Ray Stranske – Chair
Ray has worked in Denver in the non-profit community development sector for over 30 years. For 26 years, Ray was Executive Director of Hope Communities, a non-profit that he and his wife founded in 1980 to develop affordable housing and other services for extremely low-income families. During his time at Hope Communities, Ray presided over the financing and development of more than 750 units of affordable housing. Ray is now Director of Housing and Economic Development for Newsed Community Development Corporation, Inc., a non-profit CDC that promotes development in disadvantaged West Denver communities, including the Santa Fe Drive business and art district renewal. Ray has served on numerous non-profit boards and is active with many community housing development associations. He has a Masters of Divinity from Denver Seminary and a BA in Social Science from Biola University.

Ray was born in Khartoum Sudan and lived in Sudan and other African countries until he was 14. In 2007, Ray accompanied the PES team to South Sudan, where he taught villagers an innovative Latex-Hypar roofing method, as well as assisted in installing solar power.

Lee Ann Huntington – Vice Chair
Lee Ann is an attorney licensed in Colorado and California. Her legal practice includes over 20 years litigation experience as a partner in a prominent San Francisco law firm. She currently works in Denver as a mediator, trial advocacy teacher for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy and legal writer/editor. She teaches, mediates and volunteers in legal areas relating to women and children, including child welfare and domestic violence victim advocacy. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and has a BA from Stanford University in Economics. She is an avid Third World traveler, and volunteers as community forester for George Washington High School.

Carol Francis-Rinehart – Executive Director/President
Carol has devoted passion and countless hours to refugee resettlement in the United States for over 25 years. Her work with the Sudanese "Lost Boys" began with their arrival in 2001, first through the Denver African Community Center and St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral. She is now recognized nationwide for her activism and consulting on behalf of the Sudanese both here and in their homeland. Beginning in 2005, Carol reunified eight "Lost Boys" with their families in Sudan. That same year, along with Isaac Khor Bher, she founded Project Education Sudan to support creation of an educational infrastructure in rural South Sudan. Carol is a regular presenter on South Sudan at educational, civic and social justice programs, including the Matthew Shepard Symposium at the University of Wyoming and AFRECS, the Episcopal organization focusing on Sudan. As part of her outreach on behalf of the Sudanese, Carol has also established numerous fruitful partnerships with the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies, including the African Initiatives Program, and The Women’s College, University of Denver. Carol is a Board member of Africa Today Associates, a nonprofit organization that publishes an educational journal addressing African political and social issues and promotes university student advocacy. She was a 2008 Delegate to the United Nations Commission of the Status of Women, and has a particular interest on equal education for girls. Carol leads annual monitoring and working trips to South Sudan to promote the work of PES.

Prior to her immersion into Sudanese issues, Carol was an English and journalism teacher at the high school level. She graduated from California State University in Sacramento with her BA in English; she subsequently earned her secondary teaching certification from that institution and, at the University of California at Berkeley, her second language acquisition certification.

Richard Rinehart – Treasurer
Rich is a CPA licensed in Colorado and California. He has over 30 years of experience in accounting and auditing, including 12 years as an independent management consultant in the areas of strategic planning, leadership development, organization and governance, with an active speaking practice in these areas. He is currently Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of Bentek Energy, Evergreen, CO, a global leader in providing energy analytic information. Rich is a graduate of California Polytechnic State University School of Business.

Rich has been an active board member in a number of not-for-profit community organizations. He has mentored and assisted Sudanese refugees since 2001. Rich traveled to Sudan with the PES teams in 2007 and 2009 where he met with officials of the Government of South Sudan, taught accounting methods to local village leaders, and coordinated water well drilling.

Daniel Majok Gai
Daniel came to the United States as a twenty-year-old refugee in 2001. At the age of six, he had escaped into the bush alone when a northern militia attacked his South Sudanese village. He spent the next fourteen years in camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, having trekked hundreds of miles, first into Ethiopia, and then, when the "Lost Boys" were driven out of that region, to the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Daniel received his high school certificate in Kakuma, where he learned under a tree, without pens or paper.

Daniel recently graduated from the University of Colorado at Denver with a BA in Psychology. His employment to put himself through school has included customer service, translating (Dinka), warehouse work and welding. At UCD, he won the 2010 Rosa Park Diversity Student Award and worked as a Student Advocate at the Educational Opportunity Program. He became a United States citizen in 2007. Daniel has returned to Sudan twice as part of the PES team, where he met with village elders to negotiate PES’s third school site; assisted with the teacher training and women’s literacy programs; provided training to the PES Sudanese Field Coordinator; and was reunited with his family.

Panther Abuk Kuol
Panther immigrated to the United States from Sudan in 2001. He was nine when his village in South Sudan was bombed. Panther walked with other "Lost Boys" across the Sudanese savannah and jungle to an Ethiopian refugee camp; Panther lived there for four years before that camp was attacked and he escaped across the desert to northern Kenya, where he settled at the Kakuma camp. After arriving in the United States, Panther obtained his high school equivalency and, in 2006, his United States citizenship.

Panther is currently completing his degree in business at Metro State College. He is past-President of the Colorado Lost Boys Association and has served on the Boards of Angakuei Community in Diaspora, and Colorado African Sudanese Community, two national organizations that address the issues of Sudanese refugees in America. Panther is married to "Lost Girl" Mary Gop Deng and they have two small sons. He works at Vitamin Cottage and Brokdale Senior Residence, and has previously worked at Federal Express, while attending school and caring for his family. Panther traveled with the PES team to Sudan in 2007, where he coordinated the drilling of two water wells and, after twenty years, was reunited with his family of origin.

Mary Shippy
Mary has 30 years experience in the field of leadership development and organizational transitions, with a particular emphasis on multicultural leadership development. She has served as facilitator, trainer, coach and consultant to many national and international organizations. As principal of Align Leadership LLC, she focuses on organizational sustainability and leadership development throughout the world. Mary has extensive experience in human resources as a director, internal consultant, facilitator and trainer, including positions with the Mountain States Employer Council, FMI Consultants, and the Denver Zoological Foundation, among others. Mary has a PhD in Organizational Development & Behavior from Union Institute and University, and a MA in Intercultural Studies from Wheaton College, as well as numerous human resources certifications.

Mary has volunteered as an organizational consultant for a number of Colorado non-profits, as well as organizations in Africa. Mary’s work in creating culturally relevant leadership practices has taken her twice to South Sudan, where she worked on community focused peace and education initiatives in partnership with the Sudanese.

Millete Birhanemaskel
Millete is a licensed financial advisor. She practices at Waddell & Reed, where her work includes managing investments and strategic financial planning. Prior to her financial planning career, Millete was a journalist for the Knoxville News Sentinel and the Swift Newspapers in Colorado and California. She won many awards as a journalist, including a fellowship with the United Nations to cover the election of Africa’s first female president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia; this assignment then earned her First Place for International Reporting from the National Association of Black Journalists and Journalist of the Year from Region V of that organization.

Millete was born in Sudan and became a United States citizen in 2000; Millete’s parents are Ethiopian. Drawn to African leadership and empowerment causes, Millete founded the Ethiopian Community Center in Denver and has organized several successful fundraisers for African projects. She won the Social Responsibility Award from the Colorado Black Chamber of Commerce in 2009. Millete has a BA in Technical Communication from Colorado State University and is currently pursuing her MBA there.