GLAD's Board of Directors
Dianne R. Phillips
President
Dianne R. Phillips is partner in the Boston office of Holland + Knight, where she practices regulatory, energy, and environmental law. She co-chairs the firm’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Workgroup, whose mission is to develop and promote GLBT lawyers. The group has participated in GLBT-focused activities such as pro bono representation of HIV positive asylum seekers and led the firm to sponsor the annual Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network “Respect Awards.”
Sandy Anderson
Vice President
Sandy Anderson founded Sandy Anderson & Associates to provide mediation, consulting and coaching services to individuals and organizations. Her career has centered on helping clients, employees and organizations identify and achieve goals, especially during times of great change. Previous roles have included Vice President of Professional Services at IDX Systems Corporation, an innovative provider of health care IT solutions, and General Manager, Commercial Marketing for the Americas at GE Healthcare.
Richard J. Yurko
Treasurer
Richard J. Yurko is the founder and former Managing Shareholder of Yurko, Salvesen & Remz, P.C, a business litigation boutique based in Boston. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College, and he received his J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School, where he served as the Senior Projects Editor for the Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review. Rich and his husband of four years, Rob Leary, live in Ogunquit, Maine, where they own The Morning Dove B&B and Katie’s Restaurant on Shore Road. Rich and Rob have three grown sons.
Chuck Latovich
Clerk
Chuck Latovich has managed and implemented diversity communication strategies, designed and conducted corporate training in diversity issues, and consulted on diversity strategies and goals. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in education from Boston University.
Alix Ritchie
Alix L. L. Ritchie is an independent media strategy consultant and a longtime supporter of numerous arts, feminist, political and LGBT organizations. She was the founder and until recently also the owner and publisher of the Provincetown Banner, a community newspaper covering the outer arm of Cape Cod. Prior to moving to Cape Cod, Alix was a public relations professional in New York and was selected by the U.S. Presidential Commission on Executive Interchange to direct a project for the U.S. Treasury Department. A self-described agitator and activist, Alix has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the New England Press Association Newspaper of the Year Award, Certificate of Appreciation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Citizen of the Year from the Provincetown Business Guild and selection as one of the 25 most influential people on Cape Cod. Alix and her spouse, Marty Davis, have been in a committed relationship for 35 years and were married in Massachusetts in 2009 on the fall equinox, to symbolize both personal and political equality. Together, they have received the Distinguished Service in the Arts Award, and in 2010 they were honored to receive the GLAD Community Award.
Amit Dixit
Amit Dixit served on the board of Massachusetts Asian & Pacific Islanders for Health (MAP for Health) from 2000 to 2006 and has served on the steering committee of Massachusetts Area South Asian Lambda Association (MASALA) off and on since 1998. In 2005, he joined the board of The History Project, and in 2009 took over as Chief of Operations for the Boston LGBT Film Festival. A longtime project manager at Microsearch Information Technology and Services, Amit is now pursuing opportunities in marketing and communications. Since 1994, he has been fighting the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS in the community at large and in the South Asian community in particular. Beginning with his own family and friends, and culminating in his 2004 keynote address at the United States Conference on AIDS in Philadelphia, Amit has spoken openly, fearlessly about his own HIV positive status and encouraged others to do the same.
Anderson Clark
Anderson Clark is a biologist and a director in oncology research at EMD Serono. He is also a transgender activist, a member of GLAD’s Transgender Rights Project Founders Circle, and past coordinator of transmasculine programming (2010 & 2011) and co-chair (2011) for First Event, an annual Boston-area transgender conference. Originally from Illinois, he has lived in Massachusetts since 1998. He earned his B.S. and M.S. from the University of Illinois and his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University.
Brianna Boggs
Brianna Boggs is a Philanthropic Partnerships Officer for the Boston Foundation. She worked in the development department at GLAD from 2005 until 2010, and also served as the president of the board of directors for the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund from 2004-2008. Boggs graduated from Ohio State University in 2002 and also holds a Management Certificate from the Harvard ManageMentor program. She volunteers with Coro Allegro and Innercity Weightlifting.
Jo Davis, MSW
Jo Davis, MSW, works as a senior vocational counselor at the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission in Roxbury. A longtime community activist, she has been a board member at the Women of Color AIDS Council (as President), Parents and Children’s Services, and New England Home for Little Wanderers. Jo holds a BS in psychology from the University of Southern Alabama, a MSW from Simmons College, and is a graduate of the Urban Fellows Ministry Program at Harvard Divinity School.
Joyce Kauffman
Joyce Kauffman is a lawyer with Kauffman Crozier LLP in Cambridge, MA. She is a 1992 graduate of Northeastern University School of Law and previously worked as a psychotherapist and director of an after-school arts program. She was Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s “Lawyer of the Year” in 2009, and is a member of Boston Bar Association, the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association, and the National LGBT Bar Association. She is also a member of the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ National Family Law Advisory Council, member of the Family Equality Emeritus Board, and a volunteer with Senior Partners for Justice. Her articles on the importance of securing legal protections for LGBT families have appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and Bay Windows.
Ken Hirschkind
Ken Hirschkind is the Vice President of Worldwide Business Operations at Endeca Technologies, a Cambridge-based enterprise search applications company. For nearly twenty years, Ken has held leadership positions focused on business process improvement and operational excellence within a number of high tech organizations. He received a bachelor’s degree in business administration, summa cum laude, from New York University of Technology. For the past 15 years, Ken has been an active member of the local community, serving in various volunteer and board positions for organizations such as Fenway Community Health, SpeakEasy Stage Company, the Eight Streets Neighborhood Association and the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus (BGMC). Ken has also served as a past co-chair of the BGMC’s Annual Fundraiser, Crescendo! (2005/2006) and GLAD’s Spirit of Justice Dinner (2006/2007).
Keplin Allwaters
Keplin Allwaters is a lawyer, currently serving as in-house legal counsel for the Massachusetts Port Authority where he focuses on litigation matters. He is admitted to practice law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Since 2006, Mr. Allwaters has been serving as a moot court judge for the New England School of Law’s Appellate Advocacy course, a required course for second year students at the law school. During law school, he interned at Ropes & Gray, LLP. He has volunteered at the Boston Living Center and the Boston Rescue Mission. Originally from St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda, he has lived in Boston since 1997. He received his BA from Boston University, and his JD from the New England School of Law.
Ralph Freidin
Ralph Freidin is a physician and the father of a lesbian daughter. Dr. Freidin has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the Annals of Internal Medicine. He earned his AB from Columbia College and his MD from Washington University in St. Louis. He is currently a staff member at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge MA. He volunteers with GLAD’s InfoLine, as well as with the National Association of Free Clinics, and also serves on the National Advisory Board for the Human Rights Campaign. Freidin has served on the Board of Directors for the Greater Boston PFLAG and the Board of Governors for the Human Rights Campaign. He became involved with the LGBT community to advocate for his daughter and to make the world a better place for LGBT youth.
Reginald Stanley
Reginald Stanley has led Calvert Investments marketing and product development initiatives for the past eight years. Mr. Stanley has twenty-five years of experience in investment, economic development and entrepreneurial businesses. Prior to Calvert, he spent seven years and held several leadership positions at Fidelity Investments, including Vice President of High Net Worth Marketing and Customer Development and E-Commerce. He has worked at the consulting firms of Bain & Company and McKinsey & Company, as well as served on several community and non-profit boards aimed at civil justice, economic development, equality and quality of life issues. His current board affiliations beyond GLAD include: The Social Investment Forum, Echoing Green and Shared Interest. Mr. Stanley is an Alumni of the Southern Africa/United States Center for Leadership and Public Values. He earned his MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.
Sam Bickett
Sam Bickett, an associate at Ropes & Gray and former staff attorney for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, hails from North Carolina where he earned his JD degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law and was published in the North Carolina Law Review. While in North Carolina, Bickett worked for The Hodgman Law Firm, the UNC Center for Civil Rights, Ropes and Gray, and GlaxoSmithKline. Bickett spent a year at GLAD on a fellowship from Ropes & Gray and concentrated on youth-related issues, such as possible legal responses for gay teenagers forced into reparative therapy and the mistreatment of LGBT youth in foster care. He also provided counsel, drafted statutory language, and testified at the State House in favor of the Massachusetts anti-bullying legislation which was passed and signed into law May of this year.
Scott D. Pomfret
Scott D. Pomfret is Regulatory Counsel for an institutinal investment manager in Boston, MA, where he is responsible for assisting the firm in complying with applicable US and foreign laws, rules, and regulations. Prior to that, Scott was a Director in the Financial Services Regulatory Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP (2010-11) and an enforcement attorney at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (2003-2010). An attorney at Ropes & Gray, LLP from 1999 – 2003, Scott was a Cooperating Attorney with GLAD in a Supreme Judicial Court case challenging the constitutionality of the Massachusetts sodomy laws. Scott is co-publisher and co-author with his partner, Scott Whittier, of Romentics, a line of gay romance novels. His 2008 memoir, Since My Last Confession, though well-reviewed, resulted in his being asked to leave his lay minister post at Saint Anthony Shrine in Boston.
Sean Eldridge
Sean Eldridge is an investor and political activist. He is the President of Hudson River Ventures and a Senior Advisor at Freedom to Marry, the campaign to win marriage equality nationwide. Sean previously served as Communications Director of Freedom to Marry and then as Political Director, a role in which he was instrumental in winning the freedom to marry to New York. He has made the case for marriage equality in numerous media outlets, including Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. Sean resides in Garrison, NY with his partner Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook. Sean and Chris support progressive organizations and candidates across the country, and together they founded the Telos Foundation in 2011. They were featured on the cover of The Advocate’s Forty under 40 issue in May 2011, honoring forty LGBT “leaders and newsmakers” under the age of 40. Sean also serves on the board of directors of Scenic Hudson, the largest environmental group focused on the Hudson River Valley, and he previously served as a youth organizer for Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign and was one of the early architects of the campaign’s national student movement. Sean received his B.A. in Political Philosophy from Brown University and also studied at Deep Springs College and Columbia Law School.