Board of Directors

Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson	Tony Abbot
Chairperson	Downtown LA Motors
Michael Dolphin	Cecil McLinn, Jr.
Vice-Chairperson	Principal – Duke Ellington High School
Dr. Genethia O. Hudley-Hayes	José Rizo
Treasurer	KKJZ Radio Personality
	LAUSD School Administrator
Dr. Carl Sewell
Secretary	Daniel Rosenfeld
	Principal
Reginald Chapple	Urban Partners, LLC
President & CEO
	Dr. Joseph Zeronian
	USC School of Education & Prager, LLC
	Weston Bensloof
	Legal Counsel
	Tom Wingard

Chairperson

Maria Rosario Jackson, Ph.D. – Senior Research Associate, Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.

Dr. Jackson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Urban Institute, the premiere think tank in Washington, D.C. Her professional background is in Arts, Culture and the Community Development Process. Her research has a national and international focus and she works directly with large charitable foundations and museums to complete arts and culture related initiatives. She serves on board of directors and advisory boards of several national arts and culture organizations. She completed her doctorate in Urban Planning at UCLA, as well as, a Master’s of Public Administration and Undergraduate Journalism degrees from the University of Southern California (USC). Dr. Jackson grew up in South Los Angeles. Her mother is a native of Mexico and her father is African-American; she spent her formative years living between Mexico and Los Angeles.

Vice Chairperson

Michael Dolphin – Division Chief, Employment Development Department, State of Calif.

Mr. Dolphin is the Division Chief of the State of California’s, Employment Development Department (EDD). His area is the largest EDD district and extends from Lancaster to South Los Angeles to San Pedro. He is responsible for all youth and adult workforce programs, EDD centers, and grant programs. He works directly with the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) centers and Workforce Investment Boards (WIB). Mr. Dolphin’s father founded and owned Dolphins of Hollywood Record store at the corner of Central Avenue and Vernon Avenue. Dolphin’s had a recording studio, a Disk Jockey in the window and was the birthplace of KGFJ radio. Mr. Dolphin is a professional musician and has an outstanding reputation among Jazz musicians locally and internationally.

Treasurer

Genethia Hudley-Hayes, Ph.D. – LAUSD Board President (ret.); Civil Rights Advocate

Dr. Hayes is the former President of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board; she represented District 1 which includes South Los Angeles and the Westside of Los Angeles. She is currently a member of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Education Team. She is also a Commissioner for the LA City Fire Department. Dr. Hayes holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy and an M.B.A. both from Pepperdine University. She is the past Executive Director/Executive Vice-President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Martin Luther King Legacy Association. Dr. Hayes’ moved from Chicago in the 1950s and settled in Leimert Park Village as the first Black family on her block. She has a long affiliation with the Central Avenue and Crenshaw communities as both communities were transitioning when she arrived in Los Angeles.

Secretary

Carl Sewell, Ph.D. – Technology Software Consultant, New Century Education;

New York School Superintendent (ret.)

Dr. Sewell is a former Superintendent of Schools for the New York School system in the Bedford-Stuyvesant Borough. Dr. Sewell also taught within the Los Angeles Unified School District as a middle school teacher at Horace Mann. He is currently an educational technology consultant. Dr. Sewell was on the original committee to save and restore the Dunbar Hotel, which led to the creation of Dunbar EDC.

Antoine Domini “Tony” Abbott –General Sales Manager – Felix Chevrolet & Cadillac

Tony Abbott is the General Sales Manager at Felix Chevrolet and Cadillac, an affiliate of the Shammas Group on the Figueroa Corridor in South Los Angeles. Tony brings twenty-five years of sales, finance and managerial experience within the automotive industry. He is the primary liaison for University of Southern California “USC” and Felix Chevrolet and Cadillac. He directly interacts with the USC General Alumni Association, Black Alumni Association and the USC Credit Union. Tony studied Business at Los Angeles City College before joining United States Army and becoming a Communication’s Specialist. Tony is a member of the Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce (GLAAC), 100 Black Men of America, and the Hoover Intergenerational Care, Inc. Figueroa Corridor Project. Other corporate and community non-profit organizations that Tony is actively involved in are the Exposition Park Intergenerational Community Center (EPICC), and advisory memberto the Regalettes and Links, Incorporated. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Tony lives with his wife, Gwendolyn Abbot and his two twin daughters, Remington and Spencer.

Cecil McLinn, Jr. – Principal, Duke Ellington High School

Mr. McLinn is the principal of Duke Ellington High School, a continuation high school on the Washington Prepatory High School campus in South Los Angeles. He is one of the founding members of COBA (Council of Black Administrators), which advocated for the hiring and promotion of African Americans within LAUSD. His former career was in Insurance Sales. Mr. McLinn grew up on Central Avenue. His father, Cecil McLinn, Sr. was one of the first Black Fire Captains in the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Jose Rizo – KKJZ, FM 88.1 Jazz Radio Personality; LAUSD Elementary School Teacher

Mr. Rizo is a radio personality for KKJZ, FM 88.1; the local Jazz Station in Los Angeles. He is the founder of Jazz on the Latin Side All-Stars, a Top 20 charting jazz ensemble. Mr. Rizo produces the Latin Jazz series at the Luckman Center on the Cal State L.A. Campus, as well as other events at local venues like Hollywood and Vine. He has produced the Central Avenue Jazz Festival with the internationally renown jazz musician, Teddy Edwards for Dunbar EDC over the past 10 years. During the day, Mr. Rizo is an elementary school administrator with LAUSD.

Daniel Rosenfeld – Principal, Urban Partners, LLC

Mr. Rosenfeld is a Founder/Principal of Urban Partners, a real estate planning, investment, development and management firm co-founded by Ira Yellin. Located in the historic Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles, the company specializes in urban entitlement processes, complex financial structures and alternative construction methods. Their business model includes equity based and fee development real estate projects. The company is responsible for the historic preservation and revitalization in downtown Los Angeles, Seattle and Arizona.. Mr. Rosenfeld started his career with the Cadillac Fairview Corporation, the largest publicly-held real estate company in North America, where he developed over two million square feet of office, industrial, research and development space. In 1992, he was appointed Deputy Director of Real Estate in the Department of General Services of the State of California with responsibility for 18,000 state-owned properties. Mr. Rosenfeld was invited by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan to establish similar asset management programs for the 12 million square feet of buildings and 8,000 properties controlled by the City of Los Angeles. After leaving public service, Mr. Rosenfeld directed the Los Angeles office of Jones Lang LaSalle, a New York Stock Exchange-listed real estate services firm. He is a member of the Los Angeles Civic Center Authority, President of the Boards of Directors of Grand Performances and Collage Dance Theater and a member of the Boards of Directors of the Central City Association of Los Angeles and Inroads, a minority youth career placement organization. Mr. Rosenfeld completed his undergraduate education in Architecture, Structural Engineering at Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard University.

Joseph Zeronian, Ed.D. – Director, USC School of Education, Management Certificate Program

Director of Public Finance, Prager, Sealy & Co. LLC

LAUSD, Chief Financial Officer (ret.)

Dr. Zeronian is the former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). His previous professional positions include Managing Director, USBancorp Piper Jaffray and John Nuveen & Co.; Director Prudential Securities Incorporated; Interim Superintendent of the Pasadena School District, and several positions with Fortune 100 financial institutions. He is a past board member for the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. Currently, Dr. Zeronian is the Director of USC’s School of Education’s Business Management Certificate Program where he supervises programs in the University Park and Orange County campuses. He has a Doctorate of Education from the University of Southern California. He grew up in Venice, California. His family’s Armenian Orthodox Church was located in the Central Avenue community.

President/CEO

Reginald Chapple – Dunbar Economic Development Corporation & affiliates

Mr. Chapple has been the Chief Executive Officer of Dunbar EDC since October 1, 2000. He is responsible for the day-to-day operations of Dunbar EDC and its three affiliates: Dunbar Apartments Partnership; Somerville Apartments Limited Partnership; and Central Avenue Renaissance, LLC. Mr. Chapple holds a Master of Arts in Urban Planning at UCLA and is a Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at UCLA. His Master’s Thesis won the 1992 “Thesis of the Year” award from the National American Planning Association. Mr. Chapple also teaches a community planning and economic development course at Los Angeles Trade and Technical College. At the University of Southern California (USC), he completed two undergraduate degrees in Journalism and International Relations. He has also traveled extensively abroad. Mr. Chapple is also the former chief operating officer for the Martin Luther King Legacy Association (MLKLA), the non-profit arm of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the organization founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to carry forward the tenets of the Civil Rights Movement in America. At MLKLA, Mr. Chapple supervised programs related to youth leadership development, conflict resolution, parent education, a rape crisis center, and gang intervention. He is a native of Los Angeles.