The PolicyWorks Mentorship Advisory Committee (MAC) was created to advise the Board on mentoring issues and the activities of the Susan M. Daniels Mentorship Fund. The committee brings together national experts in the mentorship field and is co-chaired by board members Rayna Aylward and Derek Shields.
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Lynnae M. Ruttledge currently serves as a Presidential appointee to the National Council on Disability. In addition, she serves as a disability policy advisor to an Irish-led international research institute, DOCTRID (Daughters of Charity, Technology Research into Disability). In 2013, Lynnae also served as a Presidential appointee to the fifteen- member US Senate Commission on Long Term Care.
Lynnae provided national leadership to the public vocational rehabilitation program as Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration with the US Department of Education from 2010 – 2012. Throughout her extensive public service career, Lynnae has held policy development and executive level leadership positions at the local, state and national levels, serving as the Director of the Washington Division of Vocation Rehabilitation from 2005-2009. She also served in key leadership positions at Oregon Health & Science University, the Oregon Office of Vocational Rehabilitation Services, Lansing (Michigan) Community College and the Lansing Center for Independent Living.
She has been affiliated with Mobility International USA, a US-based disability rights NGO and since 1988 has participated in educational exchanges in South America, Asia, the Middle East, Australia/New Zealand, Russia and Europe.
Dana Fink joined the Institute for Educational Leadership’s Center for Workforce Development in November 2012 as Assistant Project Coordinator. In this role, she supports the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth and DC Advocacy Partners, a program that empowers people with disabilities and their families to become their own advocates and teaches them to navigate local administrative systems. Dana is also responsible for leading social media, communications, and dissemination efforts around the Center for Workforce Development.
Prior to IEL, Dana served as Programs Manager at the American Association of People with Disabilities where she supported and developed a portfolio of programs around internships, mentoring, and higher education for people with disabilities. Previously, Dana worked for Paralyzed Veterans of America and Georgia Public Broadcasting. She is a former summer intern for Senator Tom Harkin’s HELP Committee office. Dana also advises the Kennedy Center’s VSA Arts, which provides arts and education opportunities for people with disabilities and increases access to the arts for all.
Dana graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a B.A. in International Studies and dual minor in French and East Asian Languages and Cultures. While attending the University of Illinois, Dana studied abroad at the Beijing Language and Culture University where she completed a Capstone thesis project with the China Disabled Persons’ Federation.
Dana competed on the University of Illinois Fighting Illini women’s wheelchair basketball team on an athletic scholarship. There she was a two-time wheelchair basketball national champion and an Academic All-American winner. Dana is also an internationally competitive rower, training for the 2016 Summer Paralympic Games.
Few speakers, with or without disabilities, can match Tim Harrington’s ability to grab an audience’s attention. His quick wit, inspiring enthusiasm, and in-depth knowledge of disability-related issues, have made him a favorite speaker among corporations and non-profit groups alike.
Recipient of the National Rehabilitation Association’s 1996 E.B. Whitten Award, Tim has come a long way since his days as a student at a segregated special education grade school. Born with cerebral palsy, Tim defied expectations and upon reaching high school age, insisted on being mainstreamed into public schools. There, he surprised the “experts,” not only graduating from high school but going on to the University of Toledo, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.
Tim combines a hard-edged business sense with a keen sensitivity to the rights of people with disabilities, and is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading consultants in the area of diversity and disability. Tim’s public service experience includes managing a camp for children with and without disabilities, and working with planners to develop accessible housing, recreational facilities, and city and public buildings.
Tim was the first director of Ohio’s Statewide Independent Living Council, and since 2000, has served as Executive Director of The Ability Center of Greater Toledo. The Center has established a national reputation for its advocacy, nursing home transition, and youth programs. He has also served for many years on the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation Advisory Board.
Carrie Griffin Basas is an attorney and online professor for MBA and Master’s of Accountancy programs. She lives in Seattle, WA, where she is very active on the boards and advisory boards of several national nonprofits focused on disability, gender, and youth issues. Professor has been a post-graduate research fellow at Harvard Law School and a visiting associate professor of law at Case Western Reserve University, and also taught at the University of North Carolina School of Law, Penn State University, the University of Tulsa College of Law, and Saint Joseph’s College of Maine. Her research, teaching, and advocacy focus on disability rights law, criminal law, employment discrimination, labor law, and professional responsibility. She is interested in the advancement of people with disabilities in the workplace, the role of disability in the courts, and the intersection of disability and health equity issues.
Professor Basas conducted the first qualitative empirical study of the work experiences of women attorneys with disabilities and is currently working on several empirical projects related to health stigma in criminal sentencing and disability diversity issues in unions. She is a graduate of Swarthmore and Harvard Law School.
Ex-Officio Member
Regina Snowden, M.S.W.,
is the founder of Partners for Youth with Disabilities, Inc. and has been the Executive Director since its inception in 1985.
Regina Snowden has over 25 years of experience in managing not-for-profit organizations. Since founding PYD, she has played a major role in the creation of successful programs and securing funding which has enabled the organization to help Massachusetts youth with disabilities overcome barriers by providing mentoring, education, entrepreneurship, health, recreational and cultural opportunities. Ms. Snowden designed the Mentor Match program which has received the Award of Excellence in Children’s Health from the Harvard School of Public Health as well as an award from the National Organization on Disability.
Ms. Snowden and the story of PYD have been featured by local and national media, including CBS This Morning, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and the Chicago Tribune. Ms. Snowden and PYD programs have received awards and recognition from organizations and entities including the American Red Cross (Clara Barton Award), Citizens Bank (Champion in Action Award), United Way of Massachusetts Bay, the Harvard School of Public Health, Children’s Hospital, the City of Boston, and the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.
Ms. Snowden was selected by the Governor’s Commission on the Employment of People with Disabilities and the President’s Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities to assist in developing leadership skills building forums for youth with disabilities on a state and national basis. In addition, she was selected by the Boston Public Schools to chair a committee for the School-to-Career Initiative. Most recently, Ms. Snowden has been honored by BOSTnet with their Disability Inclusion STAR award in 2010 for her extraordinary commitment to serving youth of ALL abilities.