Board of Directors

David H. Roe, Ph.D. | President, Board of Directors of U. S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy | President, Central College

Dr. Roe became Central College’s 20th president in 1998. Since then, he has led the college in Pella, Iowa. Dr. Roe graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he won a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford University in England. He was named a White House Fellow in 1975, during which he served as special assistant to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. Dr. Roe’s military career includes stops as director of NATO policy at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.; special assistant to the director of the joint staff at the Pentagon, and defense planner for the U.S. mission to NATO in Brussels, Belgium. After retiring from the Air Force, he served as executive vice president and CFO of USAA, a San Antonio-based financial services corporation. In 1991, he became president of United Services Life Co. of Arlington, VA, and retired as chief executive officer and president of the United Services Life division of ReliaStar.

Ambassador Mark Johnson | Vice President, Board of Directors of U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy

Ambassador Johnson (ret.) is the founder and executive director of the World Affairs Council of Montana and a national board member of the World Affairs Councils of America in Washington, D.C. He serves as a Mansfield Adjunct Professor at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center of the University of Montana. Ambassador Johnson retired from the U.S. State Department after serving 30 years in a variety of foreign policy positions. He was United States Ambassador to Senegal from 1993–1996. At the time of his retirement, he was deputy inspector general of the State Department. In 1992, President George Bush awarded him the President’s Meritorious Service Award.

Laurie Heintz | Secretary, Board of Directors of U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy

Laurie Heintz spent 20 years working in the construction industry, most recently managing a division of United Subcontractors, Inc. in Fort Myers, Florida. In that position she and her husband led a team of 235 associates in seven divisions and three locations, providing construction services to General Contractors. During her tenure with United Subcontractors, she also held positions in sales and marketing in Naples, Florida, and Management in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ms. Heintz currently resides in Fort Myers with her husband and two sons. She enjoys participating in organizations that cause positive change.

Charles R. Montgomery | Treasurer, Board of Directors of U. S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy | Senior Managing Attorney, MidAmerican Energy Company

Chuck Montgomery has been a senior attorney for Iowa Power Inc./MidAmerican Energy Company since 1986. For six years prior to that, he served as an assistant Polk County Attorney. Montgomery has served on the Magistrate Nominating Commission, 5th Judicial District. He has chaired both the Governor’s Task Force on Volunteerism and Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Greater Des Moines, and has served as a former vice president of V.O.I.C.E.S., a group working on resettlement of Hmong refugees. Currently, he is a member of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the Iowa Council for International Understanding.

Ambassador John K. Menzies | Honorary Chair, Board of Directors of U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy | Dean, John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations

Ambassador Menzies’s (ret.) career in the U.S. foreign service encompassed assignments in Hungary, East Germany, and Bulgaria. He later served in the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York and in Washington in the office of the Coordinator for the Support for East European Democracy (SEED) program. He was ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina (1994–96), and chief of mission at the U.S. Office in Kosovo in 1999. From 1997 to 1999, Ambassador Menzies was a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace where he led the Balkans Working Group. He served as president of Graceland University and is now dean of the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, Seton Hall University, New Jersey.

The Honorable Daryl Beall | Senator, Iowa State Senate

Daryl Beall was elected to the Iowa Senate in 2002. He is co-chair of the Senate’s International Relations Committee. He was a newspaper columnist, editor, publisher, and public relations manager in Iowa, Colorado and South Dakota before returning to Fort Dodge, Iowa, his hometown. In Fort Dodge, he was twice elected to the Fort Dodge School Board and served as president of Sister Cities, helping organize linkages with Japan, Canada and Russia.

The Honorable Nancy Boettger | Senator, Iowa State Senate

Nancy Boettger has served as an Iowa State Senator for the past 12 years. During that time, she chaired the Senate’s International Relations Committee for 10 years, and served on the International Relations Committee of the Council of State Governments. She is a former teacher and director of Education/Resource Development at Myrtue Memorial Hospital in Harlan, Iowa.

Malcolm Butler | President, The Riecken Foundation

Malcolm Butler currently serves as President of the Riecken Foundation, an organization that builds and supports lending libraries with free internet access in Central America. As former President & CEO of Partners of the Americas, he oversaw the work of 60 citizen-led partnerships between 45 U.S. states and 31 Latin American and Caribbean countries. Before joining Partners, he held a number of overseas assignments in the U.S. Foreign Service and the United States Agency for International Development. He also reviewed international economic programs for the Office of Management and Budget in the Executive Office of the President and served on the staff of the National Security Council in the White House.

The Honorable Swati Dandekar | Representative, Iowa House of Representatives

Swati Dandekar, elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 2002, is the first person of Indian origin to win a seat in the Iowa House. She has been appointed to the International Relations, Appropriations, and Economic Growth committees. Dandekar has served two terms on the Linn-Mar Community School Board and three years on the Vision Iowa Board.

George T. DeBakey | Director, Business Development and Corporate Sponsorships, ePals

George DeBakey is Director, Business Development and Corporate Sponsorships for ePals. The ePals Global Learning Community is the largest online community of K-12 learners worldwide. Mr. DeBakey has extensive experience in the private and public sectors from various international and domestic assignments. He worked with Rockwell International in London, England and Cairo, Egypt. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary, High Technology Division, at the International Trade Administration at the Department of Commerce. He was Director, International Operations for ESI, an educational training company. During his assignment in Cairo, Egypt, DeBakey was one of the founders of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt. He has been active with the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce.

Harriet Mayor Fulbright | President, J. William & Harriet Fulbright Center

Harriet Mayor Fulbright leads the Fulbright Center, a non-profit organization in Arlington, Virginia, dedicated to promoting world peace and nonviolent means of resolving conflicts through international collaborations and education programs. Fulbright has extensive experience in the fields of education and the arts, serving from 1997 to 2000 as executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, and earlier, as president of the Center for Arts in the Basic Curriculum.

Ann Geiger | Member, Board of Directors and Iowa State Coordinator, Sister Cities International

Ann Geiger established the Davenport Sister Cities Committee and serves on the Sister Cities International Board of Directors, as well as the Iowa Sister States Board of Directors. She is also the Iowa state coordinator for Sister Cities International. Ann currently serves as administrative assistant to the Davenport Department of Community and Economic Development.

Karen Hasara

Karen Hasara has served as an elected official in Illinois for 28 years: in the Illinois House of Representatives, the Illinois Senate, and as mayor of Springfield, Illinois. As mayor, Ms. Hasara led the city’s International Visitors Commission. Under her leadership, Springfield became one of the community partners for the U.S. Ukraine Foundation; for the past five years, she has traveled and conducted training and program evaluation in Ukraine. She was also involved in Sister Cities, promoting relationships with Ireland, Mexico, and Japan. In addition, she has been involved in economic and tourism development and in ethics training in Russia.

George Jones | Attorney at Law, Greenwood & Jones

George Jones has practiced law since 1986 as a prosecutor, chief judge of Poarch Creek Native American Indian Appellate Court, and law professor. Currently, he is a sole practitioner in Lamoni, Iowa, with the majority of his practice devoted to criminal defense. He is an adjunct professor at Graceland University, teaching courses in Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and Criminal Justice. Jones also holds a Master of Arts degree from University of Denver, Graduate School of International Studies and has studied self-help human development at The International Institute for Rural Reconstruction, near Manila, Philippines. Jones is fluent in Spanish. For the Graceland University’s programs in Nicaragua, he was both faculty and translator for student groups studying human development methodology and poverty eradication programs. His volunteer work has taken him to Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico.

Ambassador Charles T. Manatt | Founder, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP |

Amb. Manatt is a native of Audubon, Iowa. He also is the founder of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, a national law firm headquartered in Los Angeles. In addition to having served as Democratic Party chairman in California and nationally, he was the U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic during the Clinton administration. He recently completed six years as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the George Washington University. He also has served or is serving on the board of the Wesley Foundation, the Mayo Clinic Foundation, the National Center for the Public Interest, and the Smithsonian Museum of American History. His involvements in citizen democracy include being the founding chairman of NDI, the chairman of IFES, the vice president of NED, and a trustee of CIPE and Meridian International.

Ms. Nadia McConnell | President, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation

Nadia McConnell, one of the founders of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, based in Washington, D.C., helped establish the Foundation’s presence in Ukraine even before Ukrainian independence. In earlier years, she was president of NKM Associates and held several positions in U.S. government, including director of Congressional Relations for FEMA and deputy assistant administrator for NASA.

Ms. Sherry Mueller, Ph.D. | President, The National Council for International Visitors

Dr. Mueller joined the National Council for International Visitors (NCIV) based in Washington, D.C., as executive director in 1996, and has served as president of the Council since 2001. Before coming to NCIV, Dr. Mueller worked 18 years for the Institute of International Education. She has also served as an adjunct professor at the School of International Service, American University, where she taught courses on U.S. Public Diplomacy.

The Honorable Scott Raecker | Iowa State Representative/Executive Director, Institute for
Character Development (ICD)

Scott Raecker is in his fifth term serving House District 63 —the community of Urbandale —of the Iowa House of Representatives. He is executive director of the Institute for Character Development at Drake University, working through a statewide partnership with the national CHARACTER COUNTS! Coalition to provide the resources and training necessary to mobilize character development initiatives across Iowa. Mr. Raecker is also certified as a character development specialist and corporate ethics trainer through the Josephson Institute of Ethics.

Robin Read | President & CEO, National Foundation for Women Legislators, Inc.

Robin Read currently serves as president and CEO of the largest and oldest organization for elected women at all levels of governance from all 50 states and territories. She is an advisory board member of the Women’s Information Network. As founding board member of Our Hemisphere Achieving Together, Read spearheaded numerous diplomatic endeavors and trade missions throughout Latin America. She was president of Charter 100, a mentoring organization. Read has also owned and operated several businesses, as a real estate broker, general contractor, and founder of “Leyendo,” a fully accredited K-12 special needs school.

Ted Townsend | President, Townsend Vision, Inc.

Ted Townsend is owner and president of a private company created to secure and enhance the future of such humanistic endeavors as Great Ape Trust of Iowa, Earthpark, and the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy —each focusing on a global need, grounded in science, and dedicated to truth, learning, and love. Before founding Townsend Vision, Townsend served as company president of Townsend Engineering Company, his family business, from 1978 to 2001.

Connie Wimer | Publisher, Business Publications Corporation

Connie Wimer was the owner and president of Iowa Title Company from 1976 until 1985 when she sold it to Amerus, but continued as president until 2001. It was the smallest of four title companies when she purchased it and it became the largest in the county within two years of the purchase. In 1981 she purchased a small legal newspaper with a circulation of 700. Her Business Publications Corporation now has 12 or more publications, including the Des Moines Business Record, a weekly business newspaper, the only visitor’s guide in the city, as well as the only city magazine.