Ms. Connie Burbank taught biology and earth sciences in middle and high school and developed curricula in health, ecology and geology at the secondary level. After her children were in high school, she returned to work to become an office manager for an orthodontist’s practice in Richmond, Virginia. She was involved in caregiving for both her mother and father and became interested in long term care issues. After moving to North Carolina, she joined the Wake County Nursing Home Community Advisory Committee in 2005 and currently serves as committee chair. She wants to continue to focus on the role of the volunteer advisory committee and identify supports needed for them to fully realize their potential.
Ms. Mary Cichocki has taken “early retirement” to bring her professional and personal life in line with her goal to structure her priorities around community services and her desire and need to broaden her interests, understanding and leadership regarding aging and workforce issues. She has spent a career as an educator in NYC, Tokyo, Japan and North Salem, NY. More recently she has provided education and career counseling to students at the Wharton and Fuqua Graduate Schools of Business and finished her working career as a management consultant working for Drake Beam Morin, Inc. Since retiring she has become a lead volunteer for AARP’s Mature Workers Speakers Bureau. Her interests revolve around older workers, creating aging friendly work environments and retirement issues.
Ms. Willie Beatrice “Bea” Colson has been an active and involved teacher, teacher leader and advocate for teachers and children during her 40-year career in education. She spent thirty-seven years of her career in the same community and upon her retirement finds herself one of those active, community volunteers—a “go to” person in the life of her community. As a senior advocate in her African-American community, Ms. Colson wants to expand her knowledge of current programs and policies so she can better serve those individuals in most need. She wants to establish and maintain a human and procedural network of people and resources for her home base for senior members of her community.
Ms. Mary Cay Corr worked with UNC-TV from 1980 until her retirement in 1998 and then continued with them on a contract basis through 2008. While at UNC-TV she was a leader in bringing educational programs into North Carolina’s classrooms. She created the PreK-12 Department at UNC-TV, taught teachers how to use educational programs as a teaching resource and produced North Carolina High School Assembly, a live program that brought high school students face-to-face with nationally known figures such as Ken Burns, John Hope Franklin, and Chuck Davis. She volunteered with AARP in 2007 and became one of their health advocates. Using her media background, she wants to work in her health advocacy roles to develop and distribute resources to provide timely information to older adults, their caregivers, and older workers regarding best means to address the needs of older persons.
Dr. John Hammond is a retired professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill. In 2008, he became the Chatham County Delegate to the NC Senior Tar Heel Legislature where he developed a legislative ranking system to evaluate NC's representatives and senators based on their voting records on aging issues. His education in aging issues has been very practical and acquired by taking care of his parents, his wife's elderly aunt and his own elderly aunt. He does want to acquire additional formal education and understandings on aging issues to be a more effective advocate in his role in the STHL and as a representative on the regional Area Agency on Aging Advisory Committee.
Ms. Helen Marie Mack is a retired elementary school principal from the Winston-Salem, Forsyth County School System with a teaching career that included being a classroom teacher, AG teacher, curriculum coordinator, assistant principal and finally principal. Since retiring in 2005, she returned to school at UNC-G and completed the credentials for gerontological counseling and had an internship at the Northwest Piedmont Area Agency on Aging. She has a long-time interest in writing workshops for children and adults. Her current interests focus on both leadership and advocacy and a need to do more intergenerational work that could help build relationships across generations that support a better understanding of what aging is and is not.
Ms. Sara B. May had a career in writing and editing publications including teaching journalism at Indiana University. After that she was a guidance and career counselor for the U.S. Air Force in Florida, Japan, South Carolina and Georgia. At the University of Georgia she was an academic advisor for 500 undergraduate marketing students. Since retiring to Asheville, Ms. May has become very active in the AARP Driver Safety Program, among other volunteer activities. She is currently the Marketing Specialist for the DSP and is charged with addressing statewide marketing opportunities and developing potential statewide sponsors. Her goal is to develop and implement strategies to increase participation in and exposure to the driver safety program in North Carolina.
Dr. Tom Scullion spent his career in social work as a social worker, administrator and finally as a teacher. He retired from UNC-G and the university system after taking a lead in developing the joint masters degree program between UNC-G and A&T State University. Since his retirement he has been an active volunteer with a number of community organizations including the Master Gardener’s Program and the local Assisted Living CAC Advisory Committee. He has served on the board of the adult day care health center in Greensboro as well as an agency serving immigrants. Dr. Scullion is interested in developing a better understanding of adult day services as well as how programs and services can be directed to serving immigrant communities.
Ms. Cynthia Vail started paying more attention to the problems of older people when she started work as a social worker after graduate school some 20 years ago. She did an internship with the Area Agency on Aging in Leesburg Virginia. Later, as a licensed social worker, she visited nursing homes near Lexington, Virginia and counseled residents who were having problems. Since “retiring” to North Carolina, Ms. Vail has been involved in the formation and operation of a non-profit organization, Senior Counseling and Employment, in Durham. She is impressed by the number of seniors seeking her services and hopes to be able to convince both area employers and the state to prepare for the anticipated change in demographics soon to impact the workplace.
