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PEOPLE
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STAFF
Marnita Schroedl, Co-Founder & Catalyst
Marnita Schroedl, co-founder and Catalyst of Marnita’s Table, is a senior communications industry veteran with more than 20 years experience facilitating and training corporate groups and senior executives. Marnita employs an innovative and goals-oriented approach to achieving clients’ professional and personal objectives. A skilled and energetic presenter, she excels at demonstrating the positive rewards to be reaped from pro-actively harnessing the energy, productivity and esprit décor of a multi-cultural team. She is a frequently sought after public speaker on issues ranging from how to engage families of children of color in their children’s education, to exploring peaceful alternatives to violence in conflict resolution.
Marnita is herself a walking, breathing exemplar of strength through multi-culturalism and diversity. She is a black woman born of a Dominican father and Jewish Danish-American mother, raised by Irish-German immigrant adoptive parents, with American Indian, Korean, and Vietnamese foster siblings. She is now the essential anchor for a family including her Jewish husband, his two Jewish-Norwegian children, and her own son, whose father is black.
Marnita’s professional and community volunteer activities focus on energizing groups and individuals and helping them forge connections across age, race, and gender. Her clients make for a diverse list of socially engaged, non-profit and for-profit organizations.
After many years of working in-house as a senior executive at leading entertainment, marketing and communications firms, Marnita established her own strategic communications and marketing consultancy -- Words on Fire Communications -- in 1995.
Marnita served on the board of DIFFA Minnesota (the Design Industry Foundation Fighting AIDS) -- now DIVA MN -- from 1997-2007. In addition to facilitating all board strategy sessions, she is regularly called on as a spokesperson to discuss the effect of AIDS/HIV on people of color, immigrants, and the GLBT community.
She also served as a special advisor on diversity for the admission committee of Blake School, one of the most prestigious private K-12 schools in Minneapolis-St. Paul. As Community Involvement Coordinator for Kenwood Elementary School in the Minneapolis public school district, she launched successful and innovative programs for increasing the participation of students of color and their families in the school’s academic activities.
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Carl Goldstein, Co-Founder & Executive Director
Carl oversees the operations of Marnita's Table, including legal affairs and finance, and is also responsible for issue identification and research. Carl formerly worked in Asia for more than 15 years, including a decade as a correspondent with the authoritative Far Eastern Economic Review. In his time in Asia, spent mostly in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Carl learned to speak fluent Mandarin Chinese and, perhaps as important, experienced life as a minority.
After moving to the Twin Cities, Carl served as senior editor for business and economics at Minnesota Public Radio. While at MPR, he won the 2000 Gerald Loeb Award in the radio category for "illuminating the world of business and finance." He has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in anthropology and Asian Studies from Cornell University. |
BOARD MEMBERS & OFFICERS
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Margaret Soran, Board Chair
Margie brings to Marnita's Table her organizational experience and passion for helping others. She is an active member of Social Venture partners, a partnership of individuals who invest their time, expertise, and capital in innovative non-profits serving at-risk youth. Margie participates in the SVP Grant Team and helped develop a program for youth to learn about grant-making. She is also an advocate for children and the homeless through her volunteer activites at MICAH (Metropolitan Interfaith Council for Affordable Housing), Congregations Concerned for Children, and the Learning Center for the Homeless.
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Art Berman, Treasurer
Art is President and CEO of Twin Cities RISE!, an organization that provides employers with skilled workers --primarily men from communities of color in the Twin Cities area--by training under- and unemployed adults for skilled jobs that pay a living wage. Art's previous position was Senior Vice President and Treasurer for Ameriprise Financial. Art worked at American Express Company and its spin-off, Ameriprise, for 22 years. During that time he had various Finance positions of increasing responsibility, including Chief Financial Officer of American Express' international banking and insurance subsidiaries.
Prior to working at American Express Art was a management consultant at Booz, Allen and Hamilton and an economic analyst with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Art holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a BS in Economics from Bowdoin College.
Currently Art is a partner with Social Venture Partners and on the Advisory Board for the Page Education Foundation. For fun he loves to travel, hang out with his family, listen to jazz music and live a physically active lifestyle. He is very much looking forward to his association with Marnita's Table and to his unfolding post-corporate life.
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Nathalie Joly
Nathalie is an independent art historian, broker, and collector specializing in French painting. She has organized art exhibitins at the Pont-Aven Museum in Brittany, France and collaborated with the Francoise Livinec Gallery in organizing the Tour & Taxis Brussels exhibition. Nathalie has also launched a collection of paintings focusing on Brittany, early 20th Century art, and select contemporary artists.
Nathalie served as fund-raising manager and was on the board of directors of L'Arche, a leading international organization based in Paris focused on mentally handicapped adults. She has a Masters Degree in Management from the Ecole des Hutes etudes Commerciales in Paris, specializing in marketing.
Nathalie moved to Minneapolis from Paris in 2008 with her husband, Hubert. Their son, Stanislas, and daughter, Agathe, are university students.
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James P. Palmquist
Jim has recently retired after more than 30 years in the Office of General Counsel at 3M but continues to be involved with the corporation on a contract basis. His most recent position was Associate Counsel for the Consumer Markets Group, International Operations, and other major divisions. Jim is a member of the Federal Trade Commission’s “Made in USA Taskforce and also served in a variety of positions with the Minnesota State Bar Association.
Jim is also on the board of directors of the University of Minnesota’s Veterinary Hospital Oncology Funding and an active volunteer with the Children’s Theater Charitable Fund-raising campaign. |
Rajni Shah, OD
Rajni is the Senior Managing Optometrist for Pearle Vision, working from the Edina office. She moved to Minneapolis in 2007. Rajni was born in Zambia, grew up in Botswana and finished her schooling in the Middle East and Canada. She went to college outside of Toronto, and then moved to Boston to attend the New England College of Optometry. She completed a residency in Cornea/Contact Lens in Saint Louis. Most recently, she lived in Atlanta where she worked at Ciba Vision.
Since moving to Minneapolis, Rajni has been volunteering her time with MicroGrants, as a member of the Evaluations Committee. She is also a Team Leader for the YMCA Opportunity Board, a new group of young professional volunteers.
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Camille Thomas, Secretary
Camille is a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse. She majored in Community Health Education and minored in Spanish. Throughout her college career she had the opportunity to travel to many countries, which has added a global perspective to her view of community health issues.
Camille works for Southside Community Health Services, where she is coordinator of the Plain Talk program, which aims to help parents and other adults communicate more effectively with young people in their lives about sex and reproductive health.
Camille has a passion for promoting the holistic health of the whole community and especially that of her community of origin, the Black community. |
Rico Vallejos, Vice Chair
Rico Vallejos is an award-winning writer, director and photojournalist specializing in multicultural communications. He's served as account executive, researcher, focus group moderator, copywriter and director at Lee & Riley Micromarketing, Chuck Ruhr Advertising, and LatinoCreative for clients such as General Mills, 3M, Coca Cola, Gap, Amoco, Target Stores, Hormel, and the State of Minnesota. A native of Argentina, Mr. Vallejos studied computer science in Buenos Aires, marketing at Metropolitan State University, and cross-cultural communications, management and linguistics in Spain and England. He's served as Adjunct at the University of St Thomas' Graduate School of Business (Masters of International Management program), and continues to teach and lecture nationally on multicultural topics. Mr. Vallejos was a founding board member of the Minnesota Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and serves on the boards of Hamline University, the Push Institute, Teatro del Pueblo and MARQ Magazine. He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the National Society of Hispanic MBAs, and the American Marketing Association. Mr. Vallejos was elected to the Marnita’s Table board in 2007.
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Sharon Kennedy Vickers
Sharon is a software developer with the University of Minnesota's Java and Web Services (JaWs) a division of Academic Distributed Computer Services(ADCS). She also sits on the Advisory Board of the Multicultural Endowment of the SpectrumTrust of the Saint Paul Foundation and has been a leader in forming philanthropic giving circles in both the Twin Cities and her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. |
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