Board of Directors

LightHouse Board

If you wish to contact a member of the LightHouse Board, please email boardofdirectors@lighthouse-sf.org or call Chuck Godwin, Executive Secretary, at 415-694-7348.

Board of Directors

FY 2011-2012

LightHouse Honorary Board

  • Theodore Bayer
  • Douglas Bergman
  • Jon Carroll
  • John P. Coughlan
  • Mike Cole
  • Winifred Downing
  • Nancy Foss
  • William Gerard
  • Daniel Goodman
  • John Maxson
  • Mike May
  • Hon. Gavin Newsom
  • Stephen Max Perr
  • Catherine Skivers
  • Edward Zaik
  • Barbara Lassen

Joshua A. Miele, Ph.D. – President

Joshua Miele is an alumnus of the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his BA in Physics and his Ph.D. in Psychoacoustics. He is currently a Research Scientist at The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (www.ski.org) in San Francisco, where he has made major contributions to tactile map technology, auditory/haptic display research, audio/tactile graphics techniques and Braille technologies (http://JAMonAT.blogspot.com).

Josh is an active member of the Bay Area disabled community. In addition to his current position on the LightHouse Board of Directors, he has served on the boards of both the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program (BORP) and the Ed Roberts Campus (ERC). He has also been a member of the City of Berkeley’s Commission on Disability and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Elderly and Disabled Advisory Committee. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and two young children.

Stephen Dobbs – 1st Vice President

Stephen Dobbs is a native San Franciscan, educated at Stanford University. He was on the faculty of arts and humanities at San Francisco State University, and has been a visiting professor or scholar at Harvard, Stanford, University of Washington and University of London. In the nonprofit sector, Stephen has served as Senior Program Officer at the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, Executive Director of the Koret Foundation in San Francisco and President & CEO of the Marin Community Foundation (Buck Trust). He joined the LightHouse Board in 2009. He is also a former board member of Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael. His father, Harold Dobbs, was LightHouse Board President in the 1960s.

Chris Downey – 2nd Vice President

Christopher Downey, RA, (www.arch4blind.com) is an architect, planner and consultant who lost his sight in 2008.  Today, he is dedicated to creating more helpful and enriching environments for the blind and visually impaired. Whether working as a planning and programming team member or as a client representative, he draws on his unique perspective as a seasoned architect. His 20-year career has encompassed a broad range of award-winning projects, from custom residences to the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth, MN, and MIT’s Rotch Architectural Library. Chris joined the LightHouse Board in 2009.

Kathleen Knox – 3rd Vice President

Raised in New York, Hong Kong and southern Connecticut, Kathleen W. Knox is a graduate of Amherst College and holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of Michigan. Arriving in the Bay Area on a bit of a lark in 1994, she began her career doing fundraising and advocacy at the LightHouse, later inaugurating the corporate/foundation gifts program at Guide Dogs for the Blind. From 1996 to 2000, Kathleen served as Vice President of San Francisco’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the body overseeing Muni. She is currently a freelance writer and editor living in San Francisco with her fourth dog guide, Gage.

Gena Harper – Secretary

Gena Harper is a Senior Vice President-Wealth Management, Senior Investment Management Consultant and a CIMA at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Berkeley, California. Born with glaucoma, Gena is totally blind in one eye and can see very little with the other. Nevertheless, she became a financial consultant at 22, and is one of the few blind people in the investment industry in the United States.

Gena has served on the Glaucoma Research Foundation Board and also on the Governor’s Committee for the Employment of Disabled Persons. She is past President of the Downtown Berkeley YMCA and is a Junior Girl Scout troop leader for fourth and fifth graders. In 1995, Gena became the first recipient of The Glaucoma Foundation Award of Merit. Her passions include downhill skiing, rock climbing and tandem cycling. She lives in San Ramon with her daughter, Sarena; son, Shiya; and three dogs, Coco, Bella and guide dog Asia.

Gena joined the LightHouse Board because, she says, “I think I can make a big difference in the lives of blind people by mentoring and setting a good example. I also would like to motivate and inspire others to set big goals and accomplish their dreams, and to know they can become extraordinary people in spite of having a disability of any kind.”

Joseph Chan – Treasurer

Joseph Chan joined the LightHouse Board in June 2005. He retired in 2009, after serving 26 years at the Association of Bay Area Governments as Chief Financial Officer of the agency. As a visually impaired person with retinitis pigmentosa, Joseph wants to offer his expertise in fiscal management to benefit the blind and visually impaired community. He is a CPA and holds an MBA degree from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

Todd Stevenot – Immediate Past President

Todd Stevenot became a member of the LightHouse Board of Directors in 2001 after his grandmother, who he was caring for, experienced age-related vision loss. Joining the Board provided a good opportunity to both serve the community and understand her disability better.

Over the years, he has been able to bring useful experience to the Board, from investment and management insight in his current role as Managing Director for the world’s largest investment management firm, BlackRock (www.blackrock.com), to financial understanding and oversight from his years of auditing hundreds of social service nonprofits for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. He also brings board experience from past and present officer positions on a number of other nonprofit organizations, including a local school and educational and athletic foundations.

Though his grandmother has passed away, he remains committed to the LightHouse: “I am inspired by the clients and fellow visually impaired Board members who have overcome a very challenging disability to lead ordinary and extraordinary lives. I am proud to serve and support the LightHouse to help make this possible through committed and talented staff and a broad range of quality programs.”

Lisa Carvalho

Glendale, California native Lisa Maria Carvalho obtained her law degree at UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) in 1992. She is a partner in the San Francisco office of the law firm of Reed Smith LLP, where she practices management-side employment litigation and counseling, and also has experience in trusts and estates litigation and fiduciary counseling. Lisa is the Northern California Market Chair of the firm’s global Women’s Initiative Network. As an ethnic minority partner, she also participates in the firm’s Diversity initiative.

Lisa learned of the LightHouse from LightHouse Board Vice President Josh Miele – their sons play on the same Little League team. Lisa believes that given her leadership and professional experience, she has a lot to contribute to our Board, even as she becomes personally enriched by what the LightHouse community can teach her and her family as they address her mother’s progressing macular degeneration.

Lisa lives in Berkeley with her husband, Dave Mager, and her sons Luke (10) and Flynn (7-1/2).  Beyond her professional life, Lisa enjoys food and wine, Craftsman architecture and design, and Macanese history and ethnography.

David Chan

David Chan graduated with a BS in Accounting, Banking and Finance from San Francisco State University and is currently enrolled in the MBA program at Heriot-Watt University. Prior to joining the LightHouse Board in 2006, he served as President of NFB (National Federation of the Blind) San Francisco, President of NFB OCB (Orientation Center for the Blind) Alumni Chapter and on the OCB Trust Fund Board. Since November 2001, David has worked as a Systems Engineer for Wells Fargo Bank.

William Hemenger

A native of Michigan, Bill is no stranger to hard work. His first job was as paperboy at age 12 for the The Detroit News, which he grew into one of the largest paper routes in Southeast Michigan. Bill earned a Bachelor’s degree in business in 1991 from Northwood University. Upon graduating, he moved to Dayton, Ohio, to work for Quaker Oats.  In 1994, after a successful stint with Quaker Oats, Bill moved to Washington D.C., selling software to the Federal Government with Oracle.

Bill moved to San Francisco in 1997, to be a part of the exciting dotcom boom, assisting small software companies market their wares; Following another stint at Oracle, he joined Acxiom Corporation in 2010 as Sales Executive in the Health Care Division.

Bill currently resides in the Castro district of San Francisco with his partner of nine years and two rescue dogs. He joined the LightHouse Board in 2011, stating, “I love this city. It has given me so much—professionally and personally. The opportunity to give back to San Francisco would be my greatest honor”.

Dana Hooper

Dana Hooper is Executive Director of Life Services

Alternatives (LSA), a nonprofit providing residential services to adults with developmental disabilities. In addition to serving on the Board of Directors of the LightHouse, he is a member of the Santa Clara Chorale Board. He was formerly President of the San Andres Regional Center Board of Directors and a member of Jay Nolan Community Services Board. Dana, whose son Brent is developmentally disabled, contributes his time and skills to help ensure that quality services and support are provided to people with developmental disabilities. Having joined the LightHouse Board in 2007, Dana is inspired by a quote from Sir Winston Churchill: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

Jerry Kuns

Jerry Kuns is a Technology Specialist at the California School for the Blind in Fremont, California, where he teaches the use of information management hardware and software tools for people who are visually impaired. He has held a variety of jobs in rehabilitation and employment development serving people who are blind or visually impaired. He has also held various positions in management and sales in firms providing technology equipment and software to people with vision impairments, and has consulted with employers in affirmative action, reasonable accommodation and adaptive equipment for employment of people with special needs.

Jerry says he is devoting time on the LightHouse Board “to ensure the continuance of appropriate services and programmatic content to further the potential of living effectively with vision loss.”

Luciana C. Profaca, Ph.D.

Luciana C. Profaca, Ph.D., joined the LightHouse Board of Directors in 2012. She served as the Chief Deputy Director for the California Department of Rehabilitation.  She was appointed to this position on December 20, 2007 by Governor Schwarzenegger.

Dr. Profaca worked for the Department of Rehabilitation since 1972, and over the years performed the duties of a rehabilitation counselor, supervisor, district administrator, and a deputy director.  She retired from state service in December 2010. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from San Francisco State University in 1970; a Master of Science in Rehabilitation Counseling from San Francisco State University in 1972; and a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2000.

Patrick Sampson

Patrick Sampson grew up in Lake Oswego, Oregon before attending Loyola Marymount University in Southern California for his undergraduate education. There he received a B.B.A. in Business with a double emphasis in Finance and Entrepreneurship. He now resides in San Francisco proper and works in tandem with his uncle at Sampson Investment Management in Danville, California.

Patrick brings a unique perspective to the already dynamic group at the LightHouse. A self-proclaimed dream catalyst, Patrick hopes to leverage his growing financial expertise to foster social change both locally and globally. He is a former Division 1 soccer player (Lowe’s Senior Class Award All-American finalist) and currently plays for the Olympic Club men’s soccer team in San Francisco.

Former Board President Gil Johnson introduced Patrick to the LightHouse. Enthused and inspired by Gil, Patrick is honored to dedicate service to the LightHouse as a board member and promote its initiatives.

Carol Tereszkiewicz

Carol Tereszkiewicz is a native New Yorker, who graduated from medical school with honors from University of California San Francisco. She worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Medical Group and was a Lecturer at MIT and at Harvard Clinical Assistant Professor teaching residents and students. She is currently working in San Rafael Kaiser.

Her son is visually impaired with Congenital Nystagmus, and Dr. Tereszkiewicz has become an expert on his vision and fought for him to have full access in school and taught him the skills to advocate for himself and others.

She has been involved with the Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired since her son was a child at the Enchanted Hills Summer Camp in third grade.  She has volunteered as a physician for the Enchanted Hills Summer Camp.  Doctor Tereszkiewicz is very appreciative of how the Lighthouse has helped her son and would like to see the Lighthouse grow even more active in the transition programs and camps for high school and college age students.  Carol Tereszkiewicz joined the LightHouse Board in 2011, ready to give her energy and knowledge to help the Lighthouse achieve its goals.

Keith Williams