Officers

Vivian G. Bass, Board of Directors – Vice Chair

Vivian Bass

Vivian G. Bass of Bethesda, Maryland currently serves as a Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of RespectAbility, having been actively engaged with the organization essentially since its inception.

Bass is the CEO Emeritus of Makom (formerly JFGH), where she served for 30 years at the helm of the organization which supports for adults with disabilities. Makom ultimately grew to provide services to those in 77 residential locations throughout the Greater DC Area via a wide variety of models as well as to participants in two innovative transition youth programs.

She was formerly a Board Chair of Jewish Women International (JWI – formerly B’nai B’rith Women International) and is currently the Board President of Save a Child’s Heart US (SACH). In the local DC Area, Bass is a board or advisory board member of CaringMatters, Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, Tzedek DC and is a founding board member and longtime pro bono consultant of Potomac Community Resources (PCR) which evolved via disabilities advocates from within the local Catholic Community.

She is a Lion of Judah (“Woman of Valor”) the highest distinction awarded internationally for Jewish women; was named as ‘Washingtonian of the Year’ (Washingtonian Magazine) and has been bestowed numerous other distinctions for her advocacy with regards to persons with disabilities, women’s issues and/or global humanitarian causes.

Bass has presented at The World Congress on Disabilities in conjunction with the Paralympics, The National Organization on Disability (NOD), The American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), The National Association of Social Workers (NASW), RespectAbility’s 30th ADA Anniversary Summit, and The International Lion of Judah Conference, among an array of other conferences, lectures and webinars.

She remains active with alumni endeavors of The University of Michigan, where she received undergraduate and graduate degrees in Special Education.

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Christine Cadena, Board of Directors – Vice Chair

Christine Cadena

Christine Cadena is Vice President, Diversity and Inclusion at The Walt Disney Company and is responsible for developing and advancing strategic company-wide inclusion efforts across diverse consumer segments. She leads community engagement with a focus on advancing representation, equity and inclusion as well as internal efforts like a companywide workgroup focused on advancing Inclusion practices for people with disabilities. During her tenure, she has held progressive roles within Disney, including Merchandising, Product Development, Marketing and Franchise Development. Prior to coming to Disney, she began her career in retail as a buyer and product development executive for Nordstrom. A native of Los Angeles, she is an alumni of UCLA.

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Delbert A. Whetter, Board of Directors – Vice Chair

Delbert Whetter

Delbert Whetter is the Chief Operating Officer and Head of Business Affairs for Exodus Film Group. He served as the lead business affairs executive for numerous entertainment and digital content providers for nearly two decades. Delbert has negotiated talent and production agreements including acquisition, development, and film financing arrangements, and licenses of intellectual properties. He has worked on Exodus animated features, IGOR, The Hero of Color City, and Bunyan & Babe, receiving Co-Executive Producer credit on Exodus’ two recent films. Delbert earned his law degree from the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., and his MBA from Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management.

Delbert serves as Vice Chair on the Board of Directors of RespectAbility, a national non-profit organization that works with Hollywood to promote inclusion, representation, and authentic portrayals of people with disabilities in media. He also serves on the Disability Advisory Board of SFFILM. He was appointed in 2018 by the City of Santa Monica to serve a four-year term on its Disabilities Commission and currently serves as its Vice Chair.

He is frequently engaged to consult, speak and conduct trainings at numerous entertainment studios, companies and organizations including Hollywood, Health & Society, Walt Disney Studios and its affiliated film/television entities, NBC, DreamWorks Animation, Netflix, and Six Flags Theme Parks.

Delbert is executive producing the upcoming animated feature film Pierre the Pigeon-Hawk, starring the voices of will.i.am, Jennifer Hudson, Snoop Dogg, Howie Mandel and Whoopi Goldberg.

Delbert is currently producing Flash Before the Bang, a live-action narrative feature film based on a true story about an all-deaf high-school track & field championship team (Film Independent 2020 Fast Track Finance Market & 2018 Producing Lab, 2019 PGA Power of Diversity Master Workshop, 2019 SFFILM Rainin Grant recipient, & 2019 WGA Disability Scene), and Live at the Deaf Club: The Story of Punk Rock at the San Francisco Deaf Club, a documentary about the legendary 1970’s punk rock venue (2020 California Humanities Grant recipient).

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Khadija Bari, Board of Directors – Treasurer

Khadija Bari
Photo courtesy of Rick Guidotti, Positive Exposure 109

Khadija Bari (she, her) is the Student Career Coordinator in the Workforce Development department at VISIONS/Services for the Blind & Visually Impaired. VISIONS is a nonprofit rehabilitation and social service organization whose purpose is to develop and implement programs to assist people of all ages who are blind or visually impaired to lead independent and active lives in their homes and communities. Bari has over half a decade of experience guiding underrepresented college youth in academic and career development.

Bari lives in Queens, New York with her husband, stepdaughter and their dog. Bari was born in Pakistan and immigrated to the United States at the age of 22 with her parents and younger brother. It is then that she learned she had a disability and was diagnosed as being legally blind. Bari wrote a personal reflection that RespectAbility published during Women’s HERstory Month in 2020. [continue reading…]

Craig Leen, Board of Directors – Secretary

Craig Leen

Craig Leen is a partner at K&L Gates LLP in Washington, DC, in the labor, employment, and workplace safety practice group. He advises companies on equal employment opportunity compliance, including under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. He formerly served as the Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs at the U.S. Department of Labor, where he was a strong national advocate on civil rights and disability inclusion in employment, including his work developing an award-winning OFCCP enforcement program focused on disability inclusion, accommodations, and accessibility for federal contractors and their employees across the United States. [continue reading…]

Ollie Cantos, Board of Directors – Immediate Past Chair

Ollie Cantos

Ollie Cantos is the Immediate Past Chair of RespectAbility’s Board of Directors. Cantos has been active in the civil rights arena since 1990.  He is Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, Attorney Mentor for the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights, and Member of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Past positions include Staff Attorney and Director of Outreach and Education at the Disability Rights Legal Center, General Counsel and Director of Programs at the American Association of People with Disabilities, Special Assistant and later Special Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, and Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush. Prior leadership posts include Vice Chair of the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, Vice President of the Virginia Organization of Parents of Blind Children, Legal Officer for the Coast Guard Auxiliary, Vice President of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Chairman of the Board for Scholarships for Eagles, President of the California Association of Blind Students and the National Association of Blind Students, and member of the boards of directors of the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia, the Blind Children’s Center, Community Lodgings, the California Association to Promote the Use of Braille, the National Federation of the Blind of California, Loyola Marymount University Alumni Association, and Loyola Law School Alumni Association.

But Ollie is most grateful for his adoption of three blind triplet boys – Leo, Nick, and Steven.  Their compelling story has been told by National Public Radio, PEOPLE Magazine, The Washingtonian Magazine, USA Today, and videos that went viral on NowThis.com, HeartThreads.com, and others. In addition to local media coverage, they were featured as Persons of the Week on ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir In December 2017 for attaining the coveted rank of Eagle Scout as part of Boy Scouts of America. Their story has now reached a grand total of more than 53 million views.

Meet our Board and Advisors