Board of Directors

Carla Benka was Preservation Planner for the Town of Brookline for 15 years and served as PTO Co-President of the Heath School. She has been a Town Meeting Member since 2002 and has served on the Town Advisory (Finance) Committee for 13 years. Carla is a member of the Grants Committee of the Panwy Foundation and is an ad hoc member of the Steps to Success Advisory Committee as well Community Representative to the Brookline High School Site Council. Contact:

William J. Coughlin (Treasurer) is the Chief Operating Officer for Community Resources for Justice in Boston. He has been a Town Meeting Member, representing Precinct 10, for over 10 years. Bill is the past president of the Pierce School Extended Day Program and served on the Executive Board of the Brookline High School PTO for 4 years. He also serves as the Chair of the Board of Outreach at United Parish in Brookline. Prior to joining CRJ, Bill was the Operations Director for the Community Initiatives Division of the Community Builders, Inc., one of the largest not-for-profit developers of affordable housing in the country. He worked as a management and organizational consultant for over 20 years, working for many not-for-profits and governmental agencies.

Hsiu-Lan Chang is the owner of FastFrame, a Brookline small business, since 2004. She is a Founding Partner and Chair of The Friends of Madame White Snake, a charity that launched the ground-breaking Madame White Snake opera in February 2010. She is a Board Member of the Brookline Teen Center, the JA Lynch Committee Against Domestic Violence, the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University and a member of the Board of Overseers of the Brookline High School 21st Century Fund. She was selected Brookline Woman of the Year in 2009.

Alexandra (Ali) Dorf is a Managing Director in the Boston office of Cambridge Associates LLC. She was previously employed by Highmount Capital as a Summer Associate and in the Client Strategies Group of Pell Rudman Trust Company. Ali holds the Certified Financial Planner ^TM designation. She enjoys hiking in NH, backpacking and mountaineering in the Sierras and Tetons, and skiing or snowshoeing just about anywhere. Ali has lived in Brookline since 2003.

John Gallagher, who grew up in Brookline, is co-founder of a telecommunications technology business, a former mentor with Tenacity, a tennis and academic support program for inner-city youth, and a long-time board member, and former President of the Longwood Cricket Club.   

Judith Kidd (Chair) recently retired from her position of Associate Dean of Harvard College for Student Life and Activities.. She had previously served as Vice President for Development for City Year; Director of Donor Relations for The Boston Foundation, and Manager of Corporate Contributions for Bank of Boston. She has lived in Brookline since 1981 and has been on the Board of BCF since 2004.

Dick Klein is a retired President of the Retail Division of The Stride Rite Corporation as well as the retired Chairman of the Stride Rite Day Care Center. He is a consultant and an emeritus member of the Board of the Executive Service Corps of New England as well as a consultant and member of the executive committee of SCORE. He also is a board member of the New England String Ensemble.

Molly Lanzarotta is Senior Communications Officer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She has served as a communications and media relations consultant for numerous nonprofits and in public affairs and family advocate roles at homeless shelters in Boston. Molly is a published fiction writer and has performed with choral groups at the New England Conservatory, the American Repertory Theater, and Revels. She volunteers for the Brookline Emergency Food Pantry and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

Susan Manaras has been a social worker with the Brookline Public Schools Early Education Program since 1987. Susan is chair of the Special Education Team, and is a member of the multidisciplinary team for ongoing program development in response to the needs of the school and general community.

Julie Marcus is a marketing and communications consultant specializing in the nonprofit sector with nearly a decade of experience. Most of her experience has been with City Year, the Boston-based national nonprofit youth service organization, where she was the Events Director and subsequently the Director of Communications. Julie is also a busy mother of three young children and a Heath School parent.

Ashley Mason (Clerk), now at home with young children, was previously the Renewable Energy Market Development Manager with the Conservation Services Group, working with legislative groups and renewable energy businesses to strengthen public policy and markets for renewable energy and regional energy credit markets. Before this, she was with APX and Xenergy, working to develop green energy policy and markets for renewable energy.

Michael Maynard spent the first fifteen years of his career in film production, advertising and entertainment (Warner Communications). He has been self-employed as a real estate developer and investor since 1986. Michael served as a Town Meeting Member from 1997-2009. He also served on the Board of the Park School for eight years including four years as Board Chair. He is currently Board Chair of the Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation and involved in fundraising for a number of educational institutions.

Pat Meaney held a number of executive positions over a 23-year career with the Federal Environmental Protection Agency in New England. Prior to that, she was assistant director and researcher in the Center for Careers at Wellesley College. A former Town Meeting Member Pat is currently an active participant in the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement.  

Jim Notman was a Vice President and Director in commercial lending for 20 years with Bank of Boston, and is currently an independent financial advisor. He and his family have been Brookline residents since 1985; he is a past member and Treasurer of the Brookline Education Foundation, and has been a volunteer and coach for a variety of youth sports activities.

Paul Saner is a retired BankBoston managing director in the bank’s Corporate Structured Real Estate Department. Paul currently serves on the boards of the Carroll Center for the Blind and Metropolitan Waterworks Museum, and is Chair of the Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library Consumer Advisory Group. He is a Town Meeting Member.

Robert I. Sperber was Superintendent of Brookline Public Schools from 1964 until 1982. He created many innovative programs including the Brookline Early Education Program, the Brookline Education Foundation, the nation’s first publicly supported Holocaust program, the Brookline Extended Day Program and was the founding Superintendent of the Metco busing program. At Boston University (1982-2002), Professor Sperber directed the country’s largest higher education consortium that aided the Boston Public Schools and was responsible for building seven new schools in Chelsea. His Brookline activities include: Town Meeting Member: founder and co-chair of the Economic Development Advisory Board; board member, Senior Center; chair of the Brookline Civic Association; member, Committee on Town Organization and Structure; and board member, Brookline Teen Center. He is currently doing pro bono consulting for the Archdiocesan Schools of Boston.

Frank Steinfield is an independent nonprofit consultant, working in the areas of communications, strategic planning, and knowledge management. Much of Frank's recent work has been with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, working on projects to promote social service system reform in public agencies. He previously worked for Philip Johnson Associates (pja) of Cambridge and for WBGH. Frank is currently a Brookline Town Meeting Member and Board Vice President for the Lawrence School Extended Day Program.

Eunha ("Yu-na") Thayer has been practicing law for almost a decade. She has worked as an associate attorney in the tax practice group of the business law department of Goodwin Procter and as an associate attorney at Hemenway & Barnes in the areas of charitable giving, nonprofit organizations, and trust and estates. Eunha is a native speaker of Korean, plays classical and jazz piano, paints with oil and watercolor and enjoys cooking. Eunha has lived in Brookline since 2002.

About Us

Board of Directors

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