Board of Directors

Bruce Colburn, S.E.I.U.
Amy Dean, Building Partnerships USA
Kathleen Fernicola, Building Partnerships USA
Anthony Thigpenn, S.C.O.P.E.
Andrea van den Heever, C.C.N.E.
Lisa Clauson, CLU

Staff

Amy B. Dean
President & Co-Founder

Amy is a veteran social entrepreneur currently serving as Co-Founder of her 2nd non-profit organization, Building Partnerships USA - a national organization dedicated to increasing civic and political participation to strengthen democracy and advance social and economic justice at the regional level. With support from the Century Foundation, Ms. Dean is currently completing the research and writing of a book she is co-authoring entitled, Toward a More Perfect Union: Rebuilding America's Social Contract Region by Region." Ms. Dean's roots are in the labor movement where she worked for over 20 years. Recognized in 1998 by the New York Times as one of the most innovative figures in Silicon Valley, Dean served as the elected leader of the South Bay AFL-CIO from 1993 - 2003. Ms. Dean is the recipient of many fellowships and awards; including from the Wexner Heritage Foundation, the Japan Society and the French American Foundation. She has received the John W. Gardner Exemplary Leaders Award from the American Leadership Forum and the Gloria Steinem Women of Vision Award from the Ms Foundation. Amy serves on the boards of the Forward Newspaper; Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish Funds for Justice and serves on the Development Committee of the Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School in Chicago. She lives in Chicago with her husband, software entrepreneur and life-long soul mate Randall G. Menna , son Teddy and baby daughter Alix.

Kathleen Jung Hee Fernicola
Program Director

Kathleen has been Program Director at Building Partnerships USA since 2004, where she has launched Civic Leadership Institutes with non-profit and university partners in Denver, Atlanta & Boston. She is a Senior Research Associate with the Transnationalism Project at the University of Chicago and was an agricultural economist in West Africa. Kathleen is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Chicago; she received her BA and MA in Political Science from the University of Chicago and a MS in Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics from the University of Arizona-Tucson. Kathleen hopes to one day open a restaurant that trains community youth in the culinary arts.