GLAD's Board of Directors
Dianne R. Phillips
President
Dianne R. Phillips is partner in the Boston office of Holland + Knight, where she practices regulatory, energy, and environmental law. She co-chairs the firm’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Workgroup, whose mission is to develop and promote GLBT lawyers. The group has participated in GLBT-focused activities such as pro bono representation of HIV positive asylum seekers and led the firm to sponsor the annual Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network “Respect Awards.”
Sandy Anderson
Vice President
Sandy Anderson founded Sandy Anderson & Associates to provide mediation, consulting and coaching services to individuals and organizations. Her career has centered on helping clients, employees and organizations identify and achieve goals, especially during times of great change. Previous roles have included Vice President of Professional Services at IDX Systems Corporation, an innovative provider of health care IT solutions, and General Manager, Commercial Marketing for the Americas at GE Healthcare.
Richard J. Yurko
Treasurer
Richard J. Yurko is the founder and former Managing Shareholder of Yurko, Salvesen & Remz, P.C, a business litigation boutique based in Boston. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College, and he received his J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School, where he served as the Senior Projects Editor for the Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review. Rich splits his time between Boston and Ogunquit, Maine, where his family owns Katie’s Restaurant on Shore Road.
Chuck Latovich
Clerk
Chuck Latovich has managed and implemented diversity communication strategies, designed and conducted corporate training in diversity issues, and consulted on diversity strategies and goals. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in education from Boston University.
Alix Ritchie
Alix L. L. Ritchie is an independent media strategy consultant and a longtime supporter of numerous arts, feminist, political and LGBT organizations. She was the founder and until recently also the owner and publisher of the Provincetown Banner, a community newspaper covering the outer arm of Cape Cod. Prior to moving to Cape Cod, Alix was a public relations professional in New York and was selected by the U.S. Presidential Commission on Executive Interchange to direct a project for the U.S. Treasury Department. A self-described agitator and activist, Alix has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the New England Press Association Newspaper of the Year Award, Certificate of Appreciation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Citizen of the Year from the Provincetown Business Guild and selection as one of the 25 most influential people on Cape Cod. Alix and her spouse, Marty Davis, have been in a committed relationship for 35 years and were married in Massachusetts in 2009 on the fall equinox, to symbolize both personal and political equality. Together, they have received the Distinguished Service in the Arts Award, and in 2010 they were honored to receive the GLAD Community Award.
Amit Dixit
Amit Dixit served on the board of Massachusetts Asian & Pacific Islanders for Health (MAP for Health) from 2000 to 2006 and has served on the steering committee of Massachusetts Area South Asian Lambda Association (MASALA) off and on since 1998. In 2005, he joined the board of The History Project, and in 2009 took over as Chief of Operations for the Boston LGBT Film Festival. A longtime project manager at Microsearch Information Technology and Services, Amit is now pursuing opportunities in marketing and communications. Since 1994, he has been fighting the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS in the community at large and in the South Asian community in particular. Beginning with his own family and friends, and culminating in his 2004 keynote address at the United States Conference on AIDS in Philadelphia, Amit has spoken openly, fearlessly about his own HIV positive status and encouraged others to do the same.
Anderson Clark
Anderson Clark is a biologist and a director in oncology research at EMD Serono. He is also a transgender activist, a member of GLAD’s Transgender Rights Project Founders Circle, and past coordinator of transmasculine programming (2010 & 2011) and co-chair (2011) for First Event, an annual Boston-area transgender conference. Originally from Illinois, he has lived in Massachusetts since 1998. He earned his B.S. and M.S. from the University of Illinois and his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University.
Anne Stanback
Anne Stanback has worked as an activist for the LGBT community for over 30 years. For 20 years, she has collaborated with GLAD in her role as the Founder and Executive Director of Love Makes a Family, Connecticut’s marriage equality organization. Anne brings to GLAD’s board an excellent network of coalition partners in Connecticut, including a significant connection to the faith community and an understanding of the powerful role it can play in improving the lives of those who are LGBT or HIV+ or living with AIDS. Anne also has a long track record of working with the transgender community in Connecticut.
Brianna Boggs
Brianna Boggs is a Philanthropic Partnerships Officer for the Boston Foundation. She worked in the development department at GLAD from 2005 until 2010, and also served as the president of the board of directors for the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund from 2004-2008. Boggs graduated from Ohio State University in 2002 and also holds a Management Certificate from the Harvard ManageMentor program. She volunteers with Coro Allegro and Innercity Weightlifting.
David Wilson
David Wilson was a plaintiff in GLAD’s 2003 Goodridge groundbreaking victory, making Massachusetts the first state to legally marry same-sex couples. The case and the quest for equal rights under the law ignited his desire to become more involved in the civil rights struggle for LGBT folks, especially those raised in the black community. David was a founding member of Fenway Community Health Center’s Endowment Board, raising $1 million in this first three years. Before retiring, David was Vice President of real estate company Spaulding & Slye Colliers and worked for 30 years at Verizon. As a former member of the Board of MassEquality, the Board and Business Council of the Human Rights Campaign and the Massachusetts LGBT Youth Commission, David has worked to eradicate institutional racism, introduce diversity and inclusion training programs coupled with targeted outreach to LGBT people of color.
Jo Davis, MSW
Jo Davis, MSW, works as a senior vocational counselor at the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission in Roxbury. A longtime community activist, she has been a board member at the Women of Color AIDS Council (as President), Parents and Children’s Services, and New England Home for Little Wanderers. Jo holds a BS in psychology from the University of Southern Alabama, a MSW from Simmons College, and is a graduate of the Urban Fellows Ministry Program at Harvard Divinity School.
Joyce Kauffman
Joyce Kauffman is a lawyer with Kauffman Crozier LLP in Cambridge, MA. She is a 1992 graduate of Northeastern University School of Law and previously worked as a psychotherapist and director of an after-school arts program. She was Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s “Lawyer of the Year” in 2009, and is a member of Boston Bar Association, the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association, and the National LGBT Bar Association. She is also a member of the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ National Family Law Advisory Council, member of the Family Equality Emeritus Board, and a volunteer with Senior Partners for Justice. Her articles on the importance of securing legal protections for LGBT families have appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and Bay Windows.
Ken Hirschkind
Ken Hirschkind is the Vice President of Global Services Operations at Pegasystems, the recognized industry leader in business process management and a leading provider of customer relationship management solutions. For nearly twenty years, Ken has held leadership positions focused on business process improvement and operational excellence within a number of high tech organizations. He received a bachelor’s degree in business administration, summa cum laude, from New York University of Technology. For the past 15 years, Ken has been an active member of the local community, serving in various volunteer and board positions for organizations such as Fenway Community Health, SpeakEasy Stage Company, the Eight Streets Neighborhood Association and the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus (BGMC). Ken has also served as a past co-chair of the BGMC’s Annual Fundraiser, Crescendo! (2005/2006) and GLAD’s Spirit of Justice Dinner (2006/2007).
Keplin Allwaters
Keplin Allwaters is a lawyer, currently serving as in-house legal counsel for the Massachusetts Port Authority where he focuses on litigation matters. He is admitted to practice law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Since 2006, Mr. Allwaters has been serving as a moot court judge for the New England School of Law’s Appellate Advocacy course, a required course for second year students at the law school. During law school, he interned at Ropes & Gray, LLP. He has volunteered at the Boston Living Center and the Boston Rescue Mission. Originally from St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda, he has lived in Boston since 1997. He received his BA from Boston University, and his JD from the New England School of Law.
Ralph Freidin
Ralph Freidin is a physician and the father of a lesbian daughter. Dr. Freidin has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the Annals of Internal Medicine. He earned his AB from Columbia College and his MD from Washington University in St. Louis. He is currently a staff member at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge MA. He volunteers with GLAD’s InfoLine, as well as with the National Association of Free Clinics, and also serves on the National Advisory Board for the Human Rights Campaign. Freidin has served on the Board of Directors for the Greater Boston PFLAG and the Board of Governors for the Human Rights Campaign. He became involved with the LGBT community to advocate for his daughter and to make the world a better place for LGBT youth.
Sam Bickett
Sam Bickett, an associate at Ropes & Gray and former staff attorney for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, hails from North Carolina where he earned his JD degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law and was published in the North Carolina Law Review. While in North Carolina, Bickett worked for The Hodgman Law Firm, the UNC Center for Civil Rights, Ropes and Gray, and GlaxoSmithKline. Bickett spent a year at GLAD on a fellowship from Ropes & Gray and concentrated on youth-related issues, such as possible legal responses for gay teenagers forced into reparative therapy and the mistreatment of LGBT youth in foster care. He also provided counsel, drafted statutory language, and testified at the State House in favor of the Massachusetts anti-bullying legislation which was passed and signed into law May of this year.
Scott D. Pomfret
Scott D. Pomfret is Regulatory Counsel for an institutinal investment manager in Boston, MA, where he is responsible for assisting the firm in complying with applicable US and foreign laws, rules, and regulations. Prior to that, Scott was a Director in the Financial Services Regulatory Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP (2010-11) and an enforcement attorney at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (2003-2010). An attorney at Ropes & Gray, LLP from 1999 – 2003, Scott was a Cooperating Attorney with GLAD in a Supreme Judicial Court case challenging the constitutionality of the Massachusetts sodomy laws. Scott is co-publisher and co-author with his partner, Scott Whittier, of Romentics, a line of gay romance novels. His 2008 memoir, Since My Last Confession, though well-reviewed, resulted in his being asked to leave his lay minister post at Saint Anthony Shrine in Boston.
Trina Soske
Trina Soske’s lifelong passion for tackling injustice led her to become a GLAD supporter over 16 years ago. Trina is currently a Senior Partner at Oliver Wyman Leadership Development, bringing years of experience in strategy and leadership consulting to GLAD’s Board, and she spends her professional time teaching, researching, writing, speaking, and consulting about leadership. As Co-President of Harvard Business School’s LGBT alumni association, Trina has cultivated extensive networks in the LGBT business community. Trina also has been very active in education-reform efforts over the last 10 years, involving policy, assessment, curriculum design, teacher professional development, and high-performance management of school districts.