BPF 2020 Board of Trustees

Leslie Cooper, President of the Board of Directors: Leslie, a graduate of Smith College, has worked with a range of notable organizations during her four-decade-long career in nonprofit growth.  During her six years with the development office of the Metropolitan Opera Association, she helped plan a range of local and national special events.   She spent four years in the same capacity, working for the Connecticut Grand Opera.  Leslie co-chaired the 75th-anniversary benefit for the United Way of Greenwich and was the honorary co-chair of their 85th-anniversary benefit.  She was the president of the PTA groups for three public schools in Greenwich, CT, including the Glenville School, Western Middle School, and Greenwich High School.  She was President of the Board of the First Presbyterian Nursery School and Leslie she has held additional board positions with the Turtle Bay Music School, the Greenwich Alliance for Education, and the Greenwich Red Cross.   Ariel Eckstein, Secretary:   Ariel is the Vice President of Global Clients, for LinkedIn.  He’s a graduate of Tufts University and of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia   Cathy DuRei, Treasurer: Cathy holds a BA from Dartmouth College, an MBA in healthcare management from the Wharton School, and a certificate from Columbia University’s Department of Biomedical Informatics and Center for Advanced Information Management.     She is president and founder of Rumbly Healthcare.  Prior to developing her own business, she spent seventeen years at Pfizer.  She is a program advisor to the Columbia Healthcare department of Biomedical Informatics, an independent consultant with Skysis, specializing in pharmaceutical access, consumerism, and service innovation.  Cathay is a Healthcare Management Program Student Advisor for the Wharton School, an alumna interviewer for Dartmouth College, and a volunteer with the Humane Society of Westchester.   Evan Wies, Board Member:  Evan Wies is an experienced engineer and entrepreneur. He is CEO of Neomantra, a financial technology company focusing on data visualization and analytics.  Previously, he was CTO of an algorithmic trading firm, as well as CTO of a Brooklyn-based game development studio.  He has three degrees from MIT and five patents in the field of haptics.  When not at Burning Man, Evan can be found doing yoga and dancing to dubstep with his wife and four children in Old Greenwich, CT.   Edward Kirk, Board Member: Ned, a partner at Clyde and Co., LLP, received his JD from Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America.  He earned his BA from Columbia University. Daniel Kenefick, Board of Directors:  Dann is the Rye City School District School Media Specialist.  He attended Columbia University, where he earned an MLS in Library Science.   Kim Tamalonis, Big Picture Foundation President and Founder: Kim earned a bachelor’s degree in fine art from Hamilton College (1995) and a master’s degree in art education from Manhattanville College (1998).   She has taught in the Rye City School District for the last fifteen years, where her focus has been on integrating multicultural art education into her curriculum.    In the fall of 2015, Kim’s students sold their art and raised $3000 to support the Blossom Hill Foundation’s programs for kids in global conflict zones. Her students also collected 100 pounds of art supplies, which were sent to the Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan.  In 2016, Kim organized a trip for 24 recently resettled refugee children and their mothers to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the museum curators and staff introduced the Islamic art collection to the group. That year, work began to develop Big Picture Foundation, which earned 501(c)(3) status on January 9th, 2017.  Since then, kids from 33 countries have worked together to use the arts for a range of local, national, and global community-building endeavors.