Board of Directors
Click the names below to reveal brief bios and contact information for each Practice Greenhealth board member.
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Aparna Bole, MD (Board Chair)
Division Chief, General Academic Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine Medical Director, Community Integration, UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital
Aparna Bole, MD, is the Division Chief, General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, for University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital and associate professor of pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (CWRU). She is especially interested in the intersection between sustainability and pediatric public health. Bole leads a system-level sustainability program focused on reducing waste, increasing energy efficiency, purchasing healthier products and foods, and educating patients and staff, including about 25,000 employees and 5,000 affiliated physicians. She also is active in patient care and medical education, is an advocate for sustainability in public policy, and represents UH in regional initiatives focused on sustainable and inclusive economic development in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. Bole serves on the executive committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Environmental Health.
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Blair L. Sadler (Board Treasurer)
Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
Blair L. Sadler is senior fellow for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and a faculty member at the University of California-San Diego Schools of Medicine and Management. Under his leadership as former president and CEO, Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego received the Ernest A. Codman Award for its work in developing clinical pathways. Sadler was a board member of the Center for Health Design, has been heavily involved in developing the business case for building better hospitals through evidence-based design, and was a founder of the Center's Pebble program that disseminates pioneering work on evidence-based design. He is a frequent speaker on the topics of building optimally safe hospitals through evidence-based design and the hospital trustee role in patient safety and quality. He is faculty for the IHI program on effective crisis management, an active participant in the IHI Fellows Alumni Program, and lead author of the IHI white paper on evidence-based environmental design. He is co-author of the book Transforming the Healthcare Experience Through the Arts. -
Sister Susan Vickers, RSM (Board Secretary)
Vice President Community Health, Dignity Health
Sister Susan Vickers is the vice president of community health for Dignity Health. She is responsible for directing and overseeing system-wide community benefit initiatives, corporate social responsibility, and ecology programs. In conjunction with her community health work, Vickers directs Dignity Health's shareholder initiatives. She collaborates with other members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility to raise social responsibility issues with the management of companies in Dignity Health's investment portfolio. She took a leadership role in developing Dignity Health's system-wide commitment to improved environmental performance and in the decision-making process which led Dignity Health to endorse the Ceres Principles for environmental protection and conservation. Vickers serves as a board member of Partners for the Common Good Loan Fund, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and St. Mary Medical Center Foundation. Prior to joining Dignity Health, she served on the leadership team of the Sisters of Mercy-Regional Community of Burlingame, Calif. She has worked as pastoral minister and administrative assistant in assisted rental housing for elderly and handicapped persons and spent 20 years in teaching and administering elementary schools.
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Laura Anderko, Ph.D, RN
Director, Mid-Atlantic Center for Children's Health and the Environment School of Nursing & Health Studies
Laura Anderko, Ph.D, RN, holds the Robert and Kathleen Scanlon Endowed Chair in Values-based Health Care at Georgetown University School of Nursing & Health Studies and serves as director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment. In 2013, Dr. Anderko was honored by the White House as a Champion of Change for her work in climate change and public health. She is a scholar and educator in the fields of epidemiology, public health, health disparities, and environmental health. Dr. Anderko has published and presented extensively in the area of public health impacts from environmental exposures, including climate change, sustainability, and resiliency issues with a focus on environmental justice communities. She serves as co-chair of the National Environmental Health Partnership Council (APHA/CDC), member of Project TENDR (Targeting Environment and Neuro Developmental Risks), and co-chair of the research workgroup for the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. She is a former member of the Environmental Protection Agency's federal advisory committees: the Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee, the National Drinking Water Advisory Committee, and the National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee’s Research Workgroup.
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Raheem Baraka
Executive Director, Baraka Community Wellness
Raheem Baraka is the founder and executive director of Baraka Community Wellness (BCW), a nonprofit community-based organization with a mission to close the gap on health disparities and reduce health care costs as they relate to preventable chronic diseases within vulnerable and at-risk populations. BCW provides wellness solutions for at-risk individuals and communities that engage, educate, and empower through developing and implementing programs that address the social and behavioral determinants of poor health outcomes with a focus on lifestyle and behavior, food access and education, and environmental contributors. Prior to founding BCW, Baraka served as the director of fitness for the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Community Health Centers and was primarily responsible for developing and implementing health promotion and intervention programs for the hospital as well as direct to community engagements. These programs ranged from employee wellness initiatives to community-wide holistic behavioral programming. He also trained clinicians and providers on exercise adherence and behaviors, health coaching and techniques on how to effectively communicate, deliver and implement these non-clinical prevention approaches to patients specific to their individual needs through tailored wellness models. Baraka is actively involved in population health and prevention activities in New England and serves as chairperson of the American Heart Association’s Healthy Equity Consortium Workgroup, is a delegate for Food Solutions New England and is a Healthy Boston Ambassador for a joint project with the Boston Public Health Commission and the Boston Alliance for Community Health. He has also been recognized for his work and dedication to community health and prevention initiatives by being an awardee of a 2010 and 2015 Partners in Excellence Award, A Citation of Recognition from the Massachusetts House of Representatives and a 2016 Boston Alliance for Community Health Community Leadership Award.
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Charlotte Brody, RN
President of Health Initiatives, BlueGreen Alliance
Charlotte Brody joined BlueGreen Alliance as director of chemicals, public health and green chemistry in 2010. Prior to joining the BlueGreen Alliance, she was the national field director for Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, a nationwide effort to pass smart federal policies to protect from toxic chemicals. A registered nurse, Brody previously served as the director of programs for Green For All, executive director of Commonweal, and a co-founder and executive director of Health Care Without Harm.
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John Cleveland
President, Innovation Network for Communities
John Cleveland is president and a founder of the Innovation Network for Communities, a national nonprofit whose mission is to develop and spread scalable innovations that transform the performance of community systems. He has been working for over 30 years in human, social, and natural capital formation strategies, sustainable development, green building design, organizational learning, socially responsible businesses, school reform, and economic development. He also serves as the part-time executive director for the Boston Green Ribbon Commission, a high-level CEO group in Boston that supports the implementation of the Boston Climate Action Plan. Between 1999 and 2006, Cleveland served as vice president of IRN, Inc., a strategic planning and market intelligence firm in Grand Rapids, Mich. IRN provides strategic planning, market research, automotive forecasting, and merger and acquisition due diligence for mid-sized manufacturing companies. Prior to joining IRN, he worked as a private consultant, as director of continuous improvement for Grand Rapids Community College, and as director of the State of Michigan’s industrial extension service.
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Tory Dietel Hopps
Managing Partner, Dietel Partners
Tory Dietel Hopps is managing partner at Dietel Partners, where she manages portfolios for clients with both domestic and international interests. She works closely with the Dietel Partners team to define strategy, identify grantee and funding partners, and provide assistance to grantees with their strategies, resource development, and capacity building needs. Dietel Hopps works closely with funding partners to help with field building in the areas of interest to her clients. She believes strongly in working toward better dynamics between the funding and grantseeking communities and takes a humanist approach to her work. Prior to joining Dietel Partners, she had a 25-year career in nonprofit resource development, management, and governance with a particular focus in education and health and human services. Dietel Hopps was trained by BoardSource as a nonprofit governance consultant and was a principle of Turning Point Consulting, which focused on strategic planning and organizational capacity building in the nonprofit sector.
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Denise Fairchild, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Emerald Cities Collaborative
Denise Fairchild is the inaugural president of Emerald Cities Collaborative (ECC), a national nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. with affiliates in major urban centers across the United States. She is charged with advancipng ECC’s “high road” mission to green our cities, build resilient local economies, and ensure equity inclusion in both the process and the outcomes of a new green and healthy economy. Fairchild is nationally recognized and respected for her 40-year successful track record and innovative programs in sustainable community development, domestically and internationally. In 1995, she founded and directed the Community and Economic Development Department at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, as well as an affiliated nonprofit community development research and technical assistance organization, CDTech. She helped launch the Regional Economic Development Institute (REDI), an initiative of Los Angeles Trade-Technical College to provide inner-city residents with career and technical education for high-growth/high-demand jobs in the L.A. region, with a focus on the green economy. Fairchild also served as executive director of LISC-LA helping to expand the region’s community development industry creating nonprofit housing, jobs, and businesses that strengthened and improved the health and environments of L.A.’s low-income communities of color.
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Kathy Gerwig
Vice President, Workplace Safety and Environmental Stewardship Officer, Kaiser Permanente
Kathy Gerwig is vice president for workplace safety and environmental stewardship officer for Kaiser Permanente, one of America’s leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans serving almost 9 million members. Gerwig is responsible for developing, organizing, and managing a nationwide environmental initiative for the organization. Under her leadership, Kaiser Permanente has become widely recognized as an environmental leader in the health care sector. She has testified twice to Congress on the need for federal chemical policy reform, and she has appeared at numerous hearings on environmental and safety issues. Gerwig is also Kaiser Permanente’s national leader for workplace safety, responsible for strengthening efforts to eliminate workplace injuries for the organization’s 164,000 employees and 15,000 physicians. She is on the boards of several leading non-governmental organizations focused on safety and environmental sustainability in health care.
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Mary Ellen Leciejewski
Vice President for Corporate Responsibility, Dignity Health
Sister Mary Ellen Leciejewski serves as the vice president for corporate responsibility for Dignity Health, one of the nation’s largest health care systems. Headquartered in San Francisco, Dignity Health provides patient-centered care at more than 380 care centers, including 39 acute care hospitals in California, Arizona, and Nevada. Leciejewski is responsible for directing Dignity Health’s sustainability initiatives and the development and implementation of system-wide policies and practices that promote care for Earth and use of sustainable resources. In her role, she facilitates communication networks among her colleagues and works closely with various hospital systems and environmental organizations throughout the country to raise awareness of health care’s impact on the environment and to promote programs and processes that proactively address issues of sustainability.
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Miriam Shark, Ph.D
Independent Consultant, Miriam L. Shark Consulting, LLC
Miriam Shark, Ph.D, is an independent consultant working from Portland, Maine, to help organizations achieve their visions of excellence. She helps them assess and align their strategies to make the biggest contributions they can, individually and in partnership with others. Shark helps organizations effectively position themselves, their issues, and their work in ways that increase impact, expand influence, and build financial support. In so doing, she draws deeply on her knowledge, experience, and relationships across the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. Her clients reflect her deep roots in philanthropy and her growing connections to Maine and Northern New England. Representative of these are the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the John. T. Gorman Foundation, the Sunrise County Economic Council, the Maine Philanthropy Center, the Maine Harvest Credit Project (pro bono), and the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative. Shark currently serves on the boards of the Forum of Regional Associations of Philanthropy and the William J. Clinton Center on Community Philanthropy.
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Dr. Jeffrey Thompson
Executive Advisor and Chief Executive Officer Emeritus at Gundersen Health System
Jeffery Thompson, MD, is a pediatric intensivist and neonatologist, executive advisor, and chief executive officer emeritus at Gundersen Health System. Since completing his professional training in 1984, Thompson has worked full-time solely at Gundersen. He served on Gundersen's boards beginning in 1992 and played a key role in the organization's negotiations and governance design. Thompson served as executive vice president from 1995 to 2001 and as chief executive officer from 2001 to 2015. A founding member and past board chair of the Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality and a 2013 White House Champion of Change, Thompson has led Gundersen's nationally-recognized initiatives for patient care, quality improvement, and sustainability.
