Our Team
SPOON Foundation – Executive Board Members
Ambassador John Ordway
John is a retired Foreign Service Officer who served as Ambassador to Kazakhstan (2004-2008) and to Armenia (2001-2004). He was Director of African Affairs at the National Security Council during the first Bush Administration, as well as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow from 1999-2001. Ambassador Ordway has an extensive background in Soviet and post-Soviet world, with in-depth experience in a broad range of issues ranging from arms control and nonproliferation, to investment disputes and energy, as well as domestic politics and human rights. He has traveled extensively in the region, and served twice at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow (1985-87 and 1996-2001) before becoming ambassador to Armenia and then Kazakhstan. He is a developed expert in conflict resolution and peacekeeping operations. In Washington, he served twice in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs. Ambassador Ordway has received numerous State Department Awards. He was the runner-up for the 2008 Charles Cobb Award as the ambassador who had contributed the most to commercial diplomacy, and received awards from the American Chambers of Commerce in Russia, Armenia and Kazakhstan. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Dana E. Johnson, MD PhD
Dana is director of the Division of Neonatology and Director of the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota. His research interests include the effects of early institutionalization on growth and development and the outcomes of internationally adopted children. Dr. Johnson has extensively published, most recently in Early Human Development, Infants and Young Children and Journal of the American Medical Association, in addition to over one hundred abstracts. Dr. Johnson founded the International Adoption Clinic, the first of its kind, in 1986. He is a frequent expert speaker at worldwide conferences on issues relating to institutionalized children's health. He sits on the boards of the Half the Sky Foundation and Joint Council on International Children's Services; and is a reviewer for the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. He is a father of three grown children, one of whom was adopted as an infant from India.
John Himes, PhD, MPH
John is Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the School of Public Health at University of Minnesota. John serves on the Expert Panel for Nutrition for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva; on the Advisory Group on standardizing anthropometric and body composition measurements and reporting for the National Institutes of Health; and recently completed his service on the Advisory Group on the construction of growth velocity standards, Department of Nutrition and Health, WHO, Geneva. He additionally serves as a member of NIH's Kidney, Nutrition, Obesity, and Diabetes Epidemiology Study Section. He is an experienced researcher and well-published expert in the areas of physical growth and maturation of children; growth and nutrition; anthropometric assessment of nutritional status and dietary assessment.
Marshall Miller, CPA
Marshall has more than 30 years accounting experience, with expertise in all aspects of accounting, financial management, and budgeting. He serves as Finance Director for the World Affairs Council and is the lead CPA for over a dozen regional and national organizations in the for-profit and non-profit sectors.
Cindy R. Kaplan, MS
Cindy has extensive experience in qualitative and quantitative research, strategic development and marketing. She has worked in strategic planning for Leo Burnett in Chicago; co-founded and sold WellNext, a corporate wellness consulting firm where she created new metrics for assessing individual and corporate wellness; and served as the first Marketing Director for a nutrition-driven food company, Enjoy Life Natural Brands, where she helped to launch a national brand and lead a multifaceted campaign to raise awareness of food-related health conditions. Cindy and her husband Tony adopted their son Jadyn from Kazakhstan in 2006, as a malnourished infant.
Mishelle Rudzinski, MA, CCC-SLP
Mishelle is a pediatric speech-language pathologist specializing in the communication and feeding of children with severe disabilities. She is currently the CEO of SwitchClimber.com, an educational company that operates an interactive website for children who cannot access typical computers. From 1999-2009, she worked at Emanuel Children's Hospital in Portland where she developed and ran an augmentative communication clinic serving nonverbal children from throughout the Northwest. Mishelle adopted her daughter Bakha at age five from Kazakhstan. She became passionate about the need for improved orphan nutrition after witnessing Bakha's dramatic recovery from debilitating rickets within weeks of receiving vitamin supplements.
SPOON Foundation – Medical Advisory Board Members
Michael Georgieff, MD
Michael is a Professor of Pediatrics and Child Development at the University of Minnesota where he is Head of the Section of Neonatology in the Department of Pediatrics, and Director of the Center on Neurobehavioral Development. He is a renowned expert on early nutrition and the brain having served on the Committee on Nutrition and the Breastfeeding Work Group for the American Academy of Pediatrics and on the Nutrition Study Section for the National Institutes of Health. He is a member of the American Pediatric Society and the Pediatric Academic Societies. He has written over 120 articles and book chapters on nutrition and brain development in the newborn and early childhood period, and is a contributing author to AAP's Handbook on Nutrition. His research focuses on fetal/newborn nutrition, specifically the effect of iron nutrition on brain development and neurocognitive function. He lectures nationally and internationally on nutrition and the developing brain.
Brad Miller, MD
Brad is a Pediatric Endocrinologist at the University of Minnesota. His basic science research has focused on the growth hormone-insulin-like growth factor system that regulates growth in children. As a post-doctoral fellow at the Mayo Clinic, he studied the role of IGF binding proteins in fracture healing, growth and the growth response to nutritional deprivation. Since joining the faculty of the University of Minnesota Children's Hospital-Fairview, Brad has collaborated with the International Adoption Clinic in clinical study of growth recovery following early adversity related to international adoption. His growing body of research and clinical practice is focused on growth recovery and its sequelae after early adversity including nutrient deprivation, emotional deprivation and intrauterine growth retardation.
Julian Davies, MD
Julian is the co-director of the Center for Adoption Medicine at the University of Washington. He is also the editor of www.adoptmed.org, an online resource for medical and developmental issues in adoption. His interest in adoption comes from his years clowning, teaching children's theater, and leading summer camps with groups of Moscow orphans. In his clinical practice, he has an interest in integrative and nutritional approaches to neuro-developmental issues.
Dana Johnson, MD Ph.D. Also serves on the SPOON Foundation Executive Board (see bio above)
John Himes, Ph.D. Also serves on the SPOON Foundation Executive Board (see bio above)
SPOON Foundation – International Advisory Board Members
Beibit Yerubayev, MBA
Beibit has an extensive history of facilitating relationships and transactions between organizations in the United States and Kazakhstan. He is a resident representative of American Chamber of Commerce in Astana and serves as the lead Kazakhstan trade officer for the North Dakota Trade Department. He has worked with the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Foreign Commercial Service, providing market guidance, assistance and referrals to American companies interested in entering the Kazakhstan business and/or investment communities. He also served as project manager at the Kazakh Institute of Oil and Gas. Beibit received his MBA from Waynesburg University and has a keen understanding of US and Kazakhstani cultures and business practices.
Gulbanu Altanbayeva, MD
Gulbanu practiced as a neurologist in Russia and Kazakhstan for 15 years, after which she worked in public health at CDC-Central Asia. In 1997 she and her two sisters founded Zhana Zhol, a NGO that provides assistance to the orphans of Kazakhstan. In addition to facilitating over 1,000 domestic and US adoptions, Zhana Zhol has provided over $500,000 in aid to support orphan health (medical supplies and treatments), Baby House maintenance (furniture, repairs), and education (scholarships for orphans in University). Over the past few years, Gulbanu and Zhana Zhol have received multiple awards for excellence, both by the Consular Section of the US Embassy and the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Gulbanu and her husband are proud parents of son Timur, whom they adopted from Kazakhstan in 2001.
Anthony Kahn, JD
Anthony has over twenty-five years experience in international law. He was a partner with Coudert Brothers from 1973-2004, working with offices and operations in Western United States, Asia and Europe. His practice encompassed corporate and commercial consulting, including pharmaceutical businesses, M&A, intellectual property, real estate, financial, and related areas. Since retirement in 2004, he has been active as legal advisor and strategic consultant in U.S. and international real estate, acquisitions, alternative energy and food businesses. He also serves as Vice President of AgriPower, Inc., a manufacturer of biomass-fueled electric generators.
Zachary Rothschild, MFS
Zachary Rothschild is a Regional Affairs Advisor at the U.S. Department of State, presently on Africa and formerly on Eurasia. Previously, he worked for USAID's Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, where he covered youth, education, and conflict issues. Posted to Prishtina, Kosovo, from 1999-2002, he worked for both Mercy Corps and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has also worked in the microcredit sector, where he co-conducted an impact assessment of FINCA Kyrgyzstan's program in 1999. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Drew University and a Masters in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.
Richard Ormond, MPP
Richard Ormond combines technical expertise with high-level program planning and administrative capabilities in international development. A skilled manager with nearly 10 years of solid field work while living overseas, he is experienced in complex project management and implementation, financial planning and oversight, operations management, and evaluation. Rich has extensive knowledge of the former Soviet Union, including appreciable time working with communities within Azerbaijan and Tajikistan. Since earning his Masters in Public Policy from Princeton University in 2004, Rich has been working for Mercy Corps as the Senior Program Officer for Eurasia.
Ambassador John Ordway Also serves on the SPOON Foundation Executive Board (see bio above)
SPOON Foundation – Staff
Cynthia Barrigan, RN, MPH
Ms. Barrigan currently serves as the Special Assistant to the Deputy Director and Portfolio Manager for the International Health Programs at the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) located at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. In addition, she serves as the Senior Advisor to the US Army Consultant to the Surgeon General for clinical informatics and telehealth and is TATRC?s liaison to other military Commands and US government agencies. In addition to her work with the US military, she served as a consultant to the Virginia Department of Health and was the Executive Director of the Virginia Telehealth Network (VTN) - helping to launch the statewide non-profit organization in 2007. She has also worked as a Congressional staffer and is a former Captain in the US Army Nurse Corps. She is an active member of the American Telemedicine Association and the American Public Health Association and serves on the Veterans Rural Health Advisory Committee which advises the Secretary of the Veterans Health Administration on policy and services affecting the care of rural Veterans.
Peggy Reid
Peggy joined SPOON Foundation in 2010, overseeing operations and development. From 2008-2010, Peggy served as Program Director at the Lemelson Foundation, a Portland-based family foundation that grants $15M - $20M annually. At Lemelson, Peggy was responsible for overseeing the foundation's grantmaking and investing, evaluation and learning systems, and strategic planning efforts. From 2001-2008, Peggy was Director of the Public Management Program at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. In 2005, she designed and launched Stanford's Service Learning Program, through which hundreds of Stanford MBAs have worked on-the-ground with social enterprises around the world on issues as varied as microfinance, clean energy, healthcare technology, and disaster relief. Peggy has also worked in the private sector in technology, consulting and finance. Peggy has served on numerous advisory boards and boards of directors including the Global Fund for Women, UCSF Center of Excellence in Women's Health, and Juma Ventures. She has been a judge for Coro Fellows and UC Berkeley's Global Social Venture Competition and is a member of Social Venture Network. She has published in the NY Times and MIT Press' Innovations journal. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.
Chandra
TBD
Hillary
TBD