Staff
Cecilia Garcia, Administrative Manager
Jim Kohlenberger, Senior Fellow
Kevin Taglang, Editor, Communications-related
Headlines
Karen Menichelli, Program Liaison, New Routes to Community Health
Brenda González, Deputy Director, New Routes to Community Health
Kip Roderick, Executive Assistant to Charles Benton
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Board of Directors
Charles Benton,
Chairman, CEO and Trustee
Adrianne Benton Furniss, board member and Trustee
Michael Smith, Treasurer
Elizabeth Daley
Terry Goddard
Lee Lynch
Henry Rivera, General Counsel
Leonard Schrager, Trustee
Woodward Wickham
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Cecilia Garcia, Administrative Manager
Cecilia Garcia first joined the Benton Foundation in 1997. She most recently served as executive director of Connect for Kids. Her broad range of experience includes work as a press secretary for a Member of the U.S House of Representatives. As communications director for a national Latino nonprofit organization, she worked to create greater avenues of access for the Latino community into the political process through leadership development programs, legislative conferences, a seven-site electronic town meeting and the creation of the organization's web site. Cecilia coordinated state outreach activities, developed teacher training models for classroom use, and worked on the CD-ROM version of "Chicano: History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement," a four-part PBS documentary produced by the National Latino Communication Center. She began her extensive career in communications producing and directing public and community affairs programming at WTVS, Detroit's public television station. Cecilia earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wayne State University in 1988.
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Jim
Kohlenberger, Senior Fellow
Jim Kohlenberger is a technology and telecommunications
policy expert with more than 15 years of Washington
policymaking experience. He spent eight years in the
White House where he helped formulate U.S. policy on
technology, telecommunications, and the Internet. Specifically,
he worked to help pass the Telecommunications Act of
1996, shape the administration's hands-off approach
to the Internet and e-commerce, and spearheaded administration
efforts to bridge the digital divide and connect every
classroom to the Internet. He now runs his own consulting
practice.
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Kevin
Taglang, Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Kevin Taglang is an independent communications policy
researcher and writer based in Evanston, Illinois. Previously,
Kevin was a senior policy analyst at the Benton Foundation,
working on policy and strategies for educating and engaging
the nonprofit sector. During 1997 and 1998, Kevin staffed
Chairman of the Board Charles Benton's participation
on the President's Advisory Committee on Public Interest
Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters. Kevin
has over ten years of experience in the field, monitoring,
analyzing and writing on telecommunications legislation,
regulation, and policy.
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Karen Menichelli, Program Liaison, New Routes to Community Health
On staff since 1982, Karen Menichelli served for many years as executive vice president of the Benton Foundation a private grantmaking institution that operates primarily in the field of communications, focusing on media policy and public service media. In 2006, she stepped down from her day-to-day executive and operational leadership to focus on programmatic activity in the area of community media. She has overseen the Sound Partners for Community Health program since its inception in 1996 and now serves as program liaison to the foundation’s new community media regranting program, New Routes to Community Health. She holds a Bachelors of Arts from the University of Maryland (summa cum laude) and completed a Masters degree and her doctoral coursework in cognitive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Brenda Gonzalez, Deputy Director, New Routes to Community Health
In March 2007, Brenda Gonzalez was named Deputy Director for New Routes to Community health. New Routes is a new national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. New Routes is designed to improve immigrants’ health, work life, and civic participation through the creation and support of local partnerships among immigrant organizations, media production centers, and established community institutions. She holds a B.A. in Social Psychology form the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Xochimilco, Mexico City and has done graduate work in Communicative Disorder and Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
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Kip Roderick
Kip Roderick works as Executive Assistant to Charles Benton and as Office Manager for the Benton Foundation office in Evanston. He joined the Benton Foundation in 2005 and has previous experience as an Executive Assistant with Public Media, Inc., Home Vision Entertainment, and Near North National Group. Kip earned a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign in 1999 and has also taught music at both high school and middle school levels.
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Board of Directors
Charles Benton, Chairman, CEO and Trustee
Since 1981 Charles Benton has served as Chairman of the Benton Foundation. He now also serves as Chief Executive Officer. Charles has also had a long career in the media education and entertainment businesses, including Public Media Inc. He has led
the Foundation through its evolution from a grantmaking
to an operating foundation devoted generally to the
field of communications. In 1978, President Carter appointed
Charles as chairman of the National Commission on Libraries
and Information Science and as chairman of the first
White House Conference on Library and Information Services,
held in November 1979. In 1980, he was re-appointed
for an additional 5-year-term, during which time he
was elected chairman emeritus by unanimous vote of NCLIS
commissioners.
From the fall of 1997 to December of 1998,
Charles was a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee
on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television
Broadcasters, also referred to as the "Gore Commission",
whose final report was submitted to the Vice President
on December 18, 1998. The Benton Foundation was designated
by the co-chairs to serve as a home of the Advisory
Committee legacy, acting as an institutional memory
and tracking the debate on and progress of the Advisory
Committee's report and recommendations.
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Terry Goddard
Terry Goddard, currently Arizona Attorney General, was
previously coordinator and senior community builder
for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
In 1983 he was elected mayor of Phoenix and served four
terms. Under his leadership, Phoenix won All-America
City honors and he speared passage of two significant
bond issues totaling nearly $2 billion, including funding
for major public cultural buildings in the city.
In 1989, Terry was elected president of
the National League of Cities. He currently serves on
the boards of the National Trust for Historic Preservation,
the Arizona Theater Company, the Cosanti Foundation,
the Arizona Bank Advisory Board and recently completed
a four-year term on the board of the Federal Home Loan
Bank of San Francisco. He teaches a graduate course
at the Arizona State University College of Architecture
on Urban Housing Policy and is a member of the Arizona
Bar Association, formerly a lawyer in private practice.
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Henry
Rivera, General Counsel
Henry Rivera joined Wiley Rein LLP as a partner in August 2006. He is an internationally recognized expert, author, speaker and conference leader in the communications field. A former FCC Commissioner (1981-1985) and President of the Federal Communications Bar Association (1995-1996), he represents a wide variety of clients before the FCC, Congress, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the White House. He was recently named in Guide to the US Leading Lawyers—Best of the Best as one of the top 12 telecom experts in the US and to The Best Lawyers in America in communications law (2007). Rivera received his J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law where he served as editor of the law review The Natural Resources Journal.
He is a Vietnam War veteran and Bronze
Star recipient. He is a 1973 graduate of the University
of New Mexico Law School, where he was editor of the
Natural Resources Journal, a law review published by
the University. He also holds degrees in both economics
and accounting.
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