Marian Abernathy, Director of Member Services and Communications
Robb Allen, Director of Technology
Eric Berg, Executive Director
Tyler Berg, IT Assistant
John Cropper, Director of Project Management Services
Michael Culligan, Director of Last Mile Learning
Gus Curran, Manager of Member Services
Lourdes Isalgue, PMD Assistant
Martha McCready, Finance Manager
Juan Manuel Palacios, PMD Pro Senior Facilitator, GEPAL Project
Ana Raquel Quevedo, Membership Coordinator
Roger Steele, Senior Project Manager
Marian Abernathy, Director of Member Services and Communications
In this role, Marian...
- Serves as the liaison between LINGOs member organizations and LINGOs staff representing the needs and concerns of LINGOs members
- Works with LINGOs members, plans, organizes and directs the annual LINGOs member meeting/s
- Identifies, recruits and onboards new member agencies
- Manages LINGOs communications
Marian began her career in international development in the mid 1980s as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Honduras. She has masters in public health and has worked for over 20 years on issues related to women's reproductive health, with a focus on training. Marian comes to LINGOs from member organization Ipas, where she served as the LINGOs liaison and led the development of learning portals – one for staff and one public.
Marian lives in Durham, North Carolina, USA (GMT -5) with her husband and two children. She enjoys doing almost anything outside, reading, cooking and playing with her kids.
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Robb Allen, Director of Technology
Robb's role with LINGOs is to manage all aspects of technology including, but not limited to, learning portals, SCORM Dispatch, tools, and member support.
Robb has been involved with LINGOs since its inception, setting up the original installation of the LMS, training the first agency LMS administrators, and providing support to staff in his capacity as VP, Information Technology of Connected Learning Network (a position he held for over 9 years before joining the LINGOs team in October 2008).
Robb has worked in the field of online learning since 1992 when he helped develop online library services for the University of Louisville Libraries. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems from the University of Massachusetts and a Masters of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from Boston University.
Robb lives in Louisville, Kentucky, USA (GMT -5) with his Yorkshire Terrier, Isabella (aka Izzy).
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Eric Berg, Executive Director
LINGOs represents Eric's third career. He began in social work and remedial education with the NJ Department of Community Affairs and the YMCA. He worked in the Street Academy Program in Harlem and Newark and with rural youth in Maine. He then took a turn to "the dark side" and began a 25 year career in the private sector which began with the founding of a training and development firm that was recognized as an INC 500 company. After selling that company, Eric became an officer and Group VP for a NYSE company. The attraction of high tech and the West Coast brought a move to Seattle where he became a principal and CEO of a software and computer interface company which was eventually sold to a division of General Electric.
After a brief break to travel, he then began his third career initially by volunteering in the non-profit sector with Social Venture Partners, The Rensselaerville Institute and Mercy Corps and eventually as the first Executive Director of LINGOs. On the personal side, he is married with two grown children and three grandchildren and he competes in Senior Tennis Tournaments – though generally unsuccessfully.
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Tyler Berg, IT Assistant
Tyler serves as internal administrative support for IT systems and processes to keep LINGOs running smoothly.
Tyler discovered that computers offer less opportunity for injury than his prior experience in the automotive industry. He lives with his wife and two children in Olympia, Washington, USA.
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John Cropper, Director of Project Management Services
In this role, John:
- Manages an Inter-American Development Bank funded project to strengthen project management capacity in NGOs in 4 Latin American countries .
- Oversees all of LINGOs' project management capacity building initiatives.
- Helps agencies to understand the centrality of effective programme and project management to fulfilling their missions and advises them on how to change and improve.
- Identifies areas of engagement, where LINGOS could deliver project management capacity building initiatives.
- Ensures that project management services is supporting the wider LINGOs mission and its member agencies.
John has worked in the NGO sector for 20 years. He worked for Oxfam GB for 10 years as:
- Regional Programme Manager for Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean,
- Head of Programme and Project Management systems,
- Programme Manager for a global programme on gender and governance.
John has lived and worked in China, Vietnam, Spain and Mexico and is fluent in English and Spanish – and can work (under duress) in French. He is Prince 2 qualified and holds Masters degrees in Education and Multimedia Communication as well as an MBA. John lives in Oxford in the UK – the city of dreaming spires – with his wife and daughter. He enjoys chess, gardening – he grows most of his own vegetables, fencing and competitive small bore target shooting.
He also blogs on NGO project management at: http://johncropper.wordpress.com/ and he can found on twitter at www.twitter.com/johncropper. He also moderates a community of practice on NGO project management called PM4NGOs on linkedin.
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Mike Culligan, Director of Last Mile Learning
In his role as Director of Last Mile Learning, Mike focuses on two activity areas:
- Developing learning content that is accessible, appropriate and available to development, relief and conservation professionals across the world.
- Designing new learning environments that allow learning to be deployed through multiple platforms including self-paced, face to face, and blended learning environments.
Mike has worked in the field of international development and relief for over 20 years. His overseas postings include Nicaragua, Angola, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Madagascar, as well as assignments across Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and Asia. Mike is comfortable working in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, and holds masters degrees in International Affairs and Educational Technology.
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Gus Curran, Manager of Member Services
Gus is the newest addition to the Membership team and brings the strengths of a strong technology background and experience as a LINGOs member. Gus divides his time between technology related issues and opportunities – supporting Robb’s Technology group – and member engagement related activities under the direction of Marian Abernathy. Marian and Gus worked together at Ipas before joining LINGOs and have a history of a strong end-user orientation. Gus was a leader in the deployment and support of internal systems such as SharePoint and was active in training local users in the field offices in Africa, Asia and Latin America, as well as in the main office. He was responsible for administering the LINGOs platforms at Ipas and brings a hands-on knowledge of the needs and opportunities of LINGOs members.
Gus loves to help people connect with and understand technology and learning, and is proud to be doing it for organizations that are helping people instead of a bottom line.
Gus lives in Durham, NC with his partner. They enjoy exploring the mountains of North Carolina and all the great food in the area.
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Lourdes Isalgue,
Assistant
Lourdes provides administrative assistance to the LINGOs team. Lourdes studied Business Administration. Before joining LINGOs she worked at two international banks, a pharmaceutical company, a law firm and in real estate. In addition to her work she is also a makeup artist. She lives in Guatemala City, with her husband and her seven year old son.
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Martha McCready, CPA, Finance Manager
Martha has been a Certified Public Accountant since 1986, and has worked both in public accounting and in private industry, including 14 years as controller of a software & computer interface company outside of Seattle, Washington, USA. She has a long history of volunteer work and has served on the boards of several non-profit organizations.
Martha lives in Maple Valley, Washington, USA with her husband & 3 teenage sons. A lifelong horse enthusiast who now finds herself owning 4 saddles but no horses, she currently serves as Treasurer on the board of directors of the Washington State Horse Park Foundation.
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Juan Manuel Palacios,
Senior Project Facilitator, GEPAL Project
In his role with LINGOs GEPAL Project (Gestión de Proyectos en América Latina) in Latin America, Juan Manuel manages the capacity building of staff of local NGOs in Central and South America. He works with NGOs on planning, monitoring and evaluation processes, management procedures, workshop facilitation, and other topics related to building capacity in project management.
Juan Manuel began his NGO career about 15 years ago working on project management issues. He worked in international cooperation as a project coordinator, project manager, operations director and regional manager for NGOs working on issues related to leadership, development with indigenous populations, art & culture, income generating projects, micro finance, and small business development. From 2003 to 2006, Juan Manuel worked in the northeast of Brazil with INTERAGE providing project management services in the areas of training and monitoring & evaluation processes for about 25 NGOs through MOBILIZAR and TEAR projects. His academic background is in Finance (CPA) and Management (MBA), with additional studies in Project Planning, M&E, and Tourism for small business (Okinawa, Japan).
Juan Manuel has served on the faculty of Economics and Business Sciences at Mesoamericana University and Rafael Landívar University since 1994.
He lives in Quetzaltenango, west of Guatemala City, Central America, with his wife and his son.
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Ana Raquel Quevedo, Membership Coordinator
Ana Raquel's role is to assist the LINGOs team to support members on a wide range of topics and services, including (effective Feb 2011) licenses for learning tools other than LMS.
Before joining LINGOs, Ana Raquel studied marketing and worked for a bank and a human resources company. She is bilingual and has experience as not only a secretary but also teaching -- which she finds not only exciting but rewarding.
Ana Raquel lives in Guatemala City, Guatemala with her husband and two young sons.
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Roger Steele, Senior Project Manager
Roger manages a LINGOs project aimed at strengthening project management capacities of NGO development project managers in 9 Southern Africa Countries. He also supports LINGOs members – focused on helping field workers successfully overcome some of their social, technological and connectivity challenges to blended and eLearning. Roger collaborates with LINGOs staff and others to develop, test and implement the Project Management Development Professional (PMD Pro) certification.
With a farm background and training in agriculture, Roger began his international career during a 4-year assignment in Northern Nigeria as part of a rural development project. He has since worked for Winrock, World Vision and other NGOs with responsibilities that have taken him to over 30 countries. He also put in a stint at Cornell University, as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education.
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