He is married to his high school sweetheart, Rachael, who homeschools their three children using Waldorf-inspired methods.
Peter Piechotta
Neuguss Enterprises, Germany
Peter Piechotta is Shareholder and General Manager of Neuguss Verwaltungs GmbH. A graduate in Technical Engineering from Nurnberg University, Peter is also a certified Biodynamics Body Psychotherapist.
Neuguss handles the acquisition, disposal, and management of business assets and holdings. Peter is also the owner and general manager for WBU Qualitätsentwicklung GmbH, whose object is the quality and development of products in relation to the social organism. He is general manager of Mercurius B.V. which distributes art materials internationally and also of Hans Stockmar GmbH & Co.KG, a company that manufactures art materials.
He writes: “A good Waldorf school nurtures all the senses of the pupils so they become creative individuals. The companies I work with need creative employees to be able to handle the challenges.”
He is Board member of the Waldorf Foundation and a member of Gemeinnützige Treuhandstelle GTS - GLS. He cofounded Humanitas e.V. in 1998. Married to Astrid for 35 years; and a father for 21 years, his personal Interests include biking (body); sculpturing, painting (soul); talking (spirit).
Katie Schwerin
W.S. Badger Company
Katie Schwerin is the co-owner of W.S. Badger and presently serves as the head of Marketing and Product Development. Katie worked as a class teacher at the Monadnock Waldorf School in Keene, NH for twelve years. She has served on the boards of Hospice, the Unitarian Church, Kroka, Monadnock Waldorf School, and AWSNA. She is currently serving as a facilitator for AWSNA. Katie and Bill have three grown daughters and live in Gilsum, NH.
Don Shaffer
RSF Social Finance
Don Shaffer is President & CEO of RSF Social Finance, a nonprofit financial services organization inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner. Through its lending, giving, and investing services, RSF has made over $145 million in loans and over $65 million in grants since 1984 to social enterprises in the areas of Food & Agriculture, Education & the Arts, and Ecological Stewardship. Prior to joining RSF, Don served as Executive Director of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), as well as Interim Executive Director of Investors’ Circle. He remains a Trustee of BALLE, in addition to being on the Boards of Social Venture Network and Comet Skateboards.
Mark Waltzoni
Effective Leadership Changes LLC
Mark Walztoni has over 25 years of human resources leadership experience in leading companies such as American Express, Ernst and Young LLP, and Thomson in addition to chief human resources officer roles for founding entrepreneurs in the professional services and technology sectors. He is a certified executive coach, an international speaker on individual and organizational change for organizations as diverse as Fortune Magazine, the Society of Human Resources Management, the Organizational Development Network, Benefits Management Forum, World At Work, and the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce. Mark earned his graduate degree in Organizational Psychology at Columbia University. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and was the subject of a feature article in Computerworld Magazine concerning recruiting and retaining technologists. He has also served on the boards of several non-profit organizations and is currently completing his first book, “The Alchemy of Effective Leadership Changes - How to Transform Yourself, Your Team, and Your Organization.”
Christopher W. Watson
President, Changing Our World, Inc.
Chris Watson is President of Changing Our World, Inc, a company he co-founded. Changing Our World, Inc. is among the leading consulting companies in the nonprofit sector, with headquarters in New York and offices in London, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and Boston. With more than 130 employees nationally, the company offers tailored fundraising and philanthropy solutions that combine innovation with sound fundamentals. The company also produces onPhilanthropy.com, a global online resource for non-profit professionals. Changing Our World is part of the Diversified Agency Services group of Omnicom [NYSE: OMC].
Chris has over 22 years of experience in senior fundraising, communications and public relations. During his career he has served in executive positions at three national consulting firms, served as a corporate vice president for a national health system, and written for major newspapers and publications.
As counsel, Chris has worked with more than 170 local, national and international organizations in the areas of capital campaigns, major gift fundraising, case development, board development and communications. Clients have included national associations and organizations, museums, hospitals and medical centers, secondary schools, institutes of higher education, social service organizations, national charities and single-disease research associations.
Chris has designed and led major fundraising campaign efforts in Atlanta, Washington, Detroit, New York, Denver, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, New Jersey, Bermuda, Maryland, Virginia, St. Louis, Connecticut, Maine, Hawaii, South Carolina and Rome, Italy. Among the clients Chris has worked with include the American Society of Association Executives, the United States Merchant Marine Academy, the Pearl Harbor Museum, the National Urban League, the Arthritis Foundation (national office), CARE, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, the Tiger Woods Foundation, the Apollo Theatre, the Joe Torre Foundation, the Pontifical North American College, the American Public Transportation Association, the American Medical Association, the Lymphoma Research Foundation, the United Nations World Food Programme, the Destination Marketing Association, the Fashion Institute of Technology, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Girl Scouts USA, Xavier High School, the Waldorf School of Garden City, L.I. and others.
Chris also has extensive experience in communications, public relations and marketing. A graduate of Fordham University, with a degree in communications, Chris lives in Westchester County, N.Y. with his wife Isabel and their three children, Sean, Daniel and Conor.
Bill Whyte
W.S. Badger Company
Bill Whyte, CEO and Head Badger of the W.S. Badger Company, has been a bookkeeper, cab driver, letter carrier, cook, carpenter, eco designer/builder, and most recently, a healthy business builder of the W.S. Badger Company. The Badger Company, based in Gilsum, NH, has grown from a backroom dream into an internationally distributed product line with sales in places as diverse and distant as Singapore, the UK, Taiwan, Australia, and the Philippines. Bill’s current goals include being a good husband (he is married to Katie Shwerin, also a Partner) and father, serious study of the martial art of Aikido, and “doing some good in the world” through the business of Badger. Katie and Bill have three grown daughters and live in Gilsum, NH.
