Board of Directors

Amee Wood, President

Amee Wood, a native New Yorker, has lived in San Diego for the past 27 years and worked as a Psychiatric Social Worker. She has sung with the La Jolla Symphony chorus since she moved to the area, and has been a Board member for the past 8 years. Amee also has served on the Boards of the Sweetooth Theater and 6th @Penn Theater. She is an actress and is a member of the Screen Actors' Guild. Besides her artistic pursuits, Amee enjoys camping, bicycle riding and traveling.

Liza Perkins-Cohen, Vice President

Liza Perkins-Cohen is an attorney with the law firm of Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth. Her practice focuses on complex business litigation in state and federal courts, with a particular emphasis on securities litigation. She is also experienced in bankruptcy law and was a law clerk for the Honorable Arthur J. Gonzalez of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. She received her J.D. from New York University and her B.A. from the University of Chicago. Prior to attending law school, she was a Latin American equities analyst in New York and Brazil.

Ms. Perkins-Cohen moved to San Diego from New York City in 2001 and has served on the board of the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus since 2006. She is an avid music fan, and her tastes span from classical to jazz to Brazilian and beyond. Her hobbies include photography, gardening, and studying foreign languages.

Jennifer Smerud, Treasurer and Orchestra Representative

Ms. Smerud joined the La Jolla Symphony in 2004 and has played second clarinet, bass clarinet, and Eb clarinet for the past several seasons. She received her undergraduate degree in clarinet performance from Indiana University in 2000 where she studied with Howard Klug and James Campbell. She received her master's degree in accounting from Indiana and began working as a CPA in Chicago in 2001. She has worked as an auditor for four big accounting firms and as a corporate controller in private industry. She currently works in the tax and attest practice of Lipsey, Youngren, Means, Ogren & Sandberg, LLP in downtown San Diego.

George Anderson, Secretary and Chorus Representative

George Anderson is the senior technician and lab manager for a Geochemist for whom he has worked for the last 10 of his 30+ years at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He has a B.A. from Williams College where he majored in chemistry and a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University. He is married with two sons. He has been a member of the La Jolla Symphony Chorus for over 10 years and has sung in more than a few church choirs since high school.

Gordon R. Clark

Gordon R. Clark currently serves as president and CEO of Learner's Digest International, the leading provider of Continuing Medical Education credits for physicians and Web-based content management for medical societies. He was previously president and CEO of The Governance Institute, the leading source of governance knowledge and solutions for the CEOs and trustees of hospitals and health systems. Prior to The Governance Institute, Gordon led First American Records Management, a records and information management company headquartered in Silicon Valley. In addition to LJS&C, he serves on the Finance and Information Technology Committees of Sharp HealthCare's Board of Directors and as Board Chair of Access Information Management, a company with operations in California, Georgia, Hawaii, and Wisconsin. Gordon is a graduate of Cornell University and the Fordham University Graduate School of Business.

Dr. Joan Forrest

Joan Forrest has been a violinist in the La Jolla Symphony for 30 years. She has been a board Member since July 2005. Dr. Forrest has lived in San Diego since 1978. She is a retired dentist from Del Mar where she practiced for 29 years. She received her BA from University of Pennsylvania, her DMD from Boston University and did a general practice residency at the VA Hospital in La Jolla. She enjoys exercise and travel as well as music.

 

Marty Hambright, Chorus Representative

Marty received a bachelor's degree from Northern Illinois University and a master's degree from San Diego State University. Music training began at age eight with piano lessons and voice lessons in high school, both of which continued in college. Singing in the a cappella choir in high school and the University Chorus and Concert Choir at Northern began her chorus experiences. She also studied voice and theory at Chicago Musical College.

After teaching for six years in Chicago, Marty moved to San Diego and continued her elementary teaching career. After a 6 year hiatus from singing, Marty joined the 1st Unitarian Church choir for a few years before joining the La Jolla Civic/ University Orchestra and Chorus, as it was called in 1973. Marty is now retired after 41 years of teaching. To keep in touch with children, she volunteers at Birch Aquarium in the Discovery Lab.

Dr. Ida Houby, Chorus Representative

Ida Houby, a native Dane, originally came to San Diego as a graduate student to study with renowned psychologists in the area, and earn her Ph.D. in clinical Psychology.

She met and married her American husband soon after, and has returned to Denmark only for visits. Ida is a practicing psychologist in Del Mar and Solana Beach since 1990 with special interest in life-transitions and psycho-oncology, a subject she has taught, along with research methods, at universities in the area.

She reconnected with her musical past (B.A. in Music Education from the University of Copenhagen) when she joined the La Jolla Symphony Chorus in 1997.

Stephen Marsh

Stephen Marsh is a partner at Luce Forward, attorneys at law, in San Diego. At the firm, he is chair of the Environmental practice group, specializing in hazardous waste and toxic tort litigation, and advising businesses and property owners on issues related to environmental issues in connection with corporate and real estate purchasing, leasing and financing. He earned his JD at the University of Michigan, after receiving a bachelor's from Wayne State University in Chemistry and conducting graduate work at Florida State University in Sediment/Geochemistry.

Steve has served on numerous boards, both connected to his professional life and personal interests. He is a singer in the La Jolla Symphony Chorus.

Carolyn McClain

Carolyn McClain has over 30 years of experience in marketing, strategic planning, executive communications and software engineering. In 2005, she retired from Sun Microsystems to pursue her passions for travel, learning, and music. As a Sun Microsystems executive, she held roles in systems marketing, strategic business planning, and software engineering. Prior to Sun, she held product marketing positions at Cray Research Business Systems, Floating Point Systems, and TeleSoft. She was also a member of San Diego's pioneering graphics software company, ISSCO and did a stint as a marketing consultant.

Carolyn earned her B.A. in Economics from UCSD, and attended the Graduate School of Business at CSU San Diego.

Cynthia Mendez

Cynthia Mendez is Director of Global Human Resources with BakBone Software, a $53 million software development company in San Diego. Prior to her position with BakBone, she was Principal of HR Link, a company that specialized in consulting projects. Cynthia has over 20 years business experience in Human Resources with an emphasis in Performance-Based Compensation, Strategic Planning, HR Audits and Process Analysis, Legal Compliance including Fair labor Standards Act (FLSA) Audits, Technical and Senior Level Recruitment, Organizational Effectiveness, Employee Relations, Handbooks and Policies, Management Coaching, as well as other Human Resources activities.

Her experience spans the fields of Bio-related (Technology, Medical, Pharmaceutical), Health Services, Telecommunications, Gaming, Electronics, Manufacturing, and Banking industries. She has consulted in such areas as the design and implementation of competitive performance and compensation processes and systems intended to bridge performance and pay to a Company's strategic plan.

Brendi Rawlin, Orchestra Representative

Brendi Rawlin plays oboe in the La Jolla Symphony Orchestra. In August of 2007, she started her own public relations firm, Limelight PR, with a focus on clients in the lifestyle and entertainment industries.

James R. Rosenfield

Jim Rosenfield attends over 150 musical events a year, and serves on the boards of eighth blackbird (Chicago based new music ensemble) and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP). He is president of MATA/Young Composers - Now! in New York, an organization founded in 1997 by Philip Glass and others to nurture, mentor, and commission composers at the beginnings of their careers.

Jim has served on Carnegie Hall's Patrons Council, and on the boards of Mainly Mozart and La Jolla Music Society. His musical activities include commissioning new works: a string quartet by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, premiered by Cuarteto Latinoamericano in San Diego May, 2006; "Singing in the Dead of Night," by Bang on a Can/David Lang, premiered by eighth blackbird at Carnegie Hall April, 2008; and Lisa Bielawa's Double Concerto, premiered in Boston March, 2008.

He bridges his musical and non-musical lives via seminars he delivers in arts marketing for Chamber Music America and League of American Orchestras, and through pro-bono consultation with numerous arts organizations, including the UCSD Department of Music. He is currently advising several organizations on board formation and board governance.

In his non-musical life as a marketing consultant, Jim has delivered over 1,500 seminars and speeches worldwide, published a book and hundreds of articles and white papers, and has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Forbes, Fortune, Business Week, CNN, ABC's "20/20," "Dateline: NBC," CBS's "60 Minutes," NPR, and many others. He has worked often with Citigroup, American Airlines, AT&T, Bank of America, IBM, and other household names. From 1989 through 2004 he was Senior Outside Marketing Consultant for MasterCard International. A graduate of Columbia University, Jim resides in Carlsbad CA and Manhattan. Website: www.jrosenfield.com