Bio – Board

Tamala Patrice Scott, Advisor

Tamala Patrice Scott

Tamala Patrice Scott brings more that 17 years of development and fundraising experience across a variety of non-profit organizations. As a Philadelphia native, Tamala relocated to Virginia for a change in scenery and to start her career where she was introduced to the field of development and loved it.

Over the course of Tamala’s career, she has led fundraising efforts to raise millions of dollars for non-profit organizations such as the United Negro College Fund, Paralyzed Veterans of America, The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, The Arc of the US and Childhelp, Inc., just to name a few. Tamala’s years of development experience include working with corporate and family foundations, corporations, major donors, board members, sponsors and managing special events.

Tamala is excited to join the RespectAbility board and looks forward to helping to raise awareness and visibility for this wonderful organization.

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Bianca Casanova Anderson, Board of Directors

Bianca Casanova Anderson is an educator, nonprofit leader, and social justice practitioner, with expertise in interpersonal communication, racial equity facilitation, and human development. As an educator for almost a decade, Ms. Anderson found her passion for human-centered change in the classroom. She built a unique background by cultivating inclusive learning environments that center relationships, uplift marginalized voices, and disrupt racism. As the founding Director for the Dallas-Fort Worth site of the Center for Racial Justice in Education, she trained and advised over 3,000 community leaders and educators around the nation in effective racial equity policies, practices, and procedures.

In 2021, Bianca was promoted to Co-CEO of ProInspire, where she supports nonprofit organizations and foundations by leading a portfolio of training programs and services that center race equity and leadership development.

Most importantly, Bianca loves people. She lives and leads through a lens of radical love, deep inquiry, and transformative justice. She is committed to creating spaces where every person feels safe, smart, and significant.

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Bill Gaventa, Board of Directors

Bill Gaventa is an author, speaker, trainer, and consultant primarily in the arena of faith and disability. He is the founder and Director Emeritus of the Summer Institute of Theology and Disability and the current Director of the National Collaborative on Faith and Disability. He was the Director of Community and Congregational Supports at the Elizabeth M. Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities in New Jersey from 1995-2013. His primary areas of experience and expertise include spiritual and faith-based supports with people with disabilities, training for clergy, seminarians, and community services staff, aging, end of life/grief issues in intellectual and developmental disabilities, cultural competence, and community building. He served as the President of American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities from 2016-2017. He was Editor of the Journal of Religion, Disability and Health for 14 years, and is author of Spirituality and Disability: Recovering Wholeness published by Baylor University Press in 2018.

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Daniel Goldsmith, Board of Directors

Daniel (Dani) Goldsmith leads 5 Why Consultants. He has previously sold four companies that he co-founded, led, and grew to be 17 times larger than when he founded them to large private equity firms. He has more than 20 years of experience working in the financial services, manufacturing industry, business strategy, corporate governance, finance, tax, and insurance sectors with both Fortune 500 and start up high growth firms.

Dani is the son of a public health medical doctor that spent a career advocating for the rights of those less fortunate. Dani has served on the Chicago Board of Meals on Wheels and various school boards. He is a member of Town’s Council Disability Rights Committee. He co-founded the Los Angeles US Soccer Federation Council and works on food scarcity issues. He is bilingual in Spanish and English.

Dani holds a BS, MBA from DePaul University as well as a CMA and Executive MBA from Harvard University.

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Linda Burger, Board of Directors – Chair

Linda Burger

Linda L. Burger’s solid reputation as a visionary leader with added attributes of compassion and exceptional personal characteristics have placed her in the top echelon of influential social service leaders in Houston and beyond.

Her years-long, game-changing legacy of leading and shaping impactful programs and initiatives continues to transform and expand her community’s response to crucial community needs. As CEO of Houston’s Alexander Jewish Family Service (JFS) from 2005 – 2022, Linda and her team created and grew a robust resume’ of disability inclusion and advocacy initiatives focused on erasing stigmas associated with disability and mental health issues. She also created and instituted several nationally recognized programs in suicide prevention and substance misuse.

Additionally, Linda’s leadership work related to seniors, employment and Behavioral and Mental Health Services contributed to JFS’s elevated standing as a premiere social service agency and recognized teaching institution for the helping professions.

That her tenure at JFS included several unexpected disasters – the devastation of recurring Houston flooding, which directly affected Linda and members of her team, and the Covid-19 pandemic – proved to be fortuitous “right person in the right place at the right time” moments as Linda utilized her deep expertise and contacts to mobilize her team and tap into community allies. In all cases, the agency’s seamless continuation of services under Linda’s leadership only strengthened its reputation for superior, caring disaster recovery which still reaps benefits in terms of the agency’s funding and recognition.

Linda’s pre-JFS impact in the human service arena was cultivated through 17 years of senior management positions at the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, followed by three years as Executive Director of the Houston Chapter of the American Jewish Committee. Her resume includes service on The City of Houston Redevelopment and Drainage Task Force, the Cultivating Families Advisory Board, and as past chair of the Network of Behavioral Health Providers. Prior to chairing the RespectAbility Board, Linda served as its Treasurer. She also serves on the Board of Hillel at the University of Texas at Austin and in 2022 completed her service on the Board of the Network of Jewish Human Services on whose Development Committee she still sits.

Linda is a recipient of five prestigious Houston community awards: the 2022 Gibor Hakehillah (Community Hero) Award from the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston; the Federation’s Hans Mayer Award for Communal Service; JFS’s Joan Alexander Chesed Award; the National Council of Jewish Women’s Women of Influence Award; and JFS’s Betty and Bernard Farfel Award. In 2020 she was selected as one of Houston’s Most Admired CEOs by the Houston Business Journal and in the same year proudly accepted a Best Place to Work award from that publication on behalf of JFS.

Along with serving as Board Chair of RespectAbility, and fueled by her eternal passions for service and lifelong learning, Linda makes the most of her retirement by mentoring local and national communal professionals, consulting for donors and funders, and actively participating in several weekly Torah study groups.

Linda received her undergraduate and Masters of Science in Social Work degrees from the University of Texas in Austin, soon after which she met and married her husband Andy Burger who serves as Executive Director of Houston’s Congregation Beth Yeshurun. Linda and Andy are proud parents of Allison and Michael Burger and Lauri and Ryan Doyal, and are devoted grandparents to their three precious grandchildren.

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Hon. Steve Bartlett, Board of Directors – Chair Emeritus

Steve Bartlett, Chair Emeritus

As a member of Congress from 1983-1991, The Honorable Steve Bartlett was the principal author of 18 major pieces of legislation including many legislative initiatives on advancing the cause of independence for people with disabilities. In addition to being a principal Republican author of the Americans with Disabilities Act, legislation included Medicaid eligibility, Section 1619 for Medicare eligibility, supported employment, assistive technology, creation of Towards Independence, the President’s Council on Handicapped 1984 report, and mainstreaming reforms for IDEA. During his entire tenure in Congress, he served as the ranking Republican on the Select Education Subcommittee, with jurisdiction for disability issues in education and vocational rehabilitation. Bartlett also served on the House Banking and the Education and Labor Committees.

He currently serves as a Senior Advisor with Treliant Risk Advisors, has more than thirty years of experience in financial services, business strategy, corporate governance, ethics and compliance, and public policy at the highest levels of the private sector and government. His most notable positions include President and CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable in Washington, D.C., Mayor of Dallas, and member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Bartlett draws on his accomplished background and experience and specializes in offering strategic consulting advice to for-profit companies and non-governmental organizations. His advice is sought on a range of policy areas including regulatory compliance, financial services, health care, corporate reputation, Congressional trends, retirement security, identity protection, federal fiscal policy, corporate governance, disability policy and media relations.

During his service as Mayor of Dallas from 1991-1995, Bartlett led Dallas to reduce violent crime, adopt a 5 billion capital improvements plan, and achieve significant economic revitalization, a downtown renaissance, and 30,000 new residential units in or adjacent to downtown Dallas.

In the for-profit world, he is on two corporate Boards and two Advisory Boards: Independent Director for Ares Capital Corporation (ARCC), and membership on the Audit Committee; Independent Director for Intersections Inc. (INTX), with seats on the Audit and the Risk Committees; Member of the US Advisory Board of Alexander Proudfoot, a U K-based executive management consulting company; Member of Advisory Board of EverFi, Inc., a 20 million revenue technology company specializing in online financial education.

In the nonprofit world, Bartlett serves on the Board of Directors of the Homeownership Preservation Foundation (HPF), a 20 million non-profit based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, devoted to assisting Americans in homeownership. Most notably, HPF created and operates HOPE Now, a national system of counselors who assisted seven million homeowners in modifying their mortgages to keep their homes during the recent financial crisis.

He has provided a leadership role to a number of other non-profit organizations including Operation HOPE, International Relief and Development, Easter Seals of Greater Washington, D.C., and National YMCA. He also served on the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education.

Bartlett graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1971, later serving as guest lecturer with the LBJ school of Public Affairs.

He has been happily married to Gail Coke Bartlett since 1969 and they are parents of three excellent children, and grandparents of eight beautiful grandchildren. He is an active adventure traveler, most recently Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2011 and Mt. Blanc Circuit in 2012. His 2010 Marine Corps Marathon time was 5:29.

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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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