Citizen Members' Biographical Summaries
The President’s Committee for People with Intellectual
Disabilities
Citizen Members
June 2009
In 1980 Berthy De La Rosa-Aponte worked as a counselor for students with disabilities at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio. Her third child, Luz (Lucy) was born in 1981 with multiple developmental disabilities. Mrs. De La Rosa-Aponte’s passion for the inclusion, full participation, and economic self sufficiency of individual with disabilities has continued to grow since Lucy’s birth. She currently resides in Florida with her husband and daughter Lucy. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Education/Counseling.
Mrs. De La Rosa-Aponte has served in numerous local, state and national boards including gubernatorial, congressional and presidential appointments. In 2003, she was appointed a member of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Advisory Panel. In 2004, she was appointed to chair the National Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Advisory Panel under the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 until its sunset in January 2008. She is a founding member of the Global Universal Design Commission, a member of Amerigroup National Disability Advisory Board, a member of the Broward County Memorial Hospital System Special Needs Council, and a board member of Hispanic Unity of Broward County, Florida, Council.
Ms. De La Rosa Aponte is a naturalized U.S. citizen, born in Colombia, South America. Her professional experience has consisted of administering programs and providing services to individuals with disability and/or of Hispanic origin in the US in the educational and/or social service fields. From 2001-2004 she was the Principal Investigator of the Juntos Podemos (Together We Can) in Broward County, Florida, a training Project of National Significance funded by the Administration on Developmental Disabilities, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr. Sambhu N. Banik is the President of Banik and Associates and the Family Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center in Washington DC. He is an adjunct professor of psychology and counseling at the University of Maryland Systems, Bowie State University; and the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, Ohio where he advises Doctoral Students.
Dr. Banik is the former executive director of the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities. He has also served in many other appointed positions, including his service as a Member of the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse under President Reagan, an appointment by Maryland Governor Ehrlich as commissioner of the Human Relations Commission, and Commissioner of the Montgomery County Human Rights Commission. Dr. Banik served two terms as a Commissioner of the Montgomery County Commission on People with Disabilities. He has served 20 years in various capacities at the Mental Health Administration of the Government of the District of Columbia dealing with various disabilities including intellectual disabilities. He developed a number of innovative programs for the rehabilitation of people with intellectual disabilities for which received he received international acclaim. He has been a lifelong champion of the human rights of the disabled.
Dr. Banik is currently serving as a platinum member of the Republican Presidential Taskforce, President of the United States/Asia Foundation, and Vice-President of the Public Members Association of the Foreign Service: USA. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including the Mother Teresa Millennium Award and Special Congressional award for his humanitarian services to Bhopal Gas victims and other community services. Dr. Banik has been extensively published in scholarly journals and print media including authorship of two cook books.
Dr. Banik received his ISC, BSC and MSC in psychology from Calcutta University (Calcutta, India); his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from University of Bristol (Bristol, United Kingdom); and his post-doctoral fellowship in clinical psychology at Norwich Hospital (Norwich, Connecticut).
Dr. Banik has been married to Promila for 40 years. She works as a phlebotomist at the National Naval Medical Center. He has two daughters, Sharmila who works as a Public Relations Chief at an International Pharmaceutical Company, Copenhagen, Denmark, and Kakali, who works as an Education Consultant, in the World Bank in Washington D.C. He has one granddaughter, Nina, who has received many awards in figure skating competition.
James M. Boles, President and CEO of People Inc., started working for the agency in 1981 overseeing 200 staff and a budget of $2 million. Dr. Boles is responsible for the overall administration of the health and human services agency that serves people with disabilities, children, seniors and their families. Since he began working for People Inc., the agency has grown to over 2,000 staff serving more than 10,000 individuals, and operating on an annual budget of $102 million. Dr. Boles earned a Doctor of Education and Master of Education degree from Columbia University, New York. He earned a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology. Prior to that, he attended Goddard College in Vermont to obtain his Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology from Goddard College in Vermont. He is a member of the New York State Advisory Council on Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, and a clinical member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Counselors. Dr. Boles is also a member of the National Conference of Executives of Associations for Retarded Citizens, the New York State Rehabilitations Association, Inc., and the National Rehabilitation Association. His strong interest in the history of disability services motivated his founding of the Museum of disABILITY History, in Amherst, New York.
Olegario "Ollie" D. Cantos VII
Olegario (Ollie) Cantos, blind since birth, is Special Counsel to the Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Justice. He served two consecutive terms as Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House, where he led the implementation of the former President’s New Freedom Initiative, the agenda for advancing equality of opportunity for people with disabilities in information and assistive technology, education, employment, and every aspect of community living. Since August 2004, he has served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Responsibilities include fostering closer ties between the Department and disability rights leaders at all levels, enhancing roll-out of Project Civic Access, expanding the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Business Connection, increasing the number of state building codes to become ADA certified, and establishing and strengthening new cross-agency partnerships to enhance national disability rights enforcement.
Ollie Cantos was the only person to serve as General Counsel and Director of Programs for the now-100,000-member American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), the largest cross-disability national membership organization in the country, based in Washington DC. One of his primary responsibilities was international coordination of Disability Mentoring Day, a broad-based effort to enhance internship and employment opportunities for students and job seekers with disabilities through job shadowing and hands-on career exploration. Prior to joining AAPD in June 2002, Mr. Cantos served as Staff Attorney and Director of Outreach and Education at the Western Law Center for Disability Rights in Los Angeles. There, he created the Case Aggregation Strategy Team as a way of fostering greater pro bono involvement by the legal community. He also started the Southern California Disability Rights Leadership Conference, which has since grown to encompass partnerships at a statewide level, now known as the RespectAbility Conference. In 2001 Cantos was a Regional Finalist for the White House Fellowship Program.
A graduate of Loyola Law School in 1997 and Loyola Marymount University in 1992, Mr. Cantos wrote a comprehensive toolkit for assisting students and job seekers with disabilities in identifying and determining viable career options, a California primer for crime victims with disabilities and their families, a comprehensive report to the State Bar of California on the delivery of legal services to low-income Californians with disabilities.
Eric Lee Cole, founder and President of the Dandy-Walker Alliance, Inc., began his disability advocacy journey when his son, Ryan, was diagnosed in utero with the brain defect Dandy-Walker Syndrome and the condition hydrocephalus.
Nationally, Mr. Cole has testified before U.S. Congress and worked with Capitol Hill legislators to introduce legislation building wide bipartisan support to further research and support activities to increase public awareness, professional education, diagnosis, and treatment of Dandy-Walker syndrome and hydrocephalus. At the State level, Eric has testified before the Maryland Senate and House of Delegates, and worked with numerous elected officials on issues related to disability policy.
In June 2008 Eric Cole was appointed by Governor O'Malley to serve on the Maryland Development Disabilities Council. He is a member of the Children's National Medical Center Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Parent Advisory Council. He frequently speaks at corporate charity events, Children's National Medical Center fundraisers and was recently invited to the National Institutes of Health to discuss prioritization of research needs with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke as part of their 2008 Nonprofit Forum.
Mr. Cole is married to his college sweetheart, Andrea, and resides with Ryan in Kensington, Maryland. His formal education includes a Masters of Science degree and Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Maryland.
William J. Edwards is a Deputy Public Defender with the Los Angeles Public Defenders Office, Mental Health Court. Since 1996, Mr. Edwards has specialized in the representation of people with mental retardation/developmental disabilities in the criminal justice system.
Prior to working in Los Angeles, Mr. Edwards worked with the office of the Public Defender in San Diego and Riverside County, California. From 1999 to 2001, Mr. Edwards worked as a staff attorney for the Office of the Capital Collateral Counsel in Tallahassee, Florida. Mr. Edwards represented inmates under sentence of death in state and federal court.
Since 1996, Mr. Edwards has represented inmates with mental retardation or mental illness on death row, pro bono, nationwide, including inmates in Texas, Nebraska, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida. For three years, Mr. Edwards served as one of the amicus attorneys for Johnny Paul Penry, an inmate with mental retardation on death row in Texas. In Penry v. Johnson 532 US 782 (2001), a landmark Supreme Court case, Mr. Edwards and other amicus attorneys argued that the execution of people with mental retardation violates both national and international law.
Mr. Edwards has authored numerous articles on the subject of people with mental retardation in the criminal justice system. One of his publications was cited by the United States Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia 526 US 304 (2002). Prior to the United States Supreme Court decision banning the execution of people with mental retardation, he consulted with and testified before many state governmental legislative bodies regarding the problems people with mental retardation face while in the criminal justice system.
At the request of Temple University’s Institute on Disabilities, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mr. Edwards wrote a training Manual for attorneys who represent people with mental retardation, a manual which is used across the United States and in other countries, including Australia. In 2002, Mr. Edwards was asked to serve on the faculty of the National Academy for Equal Justice for People with Developmental Disabilities at Temple University.
Mr. Edwards is part of a task force on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders looking to create a screening instrument for use in the juvenile justice court system.
During 1997-1999, Mr. Edwards was honored with the Rosemary F. Dybwad International Fellowship, sponsored by the National Association of Retarded Citizens.
Stephanie Preshong Brown is an advocate for Individuals with Disabilities. The birth of her daughter, Jordan, coinciding with the loss of her identical twin daughter, Sydney, transcended her into a world of challenges far beyond those traditionally experienced. Stephanie wishes to facilitate a systemic change for all individuals with disabilities to ensure they reach their optimal potential and live their American Dream.
She is honored to be a Citizen member of the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities. She instrumentally contributes to the Technology Report within the President’s annual report. She also continues her efforts within the Martin County School Districts Least Restrictive Environment Committee, utilizing the “No Child Left Behind” policy to facilitate a broad continuum of inclusionary practices, supports and services so that all students, with and without disabilities, are actively learning in an enriched educational curriculum. The Florida Inclusion Network, Florida Department of Education, and the Education of Exceptional Students requested her attendance for their first Family Inclusion Leadership Meeting. Furthermore, she is a graduate of the State of Florida’s Developmental Disabilities Partners in Policymaking program and has recently been elected Co-Chair of the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, Mailman Center for Child Development, a Florida University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, Consumer Advisory Council.
As a child advocate, Stephanie is a nonprofit board member for the environmentally friendly, or "green", Treasure Coast Children's Museum. Additionally, she is a member of the Exceptional Student Education Parent Advisory Council, Elementary Student Advisory Council, Junior Achievement volunteer, and an active PTA executive board member.
Stephanie's formal education includes a Masters in Business Administration and Baccalaureate of Business Administration from Florida Atlantic University. She and her husband, David, reside with their children in Florida.
MaryMargaret Sharp-Pucci is the founder and Managing Member of Sharp Health Strategies, LLC, which provides a line of clinical research and analytic services to the health care industry. She is an epidemiologist and senior healthcare analyst with over 25 years of healthcare experience.
Dr. Sharp-Pucci established and served as Executive Director of the Center on Clinical Effectiveness at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois, where she directed the outcomes research program and benchmarking strategy that supported clinical quality improvement. She is the former Associate Director of the Technology Evaluation Center at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. Her work focused on trauma, wound healing and rehabilitation, and development of research initiatives in disease management. She served as an appointee of the Medicare Coverage Advisory Panel which advises the federal government on the utility of specific medical services.
Dr. Sharp-Pucci’s academic background has included research and teaching affiliations with Loyola University Medical Center, The National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington D.C., The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, The University of Virginia Medical College and Boston University. She is a scientific peer reviewer for the Journal of Burn Care & Research and has served in the same capacity for a number of federal granting agencies such as the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), the Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD) and the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA).
Dr. Pucci is the former President of the Board of Directors, and currently chairs the Planning & Quality Improvement committee, for the Anixter Center, one of the largest providers of rehabilitation and community integration services in the state of Illinois. The Anixter Center serves individuals with a range of disabilities including intellectual disabilities.
Linda Hampton Starnes has spent her life actively involved in the disability community – as a student, teacher, parent and advocate. Born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, she has lived in Dallas, Boston, Washington D.C., and currently resides in Orlando, Florida.
Mrs. Starnes received dual undergraduate degrees in Special and Elementary Education at the University of Tennessee in 1982. In 1994, her graduate studies at Georgetown University earned her a certification in Training and Development. Her teaching career began in 1982, working with students with exceptional needs and their teachers. For six years she worked with kindergarten through high school students, in both Tennessee and Texas. Mrs. Starnes implemented several groundbreaking programs in the early 1980s, related to inclusion of students with disabilities. Her work was highlighted in a state training film for teachers in Texas.
Mrs. Starnes served as Confidential Assistant to former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, and at the U.S. Department of Education as a Special Assistant.
As the mother of two children with significant disabilities, Mrs. Starnes knows, first-hand, how families battle "in the trenches" for their children. She has managed over 275 home care nurses, worked with physicians in fifteen medical specialty areas, scheduled and maintained multiple therapy-related activities, and has overseen over 40 surgical procedures or hospitalizations for her children. She has continuously advocated for appropriate inclusive education services at seven public schools, and in multiple community, recreational, and religious settings on behalf of children with disabilities.
Mrs. Starnes’ volunteer work on behalf of persons with disability extends to the faith community. In 1997, she was part of the founding team for Access Ministry at McLean Bible Church in Northern Virginia. This program is one of the largest ministries in the country devoted to welcoming and including persons with disabilities.
After moving to Florida, Linda Starnes helped start the Northland Church/Central Florida Coalition on Religion and Disability, which brought together area churches, nonprofits and lay volunteers across central Florida. This group evolved into the Lift Disability Network, and is dedicated to encouraging and supporting members toward their goals for increasing the inclusion of persons with disabilities within the community at large and, specifically, within the religious setting. Because of this effort, the Starnes Family received the "2006 Family Connections Award" from the Lift Disability Network.
Dallas "Rob" Sweezy is a public affairs/government relations advisor and strategist with more than twenty-five years of seasoned expertise. He has worked on issues ranging from international trade and agriculture, to worker safety and health and the complexities of Medicare and Medicaid. He served three presidents in public policy positions at the Departments of Commerce, Labor, Agriculture and Health and Human Services.
From 2001 to 2004, Rob served as the Director of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) during the agency’s most unique and historic period. Rob directed communications for the repositioning and re-branding of CMS’s image and was enormously successful in promoting some of the department's top policy priorities. Rob led the public roll-outs for both the Nursing Home and Home Healthcare Quality Initiatives which emphasized better health care through accountability and public disclosure. He then managed the communications efforts for the first ever pay-for-performance, Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration with Premier Hospitals. Rob also directed the agency's first series of $25 million national advertising campaigns promoting Medicare benefits.
As part of CMS's external-partners "Open Door Forums", he was designated senior staff contact for home healthcare, hospice and durable medical equipment, and spoke to numerous healthcare groups across the country. He was instrumental in bringing attention to disparities of care and disease management issues through a significant nationwide outreach effort. Rob also coordinated several nation-wide media tours for the heads of CDC, NIH, FDA and the Surgeon General to promote passage of MMA, the new Medicare modernization and prescription drug program.
Before joining CMS, Rob started Public Affairs Strategies, with clients ranging from telecommunications and food processing to agriculture and transportation. He previously served as Vice President for a global public relations firm. Rob led several successful crisis and litigation communications support efforts and provided public policy counsel to clients. He was also Director of State Government Relations and Public Affairs for the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). He directed political communications and strategy for federal and state issues and created SCAN, the Shopping Center Action Network, ICSC's member-based grassroots program.
A native Texan, Rob received his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Baylor University and completed post-graduate studies in public policy and international business at George Washington University. He served on the Board of Directors for the Northern Virginia Parents of Down Syndrome, a local advocacy group. He has four children; Dallas, Austin, Carson and Madison.
Mr. Tienken is First Vice President of Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Chicago. Stifel Nicolaus is a full service investment firm. He works with individuals to develop their investment plans, works with companies developing 401k pension plans, and works with Endowments and Charities to develop investment policies and implement the investment plans for future growth to meet their goals.
Mr. Tienken currently serves on the State of Illinois Compensation Review Board. The Board reviews the salaries of State Employees not covered by collective bargaining agreements. He is in his second appointed term.
Mr. Tienken is currently the chairman of the Finance Committee of the Scottish Rite of Chicago and the Chicago fund raising chairman for its 32 Degree Masonic Learning Centers for Children Inc. These learning centers are the nation’s only totally free dyslexia remediation program. Most students complete the program in 2-3 years having attained or closely approached peer level reading ability. Mr. Tienken is on the board of the Masonic Family Health Foundation of Chicago, a charitable foundation benefiting Masonic charities and Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center.
Mr. Tienken lives in Clarendon Hills, Illinois with his wife, Lisa, and their three children, Emily, John and Nicholas. Emily, the oldest, has multiple special needs and attends her local High School. She has a special place in her brothers' hearts for her struggles and constant good cheer.
Mr. Tienken is a graduate of Lynchburg College, Lynchburg Virginia with a BA in Political Science-History. He remains active in local and national civic issues.
Eric Todd Treat is an advocate for people with disabilities and strives to influence and educate citizens of the state and nation that people with disabilities can be, and are, contributing members of the community who are entitled to the same basic rights and privileges as all other Americans.
Mr. Treat serves on the board of directors for the Arkansas Independent Living Council and is President of Arkansas People First. He has a history of dedicated service in the disability community and is the recipient of the Josetta Wilkins Courage Award from the Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission. Mr. Treat was named the 2003 Trillium Park Leggett Company's Volunteer of the Year and the 2007 Arkansas People First Officer of the Year.
Mr. Treat resides in Conway, Arkansas.
Charlie Weis is the current head coach of the University of Notre Dame football team, and the first Notre Dame graduate to hold this position since 1963.
Weis began his coaching career in 1979 at Boonton High School in New Jersey, and then spent the next five seasons at Morristown (NJ) High School as a football assistant. In 1985, he was hired by the University of South Carolina, serving four seasons on the Gamecock staff before returning to New Jersey as head coach at Franklin Township High in 1989. That year, he took Franklin Township to the New Jersey state championship while also assisting in the New York Giants’ pro personnel department.
In 1990, Charlie Weis launched his professional coaching career with the Giants when he was named defensive assistant and assistant special teams coach under Giants head coach Bill Parcells. The Giants went on to win the Super Bowl that season, edging the Buffalo Bills, 20-19. After Ray Handley took over as head coach in 1991, Weis stayed on as the team's running backs coach for two seasons.
Weis then began a four-year stint with the New England Patriots, where he once again served under Parcells. During that time, Weis served variously as tight ends coach ('93-'94), running back coach ('95), and receivers coach ('96). When Parcells left New England following the 1996 season, Weis once again followed his mentor to the New York Jets, where he was the team's offensive coordinator from 1997 to 1999.
Following Parcells' announced retirement after the 1999 season, Charlie Weis returned to New England and was named the team's offensive coordinator under head coach Bill Belichick, a position he held from 2000-2004. During this stint, the Patriots won three Super Bowls (2001, 2003, and 2004). Although the Patriots ranked in the bottom half of the NFL in total offense in all but one of his years as the team's offensive coordinator, Weis has been credited for helping develop Tom Brady into one of the best quarterbacks in the league.
On December 12, 2004, Charlie Weis was named the 28th head football coach in Notre Dame history, agreeing to a six-year contract. Weis earned his bachelor's degree in speech and drama from Notre Dame in 1978. He earned his master's degree in education in 1989 while coaching at the University of South Carolina.
In 2003, Weis and his wife Maura established the Hannah & Friends Foundation, dedicated to children affected by developmental disorders. In the spring of '04, the first annual Hannah & Friends Celebrity Golf Classic was held to benefit the foundation. The couple has two children, Charles Joseph and Hannah Margaret.
Mary Ellen Zeppuhar is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but was reared in Wheeling, West Virginia. She graduated from Mount de Chantal Visitation Academy in 1967. Following undergraduate school Dr. Zeppuhar became a teacher of Spanish and English at the West Virginia School for the Blind, where she worked for a total of 25 years, eventually becoming a School-to-Work Director at the school. She earned a Master of Arts degree in special education with an emphasis in visual impairment and blindness from Eastern Michigan University in 1978 and a Master of Science degree in rehabilitation counseling from West Virginia University in 1996; Dr. Zeppuhar also earned her Doctorate degree in special education from West Virginia University’s College of Human Resources and Education in 1996; but prior to that, she obtained teaching credentials in the area of intellectual disabilities. In 2000 Dr. Zeppuhar returned to West Virginia University as the Assistant Director for Pre-service Education at the Center for Excellence in Disabilities, where she administers the Certificate Program in Disability Studies in the Department of Special Education in the College of Human Resources and Education, as the Coordinator of the new teacher certification program in low vision/blindness.
Dr. Zeppuhar has received a number of honors and awards, including: the West Virginia Education Fund's "Golden Apple Award," Educator-in-Residence at Classroom, Inc. in New York City, and the "All Means All School to Work Award" from the Institute on Community Integration at the University of Minnesota. She is the principal author of the Disabilities chapter for West Virginia Healthy People 2010 and has published articles in a various professional journals, written funded grant proposals, and has made presentations at national professional conferences.
Dr. Zeppuhar is the mother of two adult children, one of whom has an intellectual disability. She has a grand child.