Palisades Village Officers and Directors
President
Andy Mollison
Retired, Cox Enterprises
Potomac Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20007
amollison@palisadesvillage.org
Andy and his wife Char have lived for more than thirty years in their Sears bungalow in the Palisades, which they share with their cats and books. They are members of the Palisades Citizens Association and supporters of the Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place. Andy is also a volunteer with the MacArthur Beautification Group.
In September 2007 Andy retired from freelance education writing for magazines and nonprofit organizations. Before that, he was a political reporter and editor for thirty-one years for the Washington Bureau of the Cox Newspapers chain. Prior to that he was a reporter for Newsday and The Detroit Free Press, and news editor of The Suburban Record in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Andy has held leadership positions with several professional organizations, including the National Press Club, where he is a former board chairman and president, and the Washington Press Club Foundation, where as a board member he raised funds for and chaired the executive committee of its project for recording the life stories of women journalists. He is a member of the the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Vice President
Janet Bullinger
Retired, U.S. Supreme Court Reporter's Office
North Glade Street NW
Washington , DC 20007
Janet is a native of a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, and arrived in Washington, DC, in 1965. She has lived in the Palisades since 1976 and formerly worked as a legal assistant in law firms and then part-time until retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court Reporter's Office. Currently she is a docent at the U.S. Supreme Court, a volunteer at Sibley Hospital , and the treasurer of the Widowed Persons Outreach Service through Sibley Seniors. She is also actively involved with a lawyers' wives group on a local and national level. For fun and exercise she enjoys walking her Tibetan terrier, Mickey Mouse, through the streets and pathways of the Palisades . Her other interests include reading, gardening, and needlepoint. Janet is very dedicated to making the Palisades Village work and believes it is a great concept for someone like herself who has no children and no immediate family in the area.
Secretary/Assistant Treasurer
Mary Jo (Jody) McPherson
Retired, Air Line Pilots Association
Sherier Place NW
Washington , DC 20016
jmcpherson@palisadesvillage.org
Jody moved to the Palisades in 1966. She was born in Indiana and grew up and graduated from college in Ohio. Then she spent a year each in Missouri and New Jersey before coming to Washington. Jody was Key School PTA co-president (with her then-husband) the year parents and teachers combined the Six Schools complex. She served as president of the PTA the following year. Jody has lived in the Palisades house she is trying to remain in since December 1970.
She recently retired from the Air Line Pilots Association, where she worked on the magazine staff since 1977. She is an active member of her church and has produced the church's monthly newsletter for all but one and half years since 1979. In 2010, her volunteer work for Palisades Village led to her recognition as a Super Senior of the Year from Iona Senior Services. Jody has three children, three grandsons, and a granddaughter.
Treasurer
Jo Ann Stracke
Senior Business Analyst, Fannie Mae
Bethesda, MD
jstracke@palisadesvillage.org
Jo Ann has worked in housing finance for over 25 years, most of that time at Fannie Mae, where she has held analytical positions in Mortgage Operations and Capital Markets.
She participated in a board leadership program sponsored by Fannie Mae and Greater DC Cares, which led to her becoming a volunteer for Palisades Village in May, 2010. As a volunteer, she set up and has maintained QuickBooks financial records for Palisades Village, and has
served on the Finance Committee.
She developed a special interest in serving the needs of seniors from observing the challenges that her parents, neighbors, and friends’ parents face. Jo Ann is a resident of Bethesda and earned an MBA from American University and BS from the University of Baltimore.
Other Directors
George Farr
Retired, National Endowment for the Humanities
Lowell Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20016
gfarr@palisadesvillage.org
As director of the Division of Preservation and Access at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), George Farr created and administered a series of federal grant programs that helped preserve and ensure access to important cultural holdings in the nation’s libraries, archives, and museums. He also established funding categories for the support of major encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, databases and other digital resources of significance to the humanities.
He and his wife, author and literary critic Judith Farr, Professor Emerita of Georgetown University, moved to the Palisades in 1997, after living in the Washington area for over twenty years. Their son, Alec, is a partner at the law firm, Bryan Cave, and lives in Bethesda with his wife, Andrea (also an attorney), and their two children (the “Grand-twins”), Katherine and Matthew.
George is currently a vice president and member of the board of the English-Speaking Union (Capitol Branch) and has been a member of the Vestry at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church.
In 2005, the Society of American Archivists honored George’s “distinguished career” at NEH by giving him its J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award, “in recognition of his groundbreaking work and its national impact on the preservation and access of archival and library materials.”
George was a member of the Senior Executive Service and served as the Deputy Chairman of NEH in 1999-2000. Before coming to the Endowment, he taught Victorian and Modern English Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Vassar College. He holds a B.A. and Ph.D. in English from Yale University.
Charles Lanman
Retired, Trust officer
44th Street NW
Washington, DC 20007
clanman@palisadesvillage.org
Charlie Lanman, a native Washingtonian and independent consultant, lives on 44th Street NW in Foxhall Village.
In addition to volunteering for Palisades Village, he is active in the Rotary Club of Alexandria. He retired as manager of the trust department at Burke & Herbert Bank in Old Town.
His hobbies include cycling, golf and reading, and he provides bicycle maintenance and repair from his garage.
A member of the DC Bar Association, he has served as a director of the Washington, DC Estate Planning Council, and on the boards of the Montgomery Hospice Foundation in the 1980s, and Iona Senior Services in the 1990s. He also participated in a group that provided advice on planned giving to Suburban Hospital for several years in the early 1990s.
Born in 1946, Charlie attended schools in the District, and spent two years in college and two years on active duty in the US Navy, before returning to DC to complete his undergraduate education at George Washington University. After working for several years, he went to George Mason School of Law and started a career of 33 years in banking as a trust officer.
Charlie is married to Mary Webb. They have two children, Michael, 23 and Claire, 20. Mary is an investment assistant with the Alexandria trust department of Middleburg Bank.
Arne Paulson
Retired, Inter-American Development Bank
Foxhall Village
Washington, DC 20007
apaulson@palisadesvillage.org
A native of Washington DC, Arne moved to Foxhall Village in 1956 and still lives in the family home bought by his parents in 1961. He is a graduate of Sidwell Friends School, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Mass., where he obtained a Masters Degree in the field of development economics in 1976. While at Georgetown, he met his better half, Sara. They were married in 1973, and raised two happy children in Foxhall Village: Kristoff (now 27), and Charlotte (24).
Professionally, Arne pursued a career in international development, working as an economist in a number of international organizations, including the World Bank, UNCTAD (Geneva), the International Energy Agency (Paris), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), from which he retired in 2007. In addition to his professional work and parenting duties, Arne has been active in community service work, including participating as a past Board member and Vice President of the Foxhall Community Citizens Association. Currently, Arne is on the Board of Directors of the Association of Retirees of the IDB, and the Friends Meeting of Washington.
Arne and Sara have been active members of Palisades Village since its inception, and are credited with developing Palisades Village’s “associate member” category, which has successfully increased the association’s membership and financial base.
Phil Potter
Retired, Attorney
Berkeley Terrace NW
Washington, DC 20007
ppotter@palisadesvillage.org
Phil Potter has been a resident of the Palisades community since 1978, first on 49th Street and at 4701 Berkeley Terrace NW since 1981. He is married to Penny Pagano.
Phil was born in Texas and raised in Oklahoma. He is an attorney with a B.A. from the University of Oklahoma and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Oklahoma Law School. He practiced law in Colorado and came to Washington in 1969 to work as a Legislative Assistant to a Senator from Colorado. He also was appointed as Dep. Asst. Secretary for Congressional Relations/International at the U.S. Treasury Department in 1970-71. He was a founding member of the lobbying firm Charls E. Walker Associates in 1973 with colleagues from the Treasury Department. Dr. Charls E. Walker was an economist and Deputy Secretary of Treasury. The name was later changed to Walker/Potter Associates and continued to 1996 when Dr. Walker retired. Phil started the Law Offices of Philip H. Potter and continued his legal and legislative practice until 2009 when he retired.
Phil covered a variety of areas in his career but primarily focused on the areas of International Trade and energy related issues. He was involved in cases on unfair trade through dumping and subsidies, as well as legislation related to trade with communist and non-market economies and state-owned enterprises. He was involved with legislation related to the Arab Boycott of Israel, the Reorganization of the Penn Central and other railroads into Conrail, the cleanup of Three-Mile Island, the breakup of AT&T, the defects in the Hubble Telescope, and represented the Mexican Trade Ministry in the negotiation and approval of NAFTA by the Congress.
For many years Phil represented the labor union whose members worked for DOE contractors at the government’s nuclear sites. That work ranged from operating uranium enrichment plants to cleaning up nuclear sites and storing nuclear waste. He was involved in legislation that privatized DOE’s uranium enrichment facilities and an agreement between the U.S. and Soviet Union for the Soviets to dismantle some of its nuclear weapons, blend down the warheads into fuel for nuclear power plants and sell it to U.S. electric utilities. These events involved the period of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transition into the Russian Federation. These activities over almost 20 years involved negotiations on legislation, international agreements, regulations, litigation, arbitration, and contracts with DOE and its contractors, Commerce Dept., Labor Dept., International Trade Commission, U.S. Enrichment Corporation (USEC), electric utilities and other stakeholders in the nuclear and uranium business.
Phil currently serves as Chair of the Church Council of Metropolitan Memorial United Methodist Church which is part of a three-church parish. He has served on a few non-profit boards and has helped organize non-profits under DC law and applications with IRS for tax-exempt status. Most Palisades residents will know Penny as the former President of PCA and Chief of Staff for then-Councilmember Kathy Patterson. She is a journalist by profession and was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau, among other publications. She is currently Director of Community and Local Government Relations for American University.
Judith Shepard Rosenfeld
Retired Journalist
Cathedral Avenue NW
Washington , DC 20016
jrosenfeld@palisadesvillage.org
Judy was born in New Jersey. She worked as a reporter and married a fellow journalist in 1947. Her three children were all born overseas during their father's assignments as a foreign correspondent.
Judy has lived in Washington since 1972, and in Palisades since 1984. She was one of the pioneer organizers of Palisades Village. Judy was a founder and later President of the Institute for Property Assessment Studies, a watchdog nonprofit that published an annual handbook on appealing DC property assessments, helped applicants appearing before city appeals boards, and worked to improve the system governing residential assessments.
As a freelance writer, Judy authored a travel book and many feature stories.
Benjamin M. Rowland
Retired, World Bank
Independent Consultant
Macomb St. NW
Washington DC 20016
browland@palisadesvillage.org
Ben, his wife, Julia, and their two children, Katie and Ben, moved to the Palisades 20 years ago from New York City. Ben holds a B.A. from Yale and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Before moving to Washington he spent 15 years as a senior international investment banker for two major Wall Street firms. From 1989 -1995 he was a part of the founding management team of the Inter-American Investment Corp., the private-sector arm of the Inter-American Development Bank. From 1995 until his retirement in 2001, he managed the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) program of the World Bank Group’s Foreign Investment Advisory Service, FIAS.
Ben divides his time between his consulting practice – advising governments in the LAC region on private-sector policy matters, as well as writing and painting. Current projects include writing and illustrating a children’s book, and editing (and contributing to) a collection of scholarly essays on Charles de Gaulle. Ben is also the author of two books, editor for two essay collections, and has written numerous articles on international economic and financial policy issues.
Gerry Slater
Retired, Public Broadcasting Executive
Macarthur Boulevard NW
Washington DC 20016
Gslater@palisadesvillage.org
Gerry Slater, a retired public broadcasting executive, joined the Palisades Village Board in April 2012. He and his wife, artist Halcy Bohen, have lived in the Palisades in a cul de sac with a MacArthur Boulevard address since 1987.
His broadcasting background includes serving since 1989 as president of Rock Creek Productions, which has prepared material for such clients as the American Museum of Natural History, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Maryland Public Broadcasting Commission, and the State Department.
Before serving as executive vice president of WETA-TV and WETA-FM from 1975 to 1989, Gerry helped organize the Public Broadcasting Service from 1970 to 1975, and held several executive and supervisory positions at the Ford Foundation and CBS.
A graduate of New York University, he has also served on the boards of City Lights School, the American Association of Suicidology, and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay.
Art Watson
Retired, Department of Commerce
Chain Bridge Road NW
Washington , DC 20016
awatson@palisadesvillage.org
Art recently retired from the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he worked as an attorney in the area of international trade and investment.
His family’s move to the Palisades in 1983 was prompted by the imminent birth of his second daughter. “Our little rowhouse near Dupont Circle was about to become too small,” he says, and “we were looking for grass and trees for our kids.” Living adjacent to Battery Kemble Park, they have found both in abundance. Both daughters went to Key School and on to Hardy Middle School, which at that time was on Foxhall Road.
As he and his family put down roots in the neighborhood, Art got involved with the Palisades Citizens Association, eventually serving as President, and later as President of the Palisades Community Fund. He currently is editor of the PCA newsletter, The Palisades News.
Art recalls helping his parents move into a retirement facility. “It’s perfect for them,” he says, “but Carol and I knew right away that that it was not the situation for us. We want to stay right where we are in our own little house, in the middle of this wonderful neighborhood.”
His degrees include a BA from Harvard College and a JD from Stanford University School of Law. His awards include his selection as Department of Commerce Attorney of the Year in 2005.
Judy Watson
Retired, nurse and educator
Arizona Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20016
Jwatson@palisadesvillage.org
Judy Watson and her husband Alec lived for two years on Sherier Place NW in the 1960s. After several moves in connection with Alec’s Foreign Service assignments, they moved into their current home on Arizona Avenue in 1986.
Judy, a Palisades Village volunteer, and co-chair of our fundraising fiesta in March 2011, was elected to the Board of Directors in June 2011.
Her professional work as a nurse in Washington included two years as a pediatric intensive care nurse at Sibley Hospital, and five years with a private medical practice, offering screening, prenatal and postnatal classes, and well-baby care. Between 1989 and 2004, she used her Portuguese and Spanish in her work for the Council of the Americas, the Group of Fifty of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and, as executive director, the United States-Spain Council.
Before that, as a volunteer, she trained pediatric nurses in the Dominican Republic, worked in a family planning clinic in Brazil, and ran a pre-school in Bolivia. In Colombia, she taught pre-school and cared in her home, one at a time, for failure-to-thrive babies who later were adopted in Sweden.
A former executive director of the Vice President’s Residence Foundation, she also helps raise funds for the Post Classical Ensemble and serves on the board of The Family Place in Columbia Heights.
Judy and Alex have a son and a daughter. David, married to Adriana, lives in Chandler, AZ, with their two grandchildren Dylan (16) and Amanda (12). Caitlin, who attended Key School, lives in Columbia Heights and is a program coordinator for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
