Kristin McDonald CASSON Laurie CHOI Abby DAVIDSON Kalima DRGA-ABREU Patricia HARNED Sarah HENRY Kenneth JOHNSON Moira McGinty KLOS

Lauren LARSON Amber LEVANON SELIGSON Skip LOWNEY Ingrid Lohr MATUSZEWSKI Rielle MILLER Allison PENDELL-JONES The Honorable Stephen D. POTTS Nichole REMMERT Lena THOMSON

 

Kristin McDonald Casson	Lead Project Manager / Projects Coordinator	202-872-4780
Kristin McDonald Casson serves as ERC's Lead Project Manager and Projects Coordinator. In this capacity she works as the administrative and logistical lead on several concurrent ethics and compliance program evaluation projects. Additionally, she is responsible for writing proposals and contracts, and tracking project status and resource allocation for the applied research department. Ms. Casson joined ERC in April 2005 as the Special Assistant to the President. In July 2005 she also began serving as the Programs Coordinator. Before joining the ERC, Ms. Casson was the Executive Assistant/Office Manager at K.I.R.K., Inc.-an educational consultancy firm in Maryland- and a part time professional development trainer for the Princeton Review's K-12 services division. Ms. Casson received her B.S. in Journalism, with a minor in Criminal Justice, from Florida A&M University (2003). While there, she studied abroad in the Dominican Republic and was selected to be an arts fellow at the University of Maryland's David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the African Diaspora. In 2005 she received her Master of Public Administration, with a specialization in International Training and Education, at American University.
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Laurie Choi	Survey Manager	202-872-4784
Laurie Choi joined the ERC as a project specific research analyst in the fall of 2004 and became a full-time employee in May 2005. Her expertise in anti-corruption initiatives in Latin America contributed to the investigation of best practices among comparable public and private sector organizations for international projects. Ms. Choi's current role at the Ethics Resource Center focuses on survey design, development and statistical analysis. Ms. Choi's previous experience includes working at the International Institute of Boston, where she taught immigrants and refugees job skill requirements, interviewing techniques, vocational ESL and fundamental computer skills. She has also worked as an Executive Program Assistant for FINCA International, a micro-enterprise non-profit organization and as a Consultant with the World Bank Institute's evaluation group and World Bank's Social Protection unit, Latin America and Caribbean division. Ms. Choi received her Bachelor of Arts in International Relations with a minor in Spanish from Boston University, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with distinction. In May 2005, she completed a Master of Public Policy in the International Policy and Development Track at Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute, where she wrote her masters practicum entitled, "Civic Engagement and Political Corruption in Latin America: An Empirical Investigation Using the World Values Survey (WVS) 1999 to 2002 Wave." Ms. Choi is fluent in Spanish and proficient in Korean.
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Abby Davidson	Senior Project Manager	202-872-4785
Abby L. Davidson is a Senior Project Manager for the Ethics Resource Center (ERC), a nonprofit research organization dedicated to the development, implementation and assessment of ethics programs. In this role, she designs and implements research instruments that evaluate the effectiveness of ethics and anti-corruption initiatives in private, public and civil society organizations. She focuses on global organizations. She also works to gather baseline data in organizations that do not yet have formal ethics or anti-corruption initiatives. Additionally, Ms. Davidson serves as ERC's coordinator for grants that support the development of independent ethics NGOs in Colombia, South Africa and Turkey. Ms. Davidson joined ERC as an Associate Consultant for International Programs in August 2003. She received her B.A. in English from Brown University, where she focused on Arab literature, cross-cultural gender studies and development in "postcolonial" societies. She has studied at the Sorbonne and is strongly proficient in French. Her previous work includes serving on the staff for her home Congressman, the Honorable Sander M. Levin.
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Kalima Drga-Abreu	Office Manager	202-872-4783
Kalima Drga-Abreu came to the ERC as Coordinator for Programs in October 2003. She works primarily with the consulting and programs staff on a variety of projects. Ms. Drga-Abreu received her B.A. in International Relations from The College of Wooster in 1998. After college Ms. Drga-Abreu served as a volunteer with the U.S. Peace Corps and lived in a remote region of the Dominican Republic. She spent the previous three years as Coordinator of Grants and Foundations for the National Mental Health Association. Ms. Drga-Abreu is a world traveler and is fluent in Spanish.
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Patricia Harned	President	202-872-4771
Patricia J. Harned, Ph.D., joined the Ethics Resource Center (ERC) as the Director of Character Development in January 1999. She also assumed the role of Director of Research two years later. In 2002 she became Managing Director of Programs. She was appointed Vice-President in 2003 and assumed the role of Acting President in 2004. She was appointed as President in November 2004. Dr. Harned comes to the ERC from The Heartwood Institute where she served as both Director of Teacher Education and Research Fellow. In these capacities, she was both a teacher trainer and a primary participant in the development and implementation of a whole-school initiative to infuse ethics education in the core processes of public and private educational institutions. Prior to her positions with The Heartwood Institute, Dr. Harned served as a Visiting Scholar and Teaching Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh. There she instructed such courses as Ethics in Higher Education, the Foundations of Education and Education and Society in the School of Education; courses for undergraduates and graduates in the teacher preparation program and in higher education administration. Dr. Harned was also employed for six years as the Assistant to the Dean of Student Affairs at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Harned brings to the ERC her broad experience in the character education field. She has taught students of various ages, from elementary to college level. She has experience as an administrator/director; she was an integral participant in the development of various character education curricula and programs. She has served as an advisor, ombudsman and judicial officer in the university setting. Dr. Harned has authored several works, including Leading the Effort to Teach Character in Schools (NASSP Bulletin, 83(609)), Partnering Character Education and Conflict Resolution (Kappa Delta Pi Record, 35(3)), and Creating a Culture of Development for the New Professional (New Directions for Student Services, Jossey-Bass Pub.). Dr. Harned is currently authoring several chapters on Making Good Choices in an upcoming Health Education textbook for middle school students, and she was an editor for Morale, Culture, and Character: Assessing Schools of Hope, written by Dr. Douglas Heath, the prominent character education scholar. Dr. Harned is also an accomplished speaker, having addressed the Education Caucus of the US House of Representatives, and given such talks as “Self-interest is Manifest by Cheating,” “Spirituality and the Research University” and “Supervising New Professionals.” Dr. Harned also served as a character education expert on the 2000 and 2001 National Schools of Character Award selection panels. As Director of Research, Dr. Harned oversees the implementation of ethics surveys to corporations and organizations internationally and domestically. Dr. Harned received her Doctor of Philosophy degree in the area of the Social and Comparative Analysis of Education, with a specialization in the Philosophy of Education from the University of Pittsburgh.
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Sarah HENRY	Development Coordinator / Assistant to the President	202-872-4767
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Kenneth Johnson	Senior Researcher	202-872-4763
Kenneth W. Johnson is Principal Consultant for the Ethics Resource Center. In his workshops and consulting, he specializes in a systems approach to ethics and policy inquiry, dialogue, and action. He takes a systemic view of organizational ethics and compliance that integrates the often-separate disciplines of corporate governance, organizational ethics and compliance, professional responsibility, and social responsibility. He believes that the best model for a good corporate citizen in a complex, global society is the "Learning Organization," where people continually expand their capacities to create the futures they truly desire to live. Mr. Johnson brings a unique perspective to ethics and policy, which reflects his varied life experiences as a Marine rifle platoon commander during the Vietnam War, a business litigation attorney, logistics plans officer for the First Marine Expeditionary Force during the Gulf War, and over a decade of ethics and policy consulting and research. He has consulted internationally with organizations of various sizes and types, including transnational businesses, an international labor union, state and federal government agencies, multi-national organizations, and the Navajo Nation. An accomplished speaker and writer, he has given well-received presentations internationally on governance, ethics and compliance programs, outcomes-based program evaluation, and systems thinking in ethics and policy for a variety of audiences. He has been quoted in the Compliance Week, Ethikos, and other newspapers and journals and invited to testify or comment on the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's Principles of Corporate Governance, the World Bank's Framework for Corporate Social Responsibility, and a number of national corporate governance policies and codes of conduct. His articles have been translated into Chinese and Indian and quoted in leading works in the field. An advocate for the effective ethics and compliance program as a management strategy, he is principal author of a book exploring the role of the responsible business enterprise: Business Ethics: A Manual for Managing a Responsible Business Enterprise in Emerging Market Economies (Washington: Department of Commerce, 2004). The manual has been or is in the process of being translated into Russian, Spanish, Albanian, and Chinese. It is available for free download in English at http://www.responsible-business.com/manual.html. Mr. Johnson holds a Juris Doctorate, a Master of Arts in Ethics and Policy Studies, and a diploma in Advanced Studies in Taxation. He has done advanced certificate work in the mediation of public policy issues. A student of cross-cultural influences in ethics and policy decision making, he is certified to administer a survey instrument based upon the "Dimensions of National Culture" work of Geert Hofstede. He was an editor of the Arizona Law Review and Associate Editor of the newsletter, Ethical Management. He has taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels in critical thinking, change management, and business ethics. He is a member of the American Evaluation Association, the State Bars of Arizona and California, and the Society for Business Ethics. A retired Colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, he is one of six subjects of the work by Jeff Boyd MorningStorm, The American Indian Warrior Today: Native Americans in Modern U.S. Warfare (Manhattan, KS: Sunflower Univ. Press, 2004).
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Moira McGinty Klos	Vice President of Administration	202-872-4774
Moira McGinty Klos joined the Ethics Resource Center (ERC) in October 1995, serving first as its Director of Advisory Services and more recently as the Director of Operations. As Director of Administration, Ms. Klos ensures that the ERC offers custom, quality services to each and every client. In addition, she oversees the Financial Management, Strategic Planning, Technology Infrastructure, and Human Resources functions. With her long-standing history with the ERC, Ms. Klos is often called in to manage additional areas that currently include, Development, Board Relations and Communications. Before joining the ERC, Ms. Klos was employed by Ethics, Inc., the ethics consulting firm founded by former ERC President, Michael Daigneault. Ethics, Inc. provided ethics training and consulting to the business, legal, association and government communities. Ms. Klos served as the Operations Manager and Senior Consultant, as well as being a shareholder in the company. As Operations Manager and Senior Consultant in a two-person office, Ms. Klos was responsible for all aspects of company business from financial management and logistics planning to the creation of materials and client services. She also assisted the organization in the preparation and execution of all written materials, often co-authoring articles with Mr. Daigneault, in addition to contributing her skills as an editor. As a Senior Consultant, Klos was the primary point of contact for all Ethics, Inc. clients including: United Way of America, American Hospital Association and the Environmental Industry Associations among others. Prior to that time, Ms. Klos had a successful career in hotel and retail management. She began her career, after graduating from Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia in 1983 with a double major in Business Administration and Dramatic Arts, as the Front Office Manager of the Old Town Holiday Inn in Alexandria, Virginia. Most recent to her position with Ethics, Inc., Ms. Klos operated a sole proprietorship while earning her Masters in Public Administration with a sole concentration in policy analysis (1992) from George Mason University.
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Lauren Larson	Webmaster & Publications Editor	202-872-4788
Lauren Larson joined the ERC as its in-house Web developer in July 2000. Ms. Larson manages and is responsible for the design, development and maintenance of all the ERC’s websites. She also writes, edits and produces the ERC's online newsletter, Ethics Today, and produced the ERC's 2004 Annual Report. Ms. Larson is a Virginia lawyer with a degree from Duke University School of Law. She was co-director of the legal research department at the Association of Trial Lawyers of America before starting her own computer design and consulting business in 1994. Drawing also on her undergraduate degree in Journalism from Miami University (Ohio) and a lifelong interest in drawing and composition, she has been designing websites since 1996.
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Amber Levanon Seligson	Lead Senior Researcher - Quantitative Methods	212-706-0012
Amber Levanon Seligson, Ph.D., is Lead Senior Researcher - Quantitative Methods. Her primary activities revolve around the design, execution, and analysis of business ethics surveys. She engages in project management, oversight of survey sampling, survey instrument design, data collection, data analysis, and reporting. Dr. Levanon Seligson was the primary analyst and an author of the 2005 National Business Ethics Survey report, How Employees View Ethics in Their Organizations 1994-2005. She has worked on numerous ERC surveys for employees within companies and organizations. In July 2004 Dr. Levanon Seligson joined the ERC as a Senior Consultant in the Research and Publications area. Before that, she had extensive survey research experience and training. As an undergraduate at Columbia University (B.A., 1996) she designed and executed a survey in Costa Rica about women in the informal economy. As a doctoral student at Cornell University (M.A., 1999; Ph.D., 2002) she conducted a survey in Argentina about voting behavior. Most recently, as an assistant professor of political science at Indiana University (2002-2004), she analyzed survey data about voting behavior from multiple Latin American countries. In addition to receiving survey training at Columbia and Cornell Universities, Dr. Levanon Seligson studied quantitative analysis and survey design at the University of Michigan and University of Essex summer programs for social scientists. Dr. Levanon Seligson has won numerous fellowships to support her research. For example, she was awarded research fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, the Mario Einaudi Center at Cornell University, The Institute of International Education/National Security Education Program, and the Columbia University Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies. She has published articles in Comparative Political Studies, Demokratizatsiya, Insights: A Publication of the Northeast Human Resources Organization, Political Research Quarterly, Latin American Politics and Society, and El Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos.
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Skip Lowney	Senior Project Manager	202-872-4764
Skip Lowney joined the ERC in October 2005 on a consultant basis to support a study of corporate fraud prevention programs. In that same capacity as consultant, he provided support to senior researchers on several client projects. Skip joined the staff of ERC full-time in March 2006 and expanded his responsibilities. He presently surveys companies and organizations to determine the presence and effectiveness of business ethics and compliance programs, and makes recommendations and prepares reports and presentations on findings. He also develops and refines survey questions and methodology, participates in improving data collection and analysis techniques, investigates areas for further inquiry including developing white papers on special topics, and presents at conferences and other gatherings. He has a Master's of City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley, with a concentration in design. He performed specialized study in social theory and research and analysis on numerous topics. Mr. Lowney, with others, developed and administered a design and building program for the United States Postal Service. He is versed in numerous software programs including SPSS.
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Ingrid Lohr Matuszewski	Director of New Programs	202-872-4781
Ingrid Lohr Matuszewski joined the Ethics Resource Center (ERC) as an Advisory Services Consultant in December of 1999. She began managing the ERC Fellows Program in April of 2001 and directed the Program until January of 2006. After five years with the Fellows Program, Ms. Matuszewski now serves as Senior Advisor to Fellows and Director of New Programs for the Ethics Resource Center. As Director of New Programs, Ms. Matuszewski provides leadership, senior management and oversight of new ERC Programs which further the ERC's focus on evaluation, research and character education. She also oversees, plans and manages meetings, conferences, webcasts, or events that support these new programs. Prior to joining the ERC, Ms. Matuszewski spent over ten years working in the field of international educational programs management and corporate cross-cultural training. Ms. Lohr also spent four years living and working in Japan, first as a teacher in a rural high school and later as Managing Director for the inlingua School of Languages, a corporate language and cross-cultural training company. In the latter capacity, Ms. Matuszewski was responsible for day-to-day corporate operations as well as converting the American-owned company to a Japanese corporation. She successfully negotiated the sale of this company to Japanese partners on behalf of the American business owner. Ms. Matuszewski is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her Master's degree in International and Intercultural Management from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont.
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Rielle Miller	Character Development Manager	202-872-4772
Rielle Miller is the Character Development Manager at Ethics Resource Center. Rielle is responsible for all of ERC's character education programs such as Maximize the Moment™ and the Student Ethics Office™ (SEO) initiative. She also oversees education based projects such as school assessments, school district ethics trainings, or character education presentations. Ms. Miller wrote and published (in the ERC's newsletter, Ethics Today) a white paper on moral courage, and since 2005, she has been the primary author of the MAXIMize curriculum. Rielle has launched new aspects of the SEO™ program such as Conversations on Ethics and the SEO™ On-line Network. She has also given numerous presentations on Academic Integrity and the need for character education to educators from the U.S. and abroad. Ms. Miller received her B.A. from Washington College in Chestertown, MD with a dual-major in Psychology and Philosophy. She received her M.A. in Philosophy and Social Policy from American University in Washington, D.C.
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Allison Pendell-Jones	Fellows Program Director	202-872-4760
As Fellows Program Director for the Ethics Resource Center, Ms. Pendell Jones oversees the daily operations of the ERC Fellows membership program, which includes corporate, academic, government and non-profit members. She manages research projects supported by the Fellows, typically conducted by the members, themselves, through the formation of working groups. In addition to the working groups, Allison coordinates the production of Fellows publications, develops communication pieces for the members, and coordinates other resources supporting the work of the Fellows members. She works with the Fellows Advisory Group to plan and implement two annual meetings, in January and July, planning the agenda, the format and logistics for each meeting. Prior to working for ERC, she was a Coordinator of Academic Support Services at Florida State University. Prior to her work at Florida State University, Allison worked as a Micro-Enterprise Program Coordinator and Peer-Lending Program Supervisor as an AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer in Evansville, IN. Ms Pendell Jones has a B.A. in International Affairs from University of Evansville and an M.S. in International Affairs from Florida State University.
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Stephen D. Potts	Chairman of the Board	202-737-2258
In July 2004, Stephen D. Potts became Chairman of the Ethics Resource Center Board of Directors. Previously, he had served as Chairman of the ERC Fellows Program. Prior to assuming the Chairmanship of the Fellows Program, Mr. Potts was actively involved in the program as a Senior Fellow, representing the United States Office of Government Ethics. Mr. Potts was appointed Director of the US Office of Government Ethics by both President Bush and Clinton. He served two-five year terms, beginning in 1990. Prior to that time, Mr. Potts was a Partner at Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge, one of Washington's largest law firms, from 1961 until 1990. He also held the position of Vice President of Cherokee Life Insurance Company from 1959 to 1961, and was an Associate Attorney at Farris, Evans & Evans in Nashville, Tennessee from 1957 to 1959. In addition, Mr. Potts served as a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, Judge Advocate General's Corps. Recently, Mr. Potts was selected to serve on the Ethics Education Task Force of the AACSB Internationally, the Steering Committee on Engineering Ethics of the National Academy of Engineering, and the Blue Ribbon Commission on Conflict of Interest Policy of the National Institutes of Health. In addition, he has served on the board of a number of companies and non-profits, including the US Olympic Committee and the US Tennis Association and is a past president of the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation. A competitive tennis player all of his life, he takes greatest pride in having won with his son Dek five national and one international father-son championships. Mr. Potts is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Vanderbilt University and received his L.L.B. from Vanderbilt Law School, where he was an editor of the law review.
Nichole REMMERT	Director of Development	202-872-4778
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Lena THOMSON	Character Development Associate	202-872-4777
Lena Thomson joined the ERC staff in April 2006 as the Character Development Associate. Her primary focus is the Student Ethics Office program, although she assists the Character Development Manager as needed with other initiatives. Prior to working at the ERC, Lena taught high school Spanish and served as the head coach and cheerleading program coordinator at Woodson High School in Fairfax, VA. Her interest in character development stems from several experiences: first, as a mentor for high school leaders; second, as an AmeriCorps character education teacher at an inner-city school in Oakland, CA; and third, as an anthropology major studying the influence that education has on teaching children culturally acceptable behaviors and societal values. In 2002, Lena received her B.A. from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA with a dual major in Spanish and Cultural Anthropology and a minor in Latin American Studies. She is a world traveler and visits Latin America as frequently as possible.
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