Board of Directors

Officers

Maria Laura Acebal, President
Maria Laura Acebal , Founder of Safe@School®Partners , has been a food allergy educator and advocate for the last five years. She has appeared in numerous print, radio and video features on food allergy safety, including the new documentary, Sabrina’s Law, which premiered on Canada’s Award-winning Global Currents Documentary Series:
<< click here to view the video>>

Maria received her JD from Yale Law School and practiced law for several years at Williams & Connolly, one of the nation’s top litigation firms. She then joined the global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. as a strategic business consultant. After the birth of her two daughters, Maria worked as a legal advocate in the child abuse and neglect system and as an educational consultant. Maria received her undergraduate degree from Duke University, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in Mathematics.

She lives outside of Washington, DC with her husband and two young daughters. Her oldest daughter has a life-threatening allergy to peanuts.

Virginia Wydler, Vice President & Secretary
Ms. Wydler has a breadth of business development, marketing, licensing, and public relations experience, with a focus on children’s issues. Previous employers include The Walt Disney Company, Pepsi, and America Online. While at America Online, Ms. Wydler directed the strategic development of the children’s and families areas of the service, recognized with a Parent’s Choice Seal of Approval. She also served as the company spokesperson for children’s online safety and most recently served as Vice President of Integrity Assurance, responsible for AOL’s broader policy issues, including child privacy protection, advertising and programming standards.

Ms. Wydler holds an MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and received her BA (cum laude) from Middlebury College.

She currently resides in the Washington, DC area with her husband and two children. Her eldest child has numerous life-threatening food allergies.

Jamie Vogel, Treasurer
Ms. Vogel has worked in finance for ten years, currently serving as the Finance Director at Yahoo! Inc. Previous employers include GlobalNetXchange, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, and Disney Studios.
She earned dual degrees from Duke University, an MBA and a BA in Economics.

Directors

Tommy Zarembka, Director
Mr. Zarembka has spent his entire career in the nonprofit sector. He began his career working with the African Great Lakes Initiative (www.aglionline.org) as a fundraiser, and also worked for 8 years at Joseph's House (www.josephshouse.org) as the Development Director. In April 2004, Mr. Zarembka founded the Cornerstone Community to provide housing for homeless men with AIDS and a history of chronic substance abuse and mental illness. Mr. Zarembka also currently serves as a fundraising consultant to numerous nonprofit entities.

Scott Joftus, Director
Dr. Joftus is the co-founder and president of Cross & Joftus, LLC, which is dedicated to providing education leaders with personalized and expert assistance in policy analysis and development, evaluation, executive coaching, and strategic planning. Before co-founding Cross & Joftus, Dr. Joftus served as the founding policy director for the Alliance for Excellent Education where he helped to develop the policy agenda for the newly created policy organization focused on ensuring that all students graduate high school prepared for college. Before working with the Alliance, Dr. Joftus was the director of policy, research, and evaluation for The McKenzie Group, an education policy consulting firm, where he conducted numerous evaluations for and provided technical assistance to the U.S. Department of Education, and districts and states across the country. Dr. Joftus has also served as a senior associate at the Council for Basic Education, an elementary school teacher as the first-ever corps of Teach for America, and a strategic planning consultant to the Public Policy Institute of California, a think tank focused on California policy.Dr. Joftus has published widely on a number of subjects including school and district improvement, teacher quality, standards-based reform, and high school reform.

Dr. Joftus earned his bachelor’s degree in public policy from Duke University, a master’s in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley, and a doctorate in education policy and leadership from The George Washington University.

Dr. Joftus is currently an adjunct professor at the George Washington University, where he teaches education program evaluation and is on the technical advisory group of the Mid Atlantic Regional Education Laboratory (MAREL), a federally funded research consortium conducting randomized control trials and other types of evaluation of interest to states in the region.

Maria Laura Acebal, Director
Ms. Acebal is the Founder and President of Safe@School Partners. See above for complete bio.