Meet the Board

U.S. BOARD

Rocco Dodson is an attorney at Dodson and Associates, P.C., his firm in Golden, Colorado. Rocco is the Vice President and a member of the Board of Directors of Peruvian Hearts, a non-profit organization that helps improve the lives of orphans in Peru, by assisting them with their education and basic needs. He also is a member of the Governing Board of Directors of the Metro Volunteer Lawyers of the Colorado Bar Association. Metro Volunteer Lawyers provides free and low-fee legal services to individuals who could not otherwise afford a lawyer. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Colorado Nonprofit Loan Fund, and was its President and Chairman of the Board from 2001-2006. The Fund makes short-term bridge loans to non-profit organizations, to allow them to remain in business while awaiting grants and other permanent funding. Rocco is also an active member of the Evergreen, Colorado Rotary Club. He has been an AfricAid Board member since 2006.

Felicity Hannay is a retired natural resources lawyer. She was a partner with the Denver law firm Davis, Graham & Stubbs for much of her career, and then served six years as Colorado’s Deputy Attorney General for Natural Resources and Environment under then-Attorney General (now Senator) Ken Salazar, before retiring at the end of 2004. Felicity also serves on the board of directors of Friendship Bridge, an organization that provides microloans and education to Guatemalan women. Felicity and her family traveled to Tanzania in 2002, where they visited the Maasai Girls’ School in Monduli. Felicity and her book club and family have provided a full student scholarship to a Maasai Girls’ School student since 2001. She has been an AfricAid Board member since 2003.

Dr. Doug Millham is President and co-founder of California-based Discover the World, Inc., an international relief and development agency currently focused upon alleviating suffering among vulnerable children in Kenya. Dr. Millham holds a bachelors degree from UC Berkeley, an MA from UCLA, and his Masters of Divinity and Doctorate in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary. Together with his wife (clinical psychologist Dr. Jacquelyn D. Millham, Ph.D.), Discover the World was established in 1989 to facilitate short-term volunteer opportunities for Americans among the poor abroad. Several thousand students and adults have experienced transforming volunteer experiences internationally in the years since. The Millhams served with World Vision International in Somalia for one year, Thailand for four years, and have led numerous volunteer groups to Africa, Asia and Latin America. Since 2003 Doug's efforts have been focused upon providing hope for orphans of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Kenya, where Discover the World currently serves over 400 children in 6 community and orphanage projects, including a newly opened reception center for abandoned babies. In 2010 Dr. Millham was called upon to provide consulting guidance to Africaid in regards to its projected expansion and growth, and is honored to be a new member of the board. He and his wife are the proud parents of two grown sons.

Emily Droll is an associate attorney at the law firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP, where she specializes in Natural Resources and Environmental law. Emily holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Marquette University in Theatre and Communication Studies, and a Juris Doctorate Degree from the University of Iowa College of Law. Emily volunteered as a pro bono attorney for AfricAid during early 2011, and she is passionate about access to quality education for women and girls in developing countries. Emily is very excited and honored to join AfricAid as a board member in 2011.

Gretchen Healey is a proven leader in the IT industry; currently she is leading the organization that is rearchitecting the IT infrastructure of Nelnet, an education planning and financing company. Within Nelnet, she serves on two different 'Charitable Contribution' teams, identifying and socializing volunteer opportunities as well as designating funds to varying charities that help to make educational dreams possible. Additionally, Gretchen owns Pangolin Media, LLC, a social media marketing and content consulting services company. Gretchen first traveled to Africa in early 2006, and has returned over and over again, as the continent captured her heart and spirit during that first adventure. She has visited 10 countries thus far, but has not tired of exploring and learning more about the amazing and varied flora, fauna and cultures. Throughout her travels, Gretchen also felt a need to do more than just visit, which spurred her involvement with AfricAid. She became a volunteer in early 2010 and joined the board in 2011. Gretchen also serves as the President of the Board of Directors of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the American Liver Foundation.

Betsy Hoke is completing her last year as Head of School at Montessori School of Evergreen. She joined the school in 1980 when it was a small preschool with 40 children and has led its growth to a program serving 315 students from preschool through 8th grade. Prior to that, she taught and administrated at two other Colorado Montessori schools. Having received her Montessori certification in London, England in the early seventies, she has long been interested in education for children worldwide. Her chief instructor in London spent half of each year opening and supporting Montessori schools in rural Kenya and Tanzania. Betsy teaches parenting classes, teacher workshops and shares her administrative and educational expertise through her own consulting business. She serves on the Board of Trustees of Colorado Rocky Mountain School and has been an active board member with Mountain Area Land Trust and Evergreen Scholarship/Bootstraps.

Bazi Kanani is an anchor and reporter at 9News in Denver with a personal connection to the work of AfricAid. Her father is from East Africa where she has traveled and seen firsthand the need for more educational opportunities for girls. In 2007, Bazi brought back stories from her trip with her father to Tanzania. For that work, she was honored with an Emmy and NABJ award. In 2008, she reported on what Coloradans are doing to help in Rwanda, a central African country recovering from a devastating genocide. Her “Reaching Rwanda” documentary won an Associated Press award and a regional Edward R. Murrow award. Bazi graduated from Pepperdine University and also studied literature and language in London and Paris. She began her news career in Las Vegas, Nevada as a writer/producer. She then spent time as an anchor/reporter in Lansing, Michigan and after that, in Buffalo, New York. Bazi received the Michigan Associated Press Award for Best Individual Reporting. In Colorado, Bazi has been honored as Broadcast Journalist of the Year by the Colorado Association of Black Journalists. Bazi is often asked about the origin of her name. “Bazi” is actually short for Baz’imana which means “Ask God” in her father’s tribal language. Her mother is was born in Kansas and raised in Colorado. Her hobbies include travel, studying French, hiking and bicycling.

Kent Redding is president and co-owner of Denver-based Africa Adventure Consultants, a safari tour operator specializing in luxury and adventure safaris to East and Southern Africa. Kent first visited Africa in 1987 and lived in Tanzania from 1998-2001. During his tenure in East Africa, he guided trips through the continent’s premier parks and studied with knowledgeable naturalists. Kent has led private groups from all over the world and has also hosted special groups from US colleges and African park services. In addition to game trekking, he has summited Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Meru, kayaked in Lake Malawi, dune-bashed in Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, and rafted down the Zambezi River below Victoria Falls. He has explored Botswana’s Okavango Delta, trekked through some of Egypt’s vast deserts, and mountain biked through African mountains and bush land. Leveraging his safari guiding and planning experience, today he enjoys helping AAC’s clients discover these impressive places. Kent is a Kenya Authorized Travel Specialist by the Kenya Tourist Board, and is a board member of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Association for the promotion of Tourism to Africa. In 2006 and 2007, he was named by Conde Nast Traveler as one of the top travel professionals in the United States. Africa Adventure Consultants donates $25 from every safari to one of its preferred African charities, including AfricAid.

Ashley Shuyler is the founder and former Executive Director of AfricAid. Since returning from a photographic safari to Tanzania in 1996, Ashley has dedicated her life to supporting girls’ education across Africa. In 2001, at the age of 16, she formed AfricAid, and has helped to lead AfricAid’s program-building and fundraising efforts since that time. Ashley has traveled extensively throughout the world for work and research, and she returns to Tanzania for several months every year in conjunction with her work at AfricAid, including time spent teaching at a secondary school for Maasai girls, conducting research on Tanzania’s system of national examinations, producing a documentary film, and working with AfricAid’s many partner schools and programs. Ashley graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 2008, with a degree in Social Studies, specializing in International Development. In 2011, Ashley joined the Stanford Graduate School of Business to further her studies in social entrepreneurship. She is a member of Rotary and the Phi Beta Kappa society, and in 2011 was a recipient of the Denver Business Journal’s prestigious “Forty Under 40” award. Ashley has been a member of the AfricAid Board since 2003.

Nina Shuyler spent most of her career in the airline industry, working in several managerial positions, and later held a medical research position at Baylor College of Medicine. She has been AfricAid's volunteer administrator since its inception, and served as its Executive Director from 2007 through mid-2009. She continues to manage most of AfricAid’s administrative and outreach activities, and is particularly involved in its donor relations, as well as helping to coordinate its events and work with AfricAid's various youth and adult supporter groups. Nina is a founding member of the AfricAid Board.

Rick Shuyler spent over 30 years in senior management positions in the airline industry, including serving as the CEO at Atlas Air and the CFO at each of TWA and Continental Airlines. He now heads up his own consulting firm specializing in airline operational and financial advisory services. He has also served most recently as a Senior Consultant with GCW Consulting, working particularly with Asian airline operators and startup companies. Rick served as the President of the AfricAid Board of Directors from its formation until 2011, and now serves as its Treasurer, with responsibility for the organization’s financial matters and accounting. He is a founding member of the AfricAid Board.

Krista Warnick, Board Chair, is the founder of Vintage Fringe and currently works at Ascentia Financial doing tax and financial consulting for high net worth clients and their closely held businesses. Prior to working at Ascentia Financial, Krista worked at Bessemer Trust advising high net worth families on their overall wealth management. Krista also worked at Merrill Lynch in investment banking where she worked on a variety of large buy-side and sell-side transactions for publicly traded companies, private equity firms and middle market corporations. She worked in New York in Merrill Lynch’s Mergers and Acquisitions investment banking group and in Denver at Headwaters MB. Before working in investment banking, Krista worked in the Denver office of Arthur Andersen in their Private Client Services Tax Group where she advised high net worth clients and their closely held businesses and non-profit organizations with respect to tax planning, succession and estate planning, charitable planning, tax compliance and financial management. Krista is a CPA and obtained her MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She also has a Masters in Taxation from The University of Denver and Bachelors in Science in Accounting and Information Systems from Brigham Young University. Krista is a founding member of the AfricAid Board, and helped oversee its application for and receipt of its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.

Mark Williams is the owner of EdSpectrum, a software and consulting firm in Denver that specializes in very complex database analysis for K-12 education. Mark was one of the original supporters of Selian Hospital in Arusha, Tanzania, and has worked over the past 27 years in helping to fundraise for Selian, Losinoni, and the Maasai Girls’ School. He and his wife, Mary, have led numerous groups on Mt. Kilimanjaro Climb fundraising trips to Tanzania. Mark was Ashley’s earliest mentor and was one of the founding members of the AfricAid Board of Directors; he continues to provide guidance today, especially with regard to the complexities of working within the framework of Tanzanian culture and governance.

Dr. Frances Vavrus, Special Advisor to the Board, is an Associate Professor and McKnight Presidential Fellow at the University of Minnesota. She is the Coordinator of Minnesota's Program in Comparative and International Development Education in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development. Her research focuses on key issues in the fields of international education and international development, including gender studies, poverty reduction, and teacher education in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2006, she was a Fulbright Scholar at Mwenge University College of Education in Tanzania, where she helped to develop the Teaching In Action training program. Dr. Vavrus has served as an advisor to the AfricAid Board since 2006.

Tanzania Board

The Honorable Dr. Augustine Mahiga is the former Tanzanian Ambassador to the United Nations. Dr. Mahiga received his PhD in International Relations from the University of Toronto in 1975. He has worked around the world as a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and has served as the Tanzanian Ambassador to the United Nations since 2003. In 2005, Ambassador Mahiga served as a member of the United Nations Security Council. He holds a deep commitment to the empowerment of women in his country.

John Laiser is the AIDS Control Programme Coordinator at Selian Lutheran Hospital in Ngaramtoni, Tanzania. John has served Tanzanian schools for decades, including positions as a teacher, as a head of school, and as a school inspector. While working in the AIDS Control Programme Coordinator, John was introduced to the Maasai community of Losinoni, where AfricAid partners with the Losinoni Primary School. John has served as AfricAid’s primary liaison to that community since 2003, demonstrating continuous commitment to the students and people there. He is married with four children, and serves on several local school and church committees.

Amina Ndiko is a legal consultant at MAKJ Interconsult LTD, majoring in trainings and legal advice to organizations. She is also teaches business law at the Arusha Institute of Accountancy. She is a strong, married woman from the marginalized Maasai group with high determinations in her career and those of other young women.

Esupat Ngulupa is a Maasai woman from the Longido area of Tanzania. She started her secondary school studies in 1986, but was not able to complete her education. After returning home, she took the initiative to join a small college in the area to enroll in a Community Development course, and then she joined a leadership training program in Nairobi. Upon completing the program, she became a women’s representative as a Councilor in the Monduli District of Tanzania. Esupat is currently the Vice Chair Lady in the Longido District Council, and serves as a Board Member for MWEDO, UN Habitat, and the Global Land Tool Network.

Susan Simonson has lived internationally almost all of her life. Although she is a Canadian citizen, she was born in Namibia, grew up in Ireland, and now calls Arusha, Tanzania home. With a nursing degree and Masters in Public Health, she has worked in Canada, Tanzania and Mozambique. After many years of being a homemaker and mother of 3 children, she obtained a Masters in Library and Information Studies and is now in the process of establishing and running a library in a local secondary school.

Advisory Board

Danny Dodson received his B.A. in Economics from Bates College in 2005. He is currently working as a legal assistant at Dodson and Associates, P.C., and serves as the Executive Director, Treasurer and a Board Member of Peruvian Hearts, a nonprofit organization founded by his younger sister, Ana. Danny has worked to support AfricAid since its inception; in addition to the personal financial support he gives the organization, Danny helped to organize several of AfricAid’s fundraising events, and he was a member of AfricAid’s 2004 Tanzania classroom-building trip to Usa River and Losinoni. Danny was a member of the AfricAid Board from 2007 through 2009.

Judi Dodson is an educational consultant and literacy specialist in private practice. She conducts literacy training for teachers and helps them develop interventions for struggling readers. In addition, she helped her daughter, Ana, found a nonprofit organization called Peruvian Hearts, which seeks to improve the lives of children in Peruvian orphanages. Judi was a founding member of the AfricAid Board, serving through 2009 before joining the Advisory Board.

Mary Greenwood is a former health professional, and fitness instructor, with over 17 years in the Wellness/Health promotion area. She currently teaches yoga, enjoys Biblical study, and is a part time student at the Iliff School of Theology. Mary has a passion for Africa and has worked extensively over the last 20 years raising support for Selian Hospital and the Maasai Girls’ School in Tanzania. Mary has led many groups to Tanzania as fundraisers climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, five times, along with her husband, Mark. Her two daughters, Hannah and Kiah, share their parents’ passion for and involvement in the work of AfricAid and other African initiatives. She especially enjoys hosting visitors from Africa. Mary served on the AfricAid Board from 2003 until 2011, and now sits on the Advisory Board.

Karen Hutcherson has been working in graphic design since graduating from Michigan State in 1986. She previously co-owned and operated a boutique advertising agency and now co-owns and runs a national web-based menu planning service, Relish!. Karen joined the AfricAid Board in 2003, after participating in that year’s Mt. Kilimanjaro Climb For Children fundraising trip to benefit AfricAid and Selian Hospital in Arusha, Tanzania. Karen and her husband James have two children, Jake and Hayden. Karen served on the AfricAid Board from 2003 through 2010, and now sits on its Advisory Board.

Holly O’Connor spent a decade working in the broadcast business as an account executive for KOA/KOAQ and KMJI radio stations. She is a Colorado native and outdoor fitness and travel enthusiast whose passions led her to climb Kilimanjaro in 2003. Upon meeting and connecting with the people of Tanzania, Holly served on the board of AfricAid from 2003-2011. As her time became consumed with her two teenage daughters and their sports and school activities, Holly stepped down from the board and now serves in an advisory capacity. Holly hopes to one day travel back to Africa!