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CRT Team

Andrea Blanch – President

Andrea Blanch, PhD, the President and Director of CRT, has worked for over 30 years as a social change agent. A former state mental health commissioner, she was founding director of the Collaborative on Conflict Management in Mental Health and the National Trauma Consortium. Andy has published widely on women’s mental health, trauma, and social change, consults nationally and internationally, and has done grassroots organizing in the Balkans and the MIddle East. She was a 2009 Fellow in the Women, Religion and Globalization program at Yale University. Her efforts are focused on building CRT as an interfaith network to shape a peaceful and sustainable future, with an emphasis on the role of women. Andrea was awarded the 2010 annual Duisberg Peace Award by the Southwest Coalition on Peace and Justice.

 

Howard Nelson – Vice Pres

Howard Nelson is the director of development for a primary health care network in New York State. He brings to CRT significant organizational experience, an abiding concern with social welfare, and a passion for getting people from different parts of the world working together. His particular interest within CRT is in creating opportunities for people in the United States to get to know the peacemakers working in Israel and Palestine.

 

Judith Allen – Board Member

Jelilah Judith Allen is a writer and editor living in Seattle, WA.   She has an MA in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley, taught elementary school in the Watts section of Los Angeles and in West Oakland, and taught writing and critical thinking at Berkeley and at Cornish College of the Arts.   She was also the head of the high school at a Reform Jewish temple in Bellevue, WA, and has lived in Israel.  Her special focus within CRT is to support women in Israel and Palestine as they work within their communities to shift patterns of thinking that have historically led to separation and conflict. 

 

Bill Elliot- Board Member

William D. Elliot is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Davis H. Elliot Company, an electric utility construction firm. Formerly, he served as the company’s president and CEO. An attorney, he also holds an MA in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University and serves on the board of Valley Bank and Valley Financial Corporation, as well as numerous community boards. Bill plays an advisory role to CRT and has worked with several members of the Abrahamic Reunion in Israel.

 

Robin Saenger – Board Member

Robin Saenger is the Vice-Mayor of Tarpon Springs, Florida, a member of the Regional Planning Council, and a board member of several non-governmental organizations. She is also an artist and a successful businesswoman who has run her own company, Saenger Milo, Inc., for 18 years. Robin’s personal passion lies in seeing within conflicts the potential for solutions that are both creative and responsive to the complex needs of our time. She is also excited about CRT’s role in the ongoing development of new paradigms in international relations.

 

Anna Lewis – Program Director/Board Member

Anna Lewis has a Masters in Instructional Technology, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction in Science Education with a cognate in Diversity. Anna also has four years of training in Nonviolent Communication. She has written several award-winning papers exploring new perspectives in education that attend to the realities of a diverse and complex world.   She has also engaged in comparative religious studies and has worked in India as a program manager, assisting women in creating and maintaining sustainable incomes.   Her personal goal for CRT is to assist in creating and supporting opportunities that allow individuals to find more tolerant and peaceful ways to live together.

 

Deri Ronis – Training Coordinator and URI Liaison

A state certified mediator, consultant, counselor, and university professor, Deri holds a PhD in International Peace Studies and Conflict Management and has received wide acclaim for her ability to blend spirituality with traditional counseling. She was a Rotary International University Professor Grant Recipient in Belize in 2007, and has published articles, school curricula, and two books focusing on tolerance, conflict management, and peace. She developed and is the primary trainer for the CRT youth nonviolence programs in Sarasota high schools, including Teaching Tolerance, a program for ESE students (2009) and Girls Talk it Out, for adolescent girls (2010). She hopes that CRT can become a vehicle for helping people with dissimilar ideologies to resolve their conflicts without violence, starting with youth.

 

Mellisa Heath – Planning & Development Associate

A Vermont native, Melissa relocated to Florida in 2004 after working in New York and Boston in publishing, not-for-profit program management and consulting. An avid international traveler and perennial student, she enjoys expanding her knowledge and engaging in the process of community building and grass-roots peace initiatives. Melissa is interested in supporting the work of CRT in the United States and abroad in addition to assisting in expanding and creating new services and programs.

 

Howard Pasternack – Administrative Assistant

Howard Pasternack, CRT's Administrative Assistant, is responsible for maintaining the mailing lists and assisting with research and web site support. He has an M.B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago. Prior to moving to Florida, he worked for over twenty years doing computer management support at Brown University. Howard is both a techie and a humanist, and is pleased to be working for an organization so involved in furthering tolerance and justice for all.

 

Pat Westwater-Jong – Photographer

Photographer Pat Westwater-Jong has worked as a psychotherapist, facilitator, teacher, and management and organizational consultant.   In 2000, Pat picked up her camera to capture the beauty of her rural hometown as a staff photographer for the local newspaper.   Using her camera lens to record and publicize people working for peace and justice, Pat combines her passion for social action with photography.   Her vision for CRT is to find and assist people from every religion who do not let anger, fear and pain block their compassion for all people.   Currently, she is working on a project to photograph Holy Land peacemakers. Westwater-Jong Photography

 

Sarasota Interfaith Coordinators

Arlene Pearlman (Congregation for Humanistic Judaism)
Sarah Zaouzal (Islamic Society of Sarasota and Bradenton)
Jacci Tutt (First Congregational United Church of Christ)

Arlene Pearlman, Sarah Zaouzal and Jacci Tutt are Co-Chairs of the CRT Sarasota Women’s Interfaith Network (WIN). All three women are active in their local religious communities and in Sarasota peace and social justice activities.