Advisory Board

Ned currently sits on the Board of Directors of Quadel Consulting Corporation. In 1978, he was one of two founding partners of Quadel, and served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for 27 years. In 2005, Thayer Capital, a private equity firm, also based in DC, acquired controlling interest in the firm. Quadel is a leader in affordable housing providing training, consulting and outsourced housing program management services to the industry.

In recognition of Quadel’s growth and success as a company of over 800 professionals and offices in multiple states, Mr. Symes and his co-founding partner were recipients of an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2003.

Mr. Symes’ current community and business activities, in addition to Quadel Board duties, include board memberships in the Maryland/DC Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, Seabury Resources for Aging (providing affordable housing and elder services in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area), and the Nantucket, Massachusetts Maria Mitchell Association (science education).

Emil is a noted civil and environmental engineer and manager with over 40 years of top-level experience. He is the retired Chairman and CEO of Hatch Mott MacDonald Infrastructure and Environment Inc. (formerly Killam Associates Inc.), where he was president for 26 years and led the organization through four ownership changes. He also served as CEO of Killam Randers, a public engineering company listed on the American Stock exchange as one of the Thero TerraTech Group of companies. He distinguished himself by managing the operation to consistently high pretax profits and organically growing the company from a local consulting engineering firm of 20 employees to over 600 at his retirement. 

Since his retirement in 2004, Emil has devoted himself to numerous philanthropic activities. He is currently emeritus Chairman of the Board of Overseers for the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Vice President-Treasurer and Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Board of Trustees for the New Jersey Opera, a member of the advisory group of Planting Empowerment, and mentor and advisor to RFWare - the winner of the 2008 McClosky Business Plan Competition. He continues to serve as a judge for the McClosky Business Plan Competition of the Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame. He is a founder of the NJIT Highlander Angels - currently in formation - to provide startup capital to NJIT originated startups, and is active in Engineers without Borders-USA, including establishment of a student chapter at NJIT.  

Emil has a BS from the University of Notre Dame and and an MS from NYU, and is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program.  He and his wife Ann have six children and four grandchildren.

Peter graduated with a BS in Economics and Human & Organizational Development from Vanderbilt in 1999. After working as a Project Manager at Capital One Financial for a few years, he decided to bid credit cards adieu to become a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin (West Africa). As a microfinance consultant to a few banks and an entrepreneurial coach for local students and adults, he learned quite a bit about how individuals can succeed in resource-constrained environments. 

Once leaving the Peace Corps, Peter began his MBA studies at Thunderbird on the European campus near Geneva, eventually working as an intern for the UN Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva for a full year on entrepreneurial training workshops in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. Upon leaving Geneva, he returned to Glendale, AZ to finish his MBA in late 2006. Peter is now acting as the Vice President of Sales and Operations at VisionSpring. He runs the global operations and sales, supply chain, etc. for VisionSpring in India, Bangladesh, China, Africa, and Central America.

Tom is an investment professional with more than 10 years of experience in the financial services industry. He is currently a Vice President at The Wicks Group of Companies, a $1 billion private equity firm that invests in the education, information and media industries. Since joining Wicks in 2005, Tom has been involved in the acquisition, strategy development, operational planning, and divestiture of the firm's investments. Prior to joining Wicks, Tom worked as an Investment Banking Associate at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York, where he structured, marketed and executed more than $9 billion in M&A, leveraged finance, and public securities transactions. 

In addition to holding leadership positions with alumni groups in the New York area, Tom currently serves on the Board of Directors of Harlem Prep, a non-profit public charter school in New York, and advises the Finance Committee of New Amsterdam Early Childhood Center, a Preschool and Kindergarten in lower Manhattan. 

Tom graduated from Georgetown University in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, in Economics and English. He currently lives in lower Manhattan with his wife, Sara, and daughter, Dorothy. Both Tom and Sara visited the Nuevo Paraíso and Adelante plantations 2008, and are strong proponents of the Planting Empowerment mission and business model.

Dr. Goodell, former SC&D director, earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University with a dissertation based on two-and-one-half years of field research in the World Bank's showcase Dez Irrigation Project in Khuzestan Province, Iran. The first agricultural anthropologist at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, she has been a visiting scholar at the Australian National University and at the Harvard Institute for International Development, a fellow in law and development at the Harvard Law School, and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 

Goodell's field research and applied work frequently link her with agricultural scientists in two main areas of agricultural development: crop protection and irrigation. She has had short-term assignments with numerous development agencies, and has served on various advisory boards. She is currently writing a book on the non-economic factors behind the rapid rise of East Asia's "four little dragons" (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea). Goodell has also lectured at various universities, published numerous articles, and collaborated in writing a university-level agricultural textbook for use in developing countries.

Sherif is a seasoned international marketing communications professional with more than 20 years experience. He is currently a Senior Director with ObjectDC, a multicultural marketing services firm in the Washington, DC area. Prior to joining ObjectDC, Sherif served as the Communications and Marketing Manager at Quadel Consulting, a national affordable housing management firm.

His background includes nonprofit fundraising and communications management with AMIDEAST, an international higher education and exchange organization. He also delivered communications services to the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of International Program. Sherif has worked in Egypt as a journalist, and an entrepreneur in publication services.

He earned his BA in International Relations from American University, and an MA in International Commerce from George Mason University. Sherif is a member of the Public Relations Society of America, and the International Association of Business Communicators. He speaks fluent Arabic.