CKSCP Board Members
Gail Bason
Having been a host of several Ukraine visitors to Cincinnati and thoroughly enjoying their company, I was asked to join CSKCP. I readily accepted and have become a Ukraine booster. I love it.
Mike Burns
Secretary
I have been involved in the Cincinnati Kharkiv Sister City Partnership since the early 1990's having coordinated and presented a variety of local government related programs to visiting delegations over the past 25+ years and hosting numerous guests from Kharkiv and several other regions of Ukraine. I visited Kharkiv, once in 1994 and more recently in 2013 and became a CKSCP Board member in 2013, and currently serve as the Board Secretary. My professional background was in local government management having served as a city planner, township administrator, and a city manager in several southwestern Ohio communities before retiring from the Village of Indian Hill in 2013.
Frank Clark
I was invited to travel with a delegation to Kharkiv around 2000 to document the trip on video. I was so moved by the people I met and the country that upon returning I joined CKSCP.
Early on I hosted a delegate in my home. Since then I have worked on planning programs for numerous delegations, and helped with transportation. I look forward to one day making a return trip to Kharkiv.
Bob Derge, Jr.
Treasurer
In 2013, I was able to travel to Ukraine with the Cincinnati Kharkiv Sister City Partnership with a group of government officials from Southwest Ohio. The purpose of our exchange was to share practices of small governments with our Kharkiv partners. Since that time we have shared many exchanges with Kharkiv and is very rewarding to host and learn from our partners in Ukraine. Most recently the worldwide pandemic has stymied our in person exchanges and we have had to rely on e-mails and video conferences to stay connected. We all look forward to the time when we can resume in person connections again.
Bob Derge, Sr.
Sonia and I became involved with CKSCP in 1998. Ed Marks invited me to become a Board Member in 1999 and I have been one ever since. We have been involved with planning and hosting for both programs, Community Connections and Open World. Over 50 Ukrainians have stayed with us in our home. We have been to Ukraine twice and were hosted by some of our Ukrainian friends in their homes when there. The organization and the many friends we have made through it have been a very rewarding part of our lives for over twenty years.
Jay Dewitt
When I told my friend Bob Marx I thought to visit Ukraine on the way to a mission trip to Vologda, Russia, he suggested I conduct a seminar on commercial real estate practices at the American center in Kharkiv. I didn’t realize that real estate brokerage in 2002 often involved the sale of one room in a two bedroom apartment, (with no financing) so I was prepared to cover what I thought were typical practices I realized that I was about ten years ahead of reality so I quickly adjusted to answering questions. To my surprise the attendees included bankers and lawyers, so the questions had a wide range. My experience in Kharkiv led me to an active participation in our Sister Cities partnership.
Sasha Etlin
A Kharkiv native, Sasha got involved with CKSCP in 1991 and moved to Cincinnati in 1994. As an interpreter I have helped many delegations and individuals taking part in exchanges and professional programs.
Bob Herring
President
I was the principal of Nativity School when we hosted our first delegation from School #3 in 1993 which proved to be the beginning of a long relationship with the people in Kharkiv. Joining the CKSCP Board proved to be an opportunity to extend those friendships. Working with the Kharkiv-Cincinnati Sister City Partnership, we have collaborated on projects for the benefit of the citizens of both cities.
We look forward to the time when we will meet in person to pick up where we left off.
Steve Hirschberg
When I first went to Kharkiv in 1995 as a member of an official delegation from Cincinnati, I had little idea about what to expect. As it turned out, I fell in love with the people and was intrigued by everything I experienced, including the emotional celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in, as it was called in Ukraine and Russia, “The Great Patriotic War. When I returned to Cincinnati it took very little persuasion to recruit me as a member of the CKSCP board, on which I’m pleased to serve to this very day. I am proud to continue serving on the board, knowing that these grassroots connections help promote friendship between our two peoples.
Ann Lampe
I first became aware of CKSCP when my then high-school aged daughter helped host a group of Ukrainian teenagers in Cincinnati in 2010. That experience has led to hosting numerous Open World delegates in our home. While hosting, I have learned a great deal about Cincinnati as well as Kharkiv and formed lasting friendships with many of our guests. As a Board member, I look forward to helping facilitate future programs and to continue hosting new friends from Ukraine.
Guennadi Maslov
One late night in 1990 (I think it was still summer) Corson Hirschfeld and a group of Ukrainian photographers were reviewing photographs lavishly spread on the no-so-terribly-clean carpet of the National Hotel in Kharkiv. Corson had come to Ukraine as a member of a sister-city delegation and was planning an exhibit of Kharkiv photographers at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati (Where the heck is Cincinnati, we thought?). But the opportunity was welcome, and Hirschfeld left for home a few days later with an array of photos. The Kharkiv photographers had not expected much, but suddenly an invitation to exhibit in THE USA came to three lucky artists: Maslov, Pavlov, Suprun. Woo-hoo!
The exhibit was moderately successful for the gallery (who are these unknown Ukrainian guys, who dare to follow the auspicious and scandalous show of Robert Mapplethorpe works?) but life-changing for me. It led to an invitation to teach photography at the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP). Another Woo-hoo! The wounded USSR was falling apart and declining the offer would have been frivolous. Little did the United States of America know that they would never get rid of me.
Neither would the CKSCP.
For more than 30 years I have been involved in one way or another: participating and/or organizing visual art exhibits, children’s drawing projects, cultural lectures, the design of the mosaic columns at Sawyers Point Park, the Eastern Europe Connections Art Festival at CAM, the Middfest Ukrainian dancers, Xavier University Photography shows, Kharkiv art exhibits of Greg Rust and Maurice Mattei, and the NON-STOP MEDIA series of shows in Kharkiv.
I cannot imagine my long-lasting involvement with the Partnership without the initial and ongoing support of Marilyn and John Braun, wonderful former members and presidents of what we know as CKSCP. They welcomed me into their hearts and home when I was still a stranger in Cincinnati.
Looking forward to more projects! Long live the Partnership!
Susan Neaman
Vice-President
Many years ago, a friend suggested we might host two Ukrainians who were part of a group here to participate in a program. We agreed and, after 3 hosting experiences, we were hooked, having so enjoyed our house guests. In 2006, now with friends in Kharkiv, we traveled with a group of hosts and CKSCP Board members to Ukraine, learning, and loving, so much more about the culture and the people. Since then, I have been involved in planning various programs for Ukrainian delegates and being a Board member. This is one volunteer activity that gives back in unexpected ways.
Joel Schindler
I am currently Senior Vice President at MarketVision Research, Inc., a market research firm headquartered in Blue Ash, Ohio and have served as a faculty member at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine followed by a position as a Program Officer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). I brought my expertise in biomedical science with my passion for marketing and communication to become a marketing professional. .
Throughout the course of my professional career, I have been actively engaged in numerous non-profit efforts serving on the Boards of the Cincinnati Jewish Federation, Jewish Family Service, the National UJA Young Leadership Cabinet, Zink-the-Zebra Foundation, and PANIM: the Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values. I am currently on the Executive Committee the National Conference for Soviet Jewry and have traveled to many countries that were part of the former Soviet Union. I have been to Ukraine numerous times and hope to bring my non-profit experience and interest in Ukraine to CKSCP.
Bruce Southers
I have over 20 years or volunteering with nonprofit organizations/boards, and became connected with CKSCP at an event featuring guests from the Kharkiv Red Cross. I joined the board in 2022, and am excited for the good works that this organization does and will do in the future.
TJ White
I am Executive Director of a non-profit organization called The Center for Local Government, and the newest Board Member for the Cincinnati-Kharkiv Sister Cities Partnership. Prior to my time on the Board, I have had the opportunity to present on local government in the United States (and specifically Southwest Ohio) to delegations from Kharkiv since 2015. It is exciting to become more involved with the Sisters Cities Partnership, and I look forward to building relationships as I continue my service on the Board.
I look forward to continuing to get to know all of you. Thank you for this opportunity.