Leadership

LRI Board of Directors 2009

Jack Lavery, Co-chair

Past president, S.L.E. Lupus Foundation
CEO and chairman, Lavery Consulting Group
Chairman & CEO, Lavery Consulting Group, L.L.C.
Spring Lake, New Jersey

Immediately prior to forming his own economic and public policy research firm, Jack Lavery was visiting professor and executive in residence on the undergraduate and graduate faculty of the Stillman School of Business of Seton Hall University. He had a distinguished 20-year career in key management positions at Merrill Lynch & Co, from chief economist worldwide to director of global equities. Mr. Lavery formerly served as chairman of the board at the Lupus Foundation of America and as a member of the S.L.E. Foundation Board of Directors.

Robert J. Ravitz, Co-chair

Past president, S.L.E. Lupus Foundation
Principal, Neuberger Berman, LLC
New York

Robert J. Ravitz received his bachelor of science from Colgate University in 1951, and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1956. He practiced law for six years in New York before joining the investment firm of David J. Greene & Co. in 1962, where he served as a principal. He is now with Neuberger Berman, LLC. Mr. Ravitz is a board member and former president of the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation, and a founding member of the Lupus Research Institute. He lives in Manhattan with his wife.

John Buck

Chairman and CEO, The John Buck Company
Chicago

Mr. Buck founded one of the Midwest’s largest real estate management and leasing companies, the John Buck Company (“JBC”). In addition to running this full-service real estate company headquartered in Chicago, John has long served the area community through participation on various committees and civic boards, from his company’s Foundation arm focused on at-risk children and families within the Chicago metro-area to organizations as diverse as the Big Shoulders Fund and the Metropolitan Planning Council. When his step-daughter Darby was diagnosed with lupus at age 24, John and his wife Kathleen committed himself to supporting field-changing, pioneering research for better treatments and a cure through the Lupus Research Institute.

Kathleen A. Buck

Chicago

Active in numerous Chicago philanthropic organizations, Kathi also was vital to the launch of the Lupus Research Institute’s Midwest division in 2006. “Like many people, I would have drawn a blank on hearing the word lupus if this devastating illness had not touched my family.” But it did, with effects exacting a steep toll on their daughter, and their involvement in energizing the LRI’s work across the Midwest and the nation has only grown over the years.

Jerome A. Chazen
New York

Debra Cowan
Los Angeles

Roger Cowan
Los Angeles

Jennie DeScherer
New York

Richard K. DeScherer
New York

C.J. Feinberg
San Francisco

Anita Fricklas
Denver

Susan Golick
New York

Hope Hetherington
New Canaan, CT

Thomas R. Kaplan
Pittsburgh

Stuart S. Kassan, MD
Lupus Foundation of Colorado
Denver

Dick Watson
Lupus Mid-Atlantic
Owing Mills, MD

JoAnn Quinn
Lupus Alliance of America
Bellmore, NY

Arthur Selkowitz
Stamford, CT

Daniel J. Wallace, MD
Lupus LA
Los Angeles