Our Staff Consists of: (back to top)

Gary Shapiro is CRC's executive director. Mr. Shapiro, 48, founded CRC in 1987. He directs CRCs program development and assists in organizational planning and outreach. Additionally, he facilitates skillbuilding training to prepare citizens for grassroots peacebuilding work in areas of social conflict. An international peace activist for over two decades, he has traveled, studied and taught in Mexico, Nicaragua. Between 1987 1991, he organized and directed the SEEDS project in the former Soviet Union.

Beginning in 1993, Mr. Shapiro organized and directed citizen peacemaking projects in Bosnia, including the People Connection Project and, since 1996, the Neighborhood Facilitators Project. Between November 1997 and July 1998, he was a consultant at the Research and Development Department of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre in Nova Scotia, Canada. Mr. Shapiro is currently the director of CRC's Community Facilitators Project. He was trained in mediation at Woodbury College in Montpelier, Vermont.

Rain Banbury is CRC's program assistant. Ms. Banbury, 24, joined the organization in February 2000. A native of Philadelphia, she graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh with a B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy. She has extensive international experience, through the Semester at Sea study abroad program and has traveled through Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. She has worked for the state PIRGs and most recently as a recruiter for a Fortune 500 company in Florida. She is excited to use her human resources skills to help build the Community Facilitators project, and will also be assisting with program design and project development. She is a certified mediator through the Pittsburgh Mediation Center.

      Kenric Kite, is from Berlin, Vermont. At 36, he is the coordinator of an area-wide community access television facility. He has tutored English with refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina and speaks Serbo-Croatian. In 1997, he spent three months as a CRC volunteer at the Banja Luka community peace center, involved in education and media support. He has a B.S. in Television Production from Lyndon State College in Vermont.

      Anthony Lamb, 55, is from Williston, Vermont. He founded Just Resolutions in Burlington in 1995, and has been with them ever since. He has been a mediator and arbitrator for the past five years, focusing on employment and school law, as well as collective bargaining. He is also the Town Moderator of the Williston Town Meeting. He has worked as a Foreign Service Officer in Poland, a clerk for a federal judge in Vermont, and a member of a law firm for 20 years. He graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts and then from University of North Carolina Law School.

      Richard Deats, lives in Nyack, New York. Deats is editor of Fellowship Magazine and Director of Communications for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.

      Richard Hathaway, lives in Montpelier, Vermont. Hathaway is currently a professor at Vermont College with the Adult Degree Program. Formerly, he taught history at Bowdoin College, Goddard College, and Vermont College of Norwich University. He is vice president of the Vermont Historical Society and president of the Vermont Labor History Society. He has published many articles and periodical reviews and has been editor of Correspondent and Current magazines. He graduated from Bates College in Maine and earned a Master's Degree from Northwestern University. He is a former chairman of Parents, Teachers and Students for Social Responsibility.

      Jody Karr, lives in Austin, Texas. Karr is currently the Administrative Director of Red Salmon Arts (RSA), a community arts organization that sponsors literary and visual arts workshops for youth in alternative educational settings and juvenile justice facilities. RSA uses the arts as a medium to engage young people in self-exploration and self-expression, while building on communication and problem-solving skills. In 1998 Jody was a program assistant at CRC as she completed a graduate program in human services, specializing in conflict resolution, at St. Edward's University.

      Chris Lloyd, biographical information unavailable.

      John McDonald, Ambassador, lives in Washington, D.C. McDonald is currently chairman of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy. A Foreign Service diplomat for 40 years, he was also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School in Washington D.C.; professor of Political Science at Grinnell College in Grinnell, IA.; president of the Iowa Peace Institute, also in Grinnell; and senior advisor to George Mason University's Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution.

      Michael Obuchowski, Representative, is from Bellow Falls, Vermont. Obuchowski is Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Vermont General Assembly. He attended Harvard University and was first elected to the Vermont House in 1973. He is a former member of the New England Board of Higher Education and the Vermont Health Policy Corporation; and is currently a trustee of Rockingham Charities Ltd.

      Christine Schweitzer, is from Cologne, Germany. Schweitzer was chairwoman of the Bund fuer Soziale Verteidigung (Fund for Social Defense) and a member of War Resisters International, with extensive experience in the Balkans. She was a founder of the Balkan Peace Team, an international human rights monitoring group, and is currently an active part of their support staff.

      Beth Singer, is from Lynbrook, New York. Singer is currently Professor Emerita at the Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. at Columbia University, and her B.A. at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She has written several books and numerous articles.