The Development GAP's Board of Directors and Officers

William Dyal, Jr. was President of St. John’s College in Annapolis from 1987-90 after serving as Consultant Advisor to the President of the Ford Foundation and as President of AFS International/Intercultural Programs, Inc. Through the 1970s he served as the founding President of the Inter-American Foundation, providing U.S. public funds to grassroots initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean. Previously he was Peace Corps Regional Director for North Africa, Near East and South Asia and Country Director in Colombia and worked with church social-change agencies in Latin America and the United States. He returned to the Peace Corps in the 1990s, when he served as Country Director in Panama.

Anne Fitzgerald (Secretary) has advised philanthropic organizations since 1985 on the design, development and assessment of domestic and international environmental programs. Anne’s diverse background includes work as a journalist, training director for a federal human services demonstration project, director for an adult literacy program and personnel director for a country-wide library system. She has also served as a local elected official, a senior foundation program officer and a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica.

Yao Graham is Coordinator of Third World Network-Africa, which, based in Ghana, seeks, through research and advocacy on social and economic policy, to advance sustainable development and the interests of marginalized social groups in Africa. In that capacity he has served as both SAPRIN’s Ghana and Africa-Regional Coordinator. Trained in law in Ghana, Belgium and England, he has worked with students, trade unions and workers in the Ghanaian and African political and social-justice movement, as well as in the anti-racist and national liberation support movement in the U.K.. He has written extensively on African political and development issues.

Douglas Hellinger is co-founder and Executive Director of The Development GAP, for which he has advised Congressional committees and other policymakers, consulted with the World Bank, USAID and other aid institutions and worked extensively with grassroots and other non-governmental organizations in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Central Europe. Previously he served in the Peace Corps in Brazil and advised the Inter-American Foundation and other bilateral, multilateral and non-governmental organizations. He has co-authored or edited three books on international economic-development issues.

Stephen Hellinger is President of The Development GAP, which he co-founded in 1977 and for which he has worked extensively in policy centers, with aid institutions and with development organizations in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia for social change. Previously he served in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Venezuela, researched and wrote in Washington and consulted with UNESCO and the Inter-American Foundation. He is the co-author/editor of three books on global economic-development issues.

Carlos Heredia is Advisor on International Affairs to the Governor of the State of Michoacan, after having served the Governor of Mexico City in a similar capacity and as director of the agency, Servinet. In 2000 he served as international affairs spokesperson for the Cuahtemoc Cardenas presidential campaign. He was previously a member of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, where he coordinated international policy for the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD). He has also directed the international programs of the Mexican NGO, Equipo PUEBLO, and remains a member of its Assembly. In 1993-94, he worked in Washington as a Visiting Fellow with The Development GAP. He had previously worked for five years as an economist and Deputy Director of International Economics at the Ministry of Finance.

Atherton Martin (Vice Chair) is both President of the Caribbean Conservation Association and Executive Director of The Development Institute, in which capacity he has advised various national, regional and international institutions. He served as chair of the Development and Planning Corporation of the Dominica government from 1995-97 and has twice served in the country’s cabinet, as Dominica’s Minister of Agriculture in the 1970s and as Minister of Agriculture, Planning and the Environment in 2000. From 1983-91 he ran the Caribbean program of The Development GAP, after developing a Caribbean program for the American Friends Service Committee. An agronomist, he has worked with small farmers and producer cooperatives, served as General Secretary of the Dominica Farmers Union, and helped establish and managed Farm-to-Market, Ltd.

Lidy Nacpil has served since 1996 as Secretary General of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) of the Philippines, a national coalition of people's organizations, social movements, NGOs, church groups, trade unions and women’s organizations focused on debt, structural adjustment and other economic issues. She represents FDC-Philippines on SAPRIN’s Executive Committee and is the International Coordinator of Jubilee South, a network of organizations across Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific addressing debt and related issues. She has co-founded and worked with various organizations and networks in the Philippines since the early 1980s as a social activist and feminist.

Donna Sulpy O’Connor (Treasurer) is a grant-writing and fundraising consultant, currently working with grassroots social-service organizations in Nicaragua and Ecuador. She formerly served as Country Specialist for Albania & Macedonia and activist leader for student and local groups throughout the United States for Amnesty International USA. She has 12 years of experience in finance and nonprofit management, including her time as Managing Director of Far Bound, a New York City-based nonprofit organization, and as The Development GAP’s Finance Manager (1997-1999). She advised small businesses and banks and coordinated a women-in-development program in the Peace Corps in Albania from 1995-1997. Prior to serving in the Peace Corps she was an Assistant Vice President at PNC Bank in Philadelphia.

Fred O’Regan (Chair) has been Executive Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare since 1997. After serving in the Peace Corps in Swaziland, he was Program Director of the Community Action Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts before co-founding and then co-directing The Development GAP from 1977 to 1984. During the following five years, he headed the Kenya Rural Enterprise Program and then returned to Washington to run the Community Economics Corporation and a national action-research project at the Aspen Institute on employment generation and business development among the poor. From 1994 to 1997, he was the Peace Corps’ Director for Europe, Central Asia and the Mediterranean.

James Perna is a partner in the Krooth & Altman, LLP law firm and the head of its tax department. He previously served as an attorney with the IRS's Office of Chief Counsel in Washington and as attorney-advisor to the Chief Judge of U.S. Tax Court. He has also done financial analyses for the UNDP in New York and Kyowa Bank in Tokyo and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil. He has contributed legal services to The Development GAP since its inception.

Laura Roosevelt is a poet and free-lance journalist living in Martha’s Vineyard. After working for five years with the OAS-affiliated Pan American Development Foundation and earning an MBA from the Yale University School of Organization and Management, she worked at J.P. Morgan & Company in Corporate Finance and then in the bank’s philanthropy department, responsible for grantmaking to non-profit arts and international relief and development organizations. She is a member of the board of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and has served on the boards of a number of other non-profit organizations.

Martin Seldman, an executive coach and organizational psychologist, is President of Seldman Executive Development Programs. He has worked with both profit and not-for-profit organizations in the United States and overseas in such places as Brazil and Japan, where he has also resided, specializing in team building, conflict resolution, feedback systems and in other skills development. He contributes advisory services to The Development GAP and is the author of numerous books, including Super Selling through Self Talk, published in English and Japanese, and Survival of the Savvy, a Wall Street Journal Best Seller published in English and Chinese.