CANO Board of Directors
Lisa Amoss
Lisa Amoss is an independent management consultant who has worked with not-for profit entities and for profit businesses since 1975. In the business sector, Ms. Amoss has worked in the petro-chemical, banking and utilities industries, as well as with a wide variety of small businesses. From 1987 until 1997 she was a partner in P.J.’s Coffee and Tea, Inc. where she was responsible for franchise development. Ms. Amoss is a member of the adjunct faculty at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business and School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Since 1978 she has taught organizational behavior, management and entrepreneurship courses in the graduate, undergraduate and executive programs.
Dorian Bennett
Dorian Bennett has long been a patron and supporter of the arts. This self-described “aesthete” majored in Fine Arts and Russia while in college at Tulane University and the College of William and Mary. He is classically trained in piano and played the clarinet in the school band. Additionally he enjoys painting and pottery in the studio behind his house.
Born in Hammond, Louisiana, Dorian has lived in New Orleans for over twenty years and now considers himself a native. He was unsure about what to do with his degrees when he graduated from Tulane. He knew that he did not want to translate Russian for the government and he did not want to work for an art gallery. A friend suggested that someone with Dorian’s personal skills and appreciation for antiques, architecture and preservation would be ideally suited for the real estate business. Dorian followed this advice and a career was born.
Prior to opening his own firm, Dorian M. Bennett Inc., in October of 1984, Dorian worked for 3 agencies honing his skills and winning numerous sales awards. Dorian also serves as New Orleans “Real Estate Agent to the Stars!” He has sold local real estate to such notables as Lenny Kravitz, Taylor Hackford, Jimmy Buffett and Zachary Richard. He even sold House of Blues its Decatur Street property. Through his work with the New Orleans Film Commission and by word-of-mouth, his name has been spread around the Hollywood community. As a result, when stars come to town they most often call Dorian.
Dorian’s appreciation of architecture and preservation is not limited to his professional career. He received a restoration award for the renovation of his office at 2340 Dauphine Street. His residence in the “Bend of Bourbon Street” also has a lot of history behind it. Built in 1825, it has been home to the son of Louisiana’s first Governor – Claiborne, and more recently, Clay Shaw of JFK conspiracy theory fame. It was also featured in the book House in the Bend of Bourbon, by Terry Fletrich. Dorian says that he has always been attracted to unique and special homes, “As special as I can afford, anyway!”
Civic activities play a prominent role in Dorian’s life. Dorian is currently serving on the boards of the New Orleans Jazz and heritage Foundation, French Market Corporation, the Historic District Landmarks commission, and Family Service of Greater New Orleans.
Previously, Dorian was on the Board of the Contemporary Arts Center, president of the Friends of Contemporary Art of the New Orleans Museum of Art, on the board of the New Orleans Opera, and the board of trustees on the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Jane Booth
Jane Ettinger Booth is a founder and partner of Booth & Booth, A Professional
Law Corporation where she has a full time civil law practice in the areas of planning and zoning representation, corporate organization, business litigation, construction law, wills and successions, family law, and environmental property actions. She is also active in civic and community endeavors. She currently serves on the Board and Membership Committee of the World Trade Center, on the Board of Communities in Schools (CIS) and on the Board of the New Orleans Film Society. She is a member of the New Orleans Bar Association, the Louisiana State Bar Association, the American Trial Lawyers Association, the American Planning Association, the French Quarter Business Women’s Network, and the Women’s Professional Council. She previously served as Chairman and was a member of the New Orleans City Planning Commission and served on the Mayor’s Charter Revision Advisory Committee on the Home Rule Charter for the City of New Orleans.
Ashley Charbonnet
Ashley is a native New Orleanian and local filmmaker who received her Masters of Fine Arts from Columbia University, School of the Arts for Directing. Her most recent film, The Price of Flowers made its international premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival, received honors from the Topanga Film Festival in California and was an official selection at the Toronto Inside Out Film Festival, San Francisco Black Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, 3rd Street Film Festival and the SoHo International Film Festival. Ashley has since returned to New Orleans where she is currently in development on the feature film The Price of Flowers and serves as the Film Programs and Outreach Manager at the New Orleans Video Access Center (NOVAC) where she develops and produces educational and developmental programing for filmmakers such as panels, seminars, and pop-up classes, as well as NOVAC’s Virtuous Video, Membership and Equipment rental programs.
Ron Bechet
Ron Bechet is the Victor H. Labat Professor of Art in the Department of Art at Xavier University of Louisiana. Mr. Bechet had served as chair of the department for nine years. He is also a painter that has exhibited his work nationally and internationally. He has been teaching for 20 years at the college level. He holds a B.A. degree in Fine Arts from the University of New Orleans, and an M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from the Yale School of Art, Yale University. He has served on the board of the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans and served as a member of New Orleans Arts Council percent for art committee Public Art Commission Program, NOCCA Institute Board and many other commissions and boards. He has served as the first director of Xavier Art Department’s Community Arts Partnership Program and served in many arts and youth programs in the New Orleans area both as an advisor and a practitioner. He was also the recipient of the Mayor’s Arts award in 2006.
Robin Bordelon
Robin Bordelon Borne is a Louisiana native from Bayou Lafourche. Robin has bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from LSU and an art education degree from Colorado State University. Borne has carved a creative career path while living in New Orleans for a combined total of 9 years. Growing up amongst sugar cane fields in remote Lockport, Louisiana, Robin and her family drove to New Orleans often to experience the culture of nearby big city: museums, theater, music, and restaurants. It is no surprise that she enjoyed a four year career with Commander’s Palace, working her way to be the first female Maitre’d of the Brennan Family’s beacon restaurant. After Commander’s, Borne explored a career in sports with the New Orleans Hornets and the Sun Belt Conference. Her career in sports included event planning, community outreach programs, and ticket sales. Borne is currently working for the HBO series Treme as an event coordinator for the auction and celebrity fundraising gala, “My Darlin’ New Orleans,” a benefit to raise money for Sweet Home New Orleans, The Roots of Music, and the New Orleans Musicians Clinic. Borne has worked part time as an art teacher at the New Orleans
Museum of Art and continues to participate in create outlets via the Camel Toe Lady Steppers. Borne upholds the her own New Orleans culture by cooking at home, attending live music shows, supporting the ballet and live theater, and by creating her own art at home. She is married Scott Borne and lives in Mid-City.
Eugene Cizek
Eugene Cizek is a Professor of Architecture with a Ph.D. in Environmental Social Psychology and Urban Design from Tulane University, 1978. Cizek was the Director of Preservation Studies Program from 1997-2007; Co-Director of the Ph.D. Program in Historic Preservation, 2000-2007; Chair for Education Curriculum, and on the Board of Directors for Priestly School of Architecture and Construction. Additionally, he was on the Board of Directors for the Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association, the Riverfront Coalition, the Board of Directors, Historic Bourbon Street Foundation.
Vaughn Fauria
Vaughn Fauria is the Executive Director and President of NewCorp, Inc. since September 1997, works closely with Minority Business Enterprises (MBE’s), Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBE’s), and women owned businesses in order to help them grow and prosper. The financial and technical assistance offered to these existing and start-up small businesses are coordinated through the following initiatives: Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI), Collaboration for Enterprise Development, Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation (LDRF), Economic Development Fund New Orleans, Louisiana Small Business Recovery Grant & Loan Program, Technical Assistance to Louisiana Small Firms Program, and the U.S. Small Business Administration Micro-Loan Program (SBA).
She was a very successful salesperson, account manager, sales specialist and trainer for Xerox Corporation for approximately eleven years; followed by a two (2) year stint as a Program Director for the Greater New Orleans Foundation during 1988 to 1990. She and her family relocated to New York during 1992 to 1997, where she worked in several capacities at the State University of New York at Stony Brook Foundation, including Director of Scholarship Development. Upon her return to New Orleans, Mrs. Fauria operated a marketing consulting firm before taking the helm of the newly formed NewCorp Business Assistance Center (NewCorp, Inc.). Ms. Fauria is very involved in numerous community organizations, including the Covenant House of New Orleans and Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp for youths.
David Freedman
In 1970, upon completion of his post-graduate work at Stanford University, David Freedman built one of the country’s first listener-supported community radio stations, KUSP-FM, in Santa Cruz, California. His 50,000 watt station became a significant vehicle for promoting artists and musicians throughout the Monterey Bay area. While at KUSP, he was also awarded a grant by the state of California to produce a ten-part series of one-hour programs on Contemporary California Composers. David has served as General Manager of WWOZ-FM, New Orleans since 1992. Under his management WWOZ has experienced phenomenal growth in annual income–
from $40,000 to $3,200,000, (cume = 60,000 + estimated 60,000 web stream listeners) and has pioneered in webcasting and the use of leading-edge technology for live, remote music broadcasts. In 1997 David received the Golden Reel award for his nationally distributed tape production entitled Mardi Gras Special and is the executive producer of 36 CD’s featuring live performances from New Orleans venues, as well as the annual WWOZ Jazz Fest Program (2 to 4 hours) distributed to more than 100 public radio stations. More recently, David has concentrated on (1) re-establishing WWOZ’s broadcast operations post-Katrina, (2) developing remote broadcasts of live music performances from festivals and performance venues around the country using WWOZ’s 2 state-of-the-art recording trucks, (3) the digitization of the WWOZ 35,000 CD/LP library, (4) transfer (in partnership with the Library of Congress) of more than
7,000 hours of WWOZ recordings of live music performances (5) developing a weekly hour- long program of live music performances, New Orleans All the Way Live, distributed weekly to 60 stations across the country and (6) preparing WWOZ to meet the challenges of the profound changes posed by the emergence of the Internet as the dominant medium of mass communication.
David is currently serving as president of the Association of Independents in Radio, an organization of 800 independent producers who are responsible for much of the quality programming heard on public radio stations around the country. He has worked to strengthen AIR’s board and has encouraged the implementation of innovative programs designed to help AIR’s 800+ members acquire new skills and develop additional Internet-based markets. Under his leadership, AIR continues to grow in size, service and sustainability. David is also a board member and past president of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and served on the board of the Cabrillo Music Festival. Locally, he has served on the board of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, president of the New Orleans Computer Club, and is a founding board member of Sweet Home New Orleans and the Creative Alliance of New Orleans. Most recently, he co-created the Gulf Relief Foundation, organizing a major concert event—Gulf Aid, subsequently raising more than $700,000 in donations.
Scott P. Howard
a native of New Orleans, Scott Howard joined Regions Bank in the spring of 2006. He is the President of Regions’ Greater New Orleans franchise and Commercial Executive for South Louisiana. Previously he was with Hibernia for eight years and before that with J. P. Morgan in New York for sixteen years.
He received his B.A. from Yale University and an M.A. from Sussex University in England. He also attended a Management Development Program at Harvard Business School.
Scott serves on the boards of The Trust for Public Land (as Chairman); GNO, Inc.; Raintree Children and Family Services; New Orleans Recreation Department Foundation; and Creative Alliance of New Orleans (CANO). He also serves on Trinity Church’s Endowment Committee and is a member of the Business Council of New Orleans.
Damien Lamanna
As the Digital Media Director for New Orleans based media agency Morgan + Company, Damien develops interactive strategies for a host of clients ranging from Louisiana Office of Tourism to the Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco Free Living.
A native of Buffalo, NY, Damien spent 4 years crafting Pollie Award-winning online advocacy campaigns for a D.C. public affairs firm until moving to New Orleans in 2008.
Now deeply entrenched in the local technology and young professional communities, Damien is the co-founder of the tech non-profit Net2NO, a distinction that garnered him 2009 CityBusiness Innovator of the Year & Gambit 40 Under 40 honors. More recently he was named Agency Media Person of the Year by the Advertising Federation of New Orleans in 2010 and recognized as one of Louisiana’s most influential people in technology by Silicon Bayou News.
Don Marshall
A native of New Orleans, Don began his professional career in the arts as the first Director of the Contemporary Arts Center in 1977. Under his leadership the center grew into one of the largest multi disciplinary Alternative Arts Centers in the country. Marshall curated over 30 exhibitions at the C.A.C. during his tenure. One of his major projects during that time was the creation of the coordinated gallery openings that has been a trademark of the local arts scene and since duplicated throughout the country.
As Director of Le Petite Theatre, Marshall founded the Tennessee Williams Festival in conjunction with a group that was organizing a New Orleans Literary Festival. During that period, he brought together local artists and community activist to form both the New Orleans Film Festival and the Krewe du Vieux.
As an educator, he has served as the Director of the Cultural Resource Management Program at Southeastern Louisiana University and Director of the Arts Administration Program at the University of New Orleans.
In 2004 Marshall became the Executive Director of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation. During his tenure with the Foundation, he has worked to expand programming that fulfills the mission of the organization to promote, perpetuate and support the music, arts and culture of Louisiana . Since Katrina, the Foundation has created new events to celebrate the rich music and cultural heritage of Louisiana and to promote tourism such as the Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival, Fiesta Latina, the Congo Square Rhythms Festival, the Treme Creole Gumbo Festival and the Louisiana Cajun Zydeco Festival.
Monique Moss
A native of New Orleans, Monique Moss is Artistic Director of Third Eye Theatre interdisciplinary performance company and holds a B.A. in French and a M.A. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University where she is currently an adjunct professor in the Theatre and Dance Department. An artist, educator and researcher, her
awards include a Graduate Student Summer Merit Fellowship Award, Newcomb College Center for Research on Women Grant, Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Fellowship, Fulbright-Hays Teacher Fellowship to South Africa, Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship in Haitian-Creole, Big Easy Classical Arts Awards in Dance
and Choreography, Artist Residencies at A Studio in the Woods and A Studio at Colton in New Orleans and at Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco. She has presented research on the Arts in Venice, Italy, Louisiana and Alabama and her choreographic works have been performed at the Essence Festival, the Houston Black Dance Festival, the National Dance Educators Organization Conference, the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage and the Alternate Roots Festival. Monique has worked for over fifteen years in the New Orleans community with various Arts organizations including the New Orleans Recreation Department, the New Orleans Ballet Association, Arts Connection of New Orleans Public Schools, the Contemporary Arts Center, the Moving Van Project, NOCCA Riverfront, NOCCA Academy, Dillard University, KidSmart, Young Audiences, Country Day Creative Arts, the Hope Center, the Urban League of New Orleans and the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music and serves as a board member for the Hope for Haitian Children Foundation, The Louisiana Museum of African American History and the Creative Alliance of New Orleans. Monique is currently the first and only candidate for a Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Performance in Dance at Tulane University.
Jeanne Nathan
Jeanne Nathan works full time as the Director of the Creative Alliance of New Orleans. A graduate of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, she has long focused on raising the potential of human capital, especially in terms of cultural capacity. She cofounded the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans; produced the Art Exchange Shows in Lower Manhattan as part of a strategy to transform that business district to a 24/7 live/work area, and constantly promoted the work of emerging artists. She has staged numerous cultural productions talent from New Orleans and other cities including the Dew Drop Inn festivals at the CAC. A former broadcast journalist with the NBC affiliate in New Orleans, she has served three Mayors in New York and New Orleans; developed and implemented the Mayor’s Office of Tourism, Arts, and Entertainment for Mayor Marc Morial; contributed to the cultural economy initiatives of Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu, served on six gubernatorial and mayoral transition teams, and recently convened the Cultural Election Coalition for New Orleans that shaped a joint election platform for mayoral and council candidates that was ultimately endorsed by over 70 cultural organizations and thirteen candidates. She has been honored as a Woman of the Year by City Business, and most recently as a Role Model by the Young Leadership Council..
Chuck Perkins
Chuck Perkins has over 17 years of Corporate Sales experience. He is a spoken word artist and owns Café Istanbul, a performing art theater and music venue. He has traveled the world as a poet and a performer.
Sandra Pulitzer
Sandra Pulitzer received her B.A. from Tulane University. She has been on the Board of the Contemporary Arts Center, Audubon Park Commission, Long Vue House and Garden, City Park Botanical Garden and the Creative Alliance of New Orleans. Pulitzer owns ACP Designs, a music production and events company.
Carol Reese
Carol Reese is an art historian who has taught in the School of Architecture since 1999. At Tulane, she offers courses on architectural and urban history and theory, with a particular focus on the Americas. She has taught at the University of California in San Diego, UCLA, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, and the University of Maryland in College Park.
Professor Reese is a co-author of Object, Image, Inquiry, a study of the working methods of art historians published by the Getty Information Institute, the author of Paul Cret at Texas, an award-winning study of university planning and architectural representation in the early 20th century, and The Architect’s Sketchbook, a study of imaging techniques in contemporary architectural practice.
In 2006, Professor Reese founded Project New Orleans with co-organizers Michael Sorkin and Anthony Fontenot, which has produced an exhibition documenting plans for the post-Katrina rebuilding of the city (New Orleans African-American Museum, 2006), and a national conference “New Orleans under Reconstruction, the Crisis of Planning” (Tulane, 2009). The results will be published in a book by Verso (2011). In 2009, Professor Reese was one of six finalists for Campus Compact’s national Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty award, and the Louisiana Legislative Women’s Caucus honored her with their award (one in the state) for Volunteerism and Civic Engagement.
Joel Ross
Joel Ross is an Intern Architect at Urban Planner currently working at John C. Williams Architects. He recently finished a gut renovation of his hybrid residence/gallery/studio on the thriving St. Claude Arts Corridor. His is an amateur mechanic, cartographer, and painter. His work has been featured in several local publications along with content published by Princeton Architectural Press and Prestel Publishing.
Timolynn Sams
Timolynn Sams, Executive Director- is a New Orleans native, and a graduate of the Southern University at New Orleans. Thirteen years of work with nonprofits— including five year of advocacy work focusing on the minority community — led to Timolynn’s appointment as Executive Director of Neighborhoods Partnership Network in July 2007.
Ms. Sams is passionate about the rebuilding and renewal of New Orleans because it is HOME. She is driven by the beauty of New Orleans even in its destruction. Indeed what inspires her about community revitalization and what makes NPN unique to the process is that neighborhoods coming into realization that they can no longer wait on the “government” but they ARE the government.
Timolynn has increased alliances and collaborations between New Orleans neighborhoods and civic processes by serving as a member of the board of directors for numerous civic and social organizations throughout the city including Urban League of Greater New Orleans Young Professionals, NOLA Women for Change, Orleans Public Educations Network, and Engage NOLA. Timolynn’s passion for the city has been featured in local, national and international news. Ms. Sams was recognized as an ambassador to the city in Kobe Japan where she served as a panelist in exchange information on lessons learned on the importance of community engagement for the sustainability to a city. She has been recognized as Utne Reader’s “50 People Changing the World” She is a 2010 fellow for the Louisiana Effective Leadership Program and a YLC 2010 Role Model recipient.
MK Wegmann
MK Wegmann has over 35 years experience in organizational development, artists’ services, presenting and producing for non-profit visual and performing arts organizations. As an independent consultant, she has worked with organizations and individual artists in long-range planning, organizational development and systems management. Clients have included Alabama Dance Council, JumpStart Performance Co., Southern Danceworks, Dallas Black Dance Theatre and YA/YA (Young Aspirations/Young Artists, Inc.). From 1978-1991 she was associate director for the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, a $1.2 million, multi-disciplinary artists’ organization, and from 1993-1999 served as managing director of the theatre company Junebug Productions. She has served on and chaired panels for the NEA, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, the Kentucky Arts Commission and the Cultural Arts Council of Houston. Wegmann serves on board of directors for Junebug Productions and the Creative Alliance of New Orleans. Current committee work includes the Dance Working Group and the National Performing Arts Convention.
Marcel Wisznia
Marcel Wisznia, AIA, current president of AIA New Orleans, inherited his penchant for real estate development from his late father, the Corpus Christi architect and sometime-developer Walter Wisznia. Since Hurricane Katrina, Wisznia | Architecture + Development has focused almost exclusively on designing and developing its own mixed-use apartment projects in historic New Orleans buildings, including The Garage, once a Buick dealership; Union Lofts, a former Western Union building; The Maritime, sculpted out of New Orleans’s first (1893) skyscraper; and The Saratoga, an office building built in 1953.
