Dorothy Adams
Executive Director
Dorothy, a previous DSC board member, has been the Executive Director since fall of 2006. She comes from the venture capital world and became interested in mediation and alternative dispute resolution since moving back from The Netherlands where she had lived for more than 10 years. She received the Quinnipiac Mediation training in 2004, and also is a Commercial Panel Neutral for the American Arbitration Association. She served on a number of boards of entrepreneurial companies and researched on the topic of venture-capital backed company boards and their conflicts and pitfalls. In Europe, she was a partner at a technology venture capital firm, Corporate Development Senior Advisor for the Dutch PTT, and a consultant for Booz Allen & Hamilton. She has an MBA from the Wharton School and an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering degree from Princeton University.
Eryn Bingle
Mediator and Special Project - Schools
Eryn joined the DSC in 2007. She is currently a mediator in several juvenile courts, and has helped to broaden the DSC’s school mediation presence, including PPT facilitation services. Eryn has a background researching, working, and volunteering with high schools and universities. In 2006, Eryn completed the Center for Mediation in Law’s intensive mediation training and also the Quinnipiac Law School/UCONN mediation certificate. She holds a B.A. in Government from Harvard College; a Masters in Higher Education and Organizational Change from UCLA; and a law degree from New York University School of Law, where she was an Associate Editor of the NYU Law Review. Eryn is a member of the bar associations of Connecticut and Washington, DC.
Greg Crawford
Mediator
Greg has been a senior mediator with DSC since 2000, and mediated in the criminal courts with over 90% of the cases reaching agreement. He also mediates outside the court setting and has had a practice since the early 1990’s specializing in facilitations, debt and equity restructuring and contract dispute resolution for businesses. Previously he was with a management consulting firm as well as a senior executive handling workouts and other corporate finance issues at several major banks such as Bank of America. He has an MBA from Long Island University and a BA in Economics from Lafayette College and is a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution and the National Association for Community Mediators. He is a certified Emergency Medical Technician as well as a real estate agent for William Raveis Real Estate in Stamford.
Sandra Dressler
Mediator
Sandra has been a mediator with DSC since 2002. She has been involved with volunteer community mediations as well as court mediation for the Norwalk criminal court. She is a social worker with the Westport Public Schools where she has specialized in special education at the high school and middle school level for the past 25 years. She also mediates divorce and family disputes. Sandra holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from Fordham University and completed mediation training at Quinnipiac Law School in 2002.
Valerie Fischel
Mediator, Board Member
Valerie has been a mediator, trainer and licensed attorney since 1989. Experience from her early litigation practice, taught her that alternative dispute resolution, in particular the communication that happens during a mediation, was far more effective than the adversarial approach taken during litigation. Over the years she has had her own divorce mediation practice and mediated court as well as neighbor disputes. In addition to serving as the Executive Director of the Dispute Settlement Center in the 1990's, she has trained dozens of mediators, including youth at schools in Westport and Norwalk to mediate disputes between their peers. Valerie continues to provide workshops in dispute resolution and communication skills. She holds a Master's Degree in counseling from Fairfield University and Law Degree from Quinninpiac School of Law.
Nancy Fogwell
Director of Development
Nancy has a broad scope of experience ranging from work in the corporate world, to community leadership positions, to school advisory groups, to board positions of non-profits in Greenwich. Having joined DSC in May of 2007, she brings a varied skill set and a strong desire to advance the practice of mediation to settle disputes in our immediate area and beyond. Nancy has an MBA from New York University and an AB from Smith College.
Mary Kelleher Forsyth
Trainer, Mediator
Mary has served as a community mediator in the New York State Unified Court System for 11 years, and has been active with DSC since fall 2007. She specializes in special education, and family based cases such as custody and visitation but has resolved hundreds of other cases. As a trainer, she designs and conducts the practicum portion of several mediation training programs, and has trained mental health professionals, clergy, parents, business executives, teens and others in the areas of Basic Conflict Resolution, Parenting Plans, Divorce Mediation, Cross Cultural Communication, Multi-Party Mediation, and Hospice Mediation. Before becoming a mediator Mary worked in the Nuclear Energy field for over 20 years. Mary completed the Columbia University Certificate program in Conflict Resolution and has a B.A. from Fordham University. She is also a member of the Board of Directors, Connecticut Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities and Attention Deficit Disorders and serves on the Board of Directors of the Association for Conflict Resolution Greater New York Chapter. Mary leads the conflict management skills course at the Danbury YMCA Escape to the Arts.
R. Averell Manes
Trainer, Mediator, Consultant
Averell brings a deep mediation and training experience base to DSC. She has worked for more than twenty years as an arbitrator, mediator, and facilitator, and as a conflict management consultant and trainer and is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Conflict Resolution at Western Connecticut State University. A New York State “certified” mediator, and former American Arbitration Association arbitrator, she has worked in dispute resolution in the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Idaho, and Washington. She has provided mediation and training services to clients ranging from Norwalk Public Schools to Danbury Hospital to the Connecticut Parent Teacher Association. Averell received her doctorate in political science and conflict studies from Syracuse University, and is the author of several publications on subculture, alienation, and conflict resolution, including most recently The Pieds-noirs: A Case Study in the Persistence of Sub-cultural Distinctiveness, Academica Press, Washington DC, 2005 and “Preventing Violence in Schools, And More” and “Is Assessment of Children’s Social Health Worth of Risk?”, 2006.
Lisa A. McKenna
Director of Court Mediation Services / Mediator
Lisa has over 20 years of experience in the field of conflict resolution and has been mediating for DSC in the courts since 2002. Starting as a mediator in the Bridgeport court, her work has expanded into the position of Director of Court Mediation Services, overseeing the activities and staff at DSC’s court-based programs. Having mediated hundreds of cases involving various offenses, her skills continue to be applied in the Waterbury court as well as a senior coach and mentor to new staff. Previously, she was an Investigative Counselor for The New Jersey Violent Crimes Compensation Board, as well as a mediator and program coordinator for a dispute resolution center in Staten Island. Lisa has a B.A. in Criminal Justice from John Jay College in New York City.
Elizabeth Murphy
Mediator
Elizabeth is a DSC mediator in several courts and has over a dozen years of experience resolving complex, multi-party environmental cases. As an attorney for the United States Environmental Protection Agency, she handled a variety of permitting and enforcement cases, and assisted in developing and implementing national Agency policies regarding alternative dispute resolution and case settlement matters. After representing EPA in several cases in which mediation was key to case resolution, she became a strong advocate for the use of mediation and subsequently pursued mediation as her primary practice. In 2005, Elizabeth completed mediation training from Uconn/Quinnipiac and has since mediated a variety of cases ranging from land use issues, to fair housing, child custody, business competition, and misdemeanor criminal cases. She earned a JD from the University of Wisconsin and a BS from the University of Dayton.
Mimi Pitt
Mediator
Mimi is a licensed attorney and has been mediating for DSC since 2003. She currently mediates in several courts. She has 8 years of experience as a partner in two mid-size law firms in Connecticut, where she dealt with a variety of land-use, probate and family law cases. A graduate of Smith College, she received her JD from the University of Connecticut School of Law. In addition to her work experience, Mimi has served on several community-based non-profit boards in Stamford and New Canaan, including the Volunteer Center of Stamford.
Marvin O. Preston
Mediator
Marv has been a mediator with the DSC since 2000 serving in all three adult criminal courts - Bridgeport, Norwalk and Waterbury. In the hundreds of cases he has mediated, he has helped parties reach agreement in situations and disputes that run the gamut of what comes through the court system. Marv also spent more than 25 years in Information technology and education. His corporate background includes management and training of engineers and programmers at corporations such as Travelers Insurance, AT&T and Bell Telephone companies and ITT. Marv holds a Masters in Education Administration from John Carroll Univ. and a Masters in Advanced Management from Pace University. He is also certified by the state of Connecticut as a secondary education classroom teacher.
Ivy Schildkraut
Mediator
Ivy is a licensed New York and Massachusetts attorney and has been working with DSC since 2007. Currently she mediates in several courts, in particular juvenile. Previously she worked in Boston, MA for four years for a general civil litigation practice. She moved to New York in 1993 and worked for a defense civil litigation practice. For the last five years, she has specialized as an advocate for children. Her litigation experience, has taught her that communication between parties is far more effective than litigation. As a result, she pursued mediation training from local experienced mediators in July 2006.
Althea Seaborn
Trainer, Mediator
Althea has been a mediator and trainer for DSC since the 1990s. In addition to mediating court and police-referred cases, she provides workshops to middle and high-school students on mediation and conflict resolution skills. Althea served as an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan after graduating from U.C.L.A. School of Law in 1985. In 1990, she became a federal prosecutor and civil attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Connecticut. She currently serves as an Assistant Professor and Coordinator in the Criminal Justice Program at Norwalk Community College.