APH Board Members
Sarah White President |
Sarah White provides writing services for individuals, families, businesses, and communities from her home base in Madison, Wisconsin. Typical projects include books, interviews, workshops, and intergenerational programs. She joined APH and attended her first conference in 2002, and launched First Person Productions in 2006. She served on the board (2005-06 as marketing director, 2007-08 as Regions Director). She hopes to bring to the office of President a commitment to look after the long-term interests of APH. This position in particular interests her because of the opportunity for Board action to be guided by APH’s recently updated strategic plan.
» Read more about Sarah » Email Sarah White |
Susan Luccini Vice President |
Susan Luccini began her personal history business in 2005 and joined APH in 2006. For many years prior to that, she had worked as a teacher in places as varied as Ghana, Malaysia, Italy, and the United States and, from 2000 to 2005, had been principal of a Montessori school for children (pre-school through eighth grade). During her tenure there, a teacher suggested that staff members write about their remembrances of being a child in winter. These charming stories captivated her and piqued her interest in personal history. In addition, during the 1970s and 1980s, she had worked as a writer and editor for educational publishing companies and had learned to set type and print pamphlets and books on a hand press. When she retired, it seemed natural to combine her interest in people with creating finely made books in which to preserve their memories. Thus her business, SML Publishing, was born. Susan has been active in the NorCal regional group, serving as that region's coordinator from 2008 to 2010 and has, for the past year, served on the APH Board as Membership Director. Susan lives with her husband, Ezio, in the beautiful natural surroundings of the Sierra Foothills in northern California.
» Read more about Susan » Email Susan Luccini |
Marty Walton Treasurer |
Marty Walton served as APH’s Operations Manager for seven years. Marty’s continued interest is mainly the financial underpinnings that support the organization. As Treasurer, she is the chair of the Finance Committee andworks with the board on various board projects involving financial policies and procedures. Marty’s personal history business, The Storehouse Collection of Memories, founded in 1995 with her partner Linda Lyman, grew along with the beginnings of APH. That business continues in a modified form, as helping organizations grow and develop has been Marty’s main focus for the past thirty-some years.
» Read more about Marty » Email Marty Walton |
RoseMarie Morrell Secretary |
Rose Marie Morrell of Orem, Utah, joined APH in August 2008. She realized that APH would connect her to other people who had a passion for writing personal and family histories. She is now enjoying the wonderful stories of others as well as continuing to learn through APH educational opportunities. From the beginning, Rose Marie focused on writing small one-story books because she loves to sit and read stories with her grandchildren. Her short personal histories about family members are their favorites as they learn about grandpa, grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins. With an educational background and experience in secretarial and business skills along with her love of history and personal stories, Rose Marie's skills and experience will be put to use maintaining the records of the APH organization and support the membership as they use all the benefits of membership.
» Read more about RoseMarie » Email RoseMarie Morrell |
Sue Hessel At-Large Director |
Sue Hessel, from La Crosse, Wisconsin, calls her personal history business Lessons From Life because she believes that we all have stories, experiences and lessons to share with current and future generations. In writing dozens of history books for individuals, families, businesses, organizations and communities, Sue prides herself in doing research that fills in the history or what she calls the back story behind the events of individual lives. She believes the strength of personal history lies in connecting generations and helping young people appreciate the experiences of previous generations. Sue considers it an honor to be nominated to serve on the APH board. "I have gotten so much from APH since I joined in 2005 that I’m eager to give back to this association."
» Read more about Sue » Email Sue Hessel |
cj Madigan Communications Director |
cj Madigan of Vero Beach, Florida, attended her first APH Conference in 2006 and has attended every one since. cj served as APH graphic designer for two years, regularly presents at APH conferences, contributes to the newsletter, and offers teleclasses through the APH education program. She has been designing and producing print publications since the early days of what was then called “desktop publishing” and is now referred to as simply “the way we create books.” Her business, Shoebox Stories, has designed and produced books for APH members and their clients as well as for her own individual, business, and institutional clients. For the past decade, she has digitized, enhanced, and manipulated tens of thousands of photos, including significant collections of historical photos for the Archive Center of the Indian River County (FL) Library. In past lives, cj has been an executive secretary, operations supervisor, corporate trainer, technical writer, systems analyst, and project manager. She brings these experiences and skills to her responsibilities as APH communication director.
» Read more about cj » Email cj Madigan |
Marianne Waller Conference Director |
Marianne Waller of Philadelphia, PA, discovered APH just before the 2003 Denver conference, as she was considering next career steps after more than 20 years in the corporate and advertising agency areas of the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry. After four incredible conference days in Denver, she returned to Philadelphia eager to get started in her new profession. By the time of the 2004 conference, she had produced a book for her first client, a retired coalminer turned railroad conductor from western Pennsylvania. She has worked with numerous Holocaust survivors, helping them preserve the stories behind their tragedies and triumphs, and is currently working on a trilingual, multicultural project with the family of a grandmother born and raised in Rajasthan, India, who has spent her adult life in Japan. As APH conference director, Marianne provides long-range planning and board oversight to ensure that the annual APH conference offers a professional forum for advancing the field of personal history and the education of APH members.
» Read more about Marianne » Email Marianne Waller |
Pat McNees Education Director |
Pat McNees of Bethesda, Maryland, has been helping people write their life stories since 1990. A commissioned biography about a Midwestern industrialist (An American Biography) led her in two directions: helping others write their memoirs and writing interview-based histories of organizations. Pat came to personal history work after being, in turn, an editor in book publishing, a freelance journalist, and an independent writer-editor. She teaches life story writing at the Writer's Center in Bethesda and is co-editor (with Paula Yost) of My Words Are Gonna Linger: The Art of Personal History. She is stepping down from the APH presidency to focus on education—basic training for new personal historians and advanced training for those with experience.
» Read more about Pat » Email Pat McNees |
Marcy Davis Marketing Director |
Marcy Davis grew up steeped in the fine art of promotion with both parents in PR and marketing. From an early career in theater direction, she went on to produce TV/Radio commercials/corporate films for over 20 years at New York advertising agencies. As VP, Senior Producer, Marcy worked on everything from public service announcements to major rebranding campaigns. Her career continued as a marketing consultant and project director for companies such as Microsoft and Starbucks and finally formed her own business helping smaller ventures flourish via their websites, marketing materials, special events and projects. When her brother had a late-in-life child, Marcy “discovered” personal history as she created a family blog especially for her nephew. Since joining APH in 2009, she has had the honor of serving on the board as secretary. Now, she will be putting her marketing background to better use. As Marketing Director, Marcy endeavors to bring greater awareness to APH and its members by enthusiastically trumpeting the joy of life story preservation in all of its forms.
» Read more about Marcy » Email Marcy Davis |
Annie Payne Membership Director |
Annie Payne, an Australian personal historian, founded History from the Heart, in 2006, when she joined APH. She first commenced interviewing people about their life stories in 1988 as a Bicentennial project and hasn’t stopped following her passion. Annie attended the 2008 and 2010 conferences, reaffirming her personal history work and strengthening friendships. She draws on the skills and knowledge in her kit bag from her professional experience in nursing, social work, membership, events and PR management, and tertiary education lecturer, to apply to her latest career. Annie spreads the personal history word in Australia and New Zealand via frequent radio interviews and articles in ‘Inside History,’ Australia’s new Family History magazine, and community newspapers. Living in Australia, where the concept of personal history is largely unknown, Annie understands the difficulties faced by overseas members of APH who can’t easily access many of the Association’s resources and benefits. As the first Membership Director from outside North America, Annie aims to encourage more member interaction, especially from/with international APH’ers.
» Read more about Annie » Email Annie Payne |
Jane Shafron Nominations Director |
Jane Shafron joined APH in 2007, the year she and her husband established Your Story Here LLC, a boutique documentary production company specializing in creating bespoke video biography and personal history documentaries. Jane's passion is to bring personal stories to life, insisting on the highest standards in all phases of the production process. She has studied oral history and voice acting and is a master video biographer. Before becoming a personal historian, Jane practiced as an attorney in Australia. Based in Orange County, California, and traveling across the US for her clients, Jane's projects have delighted hundreds of satisfied clients and their friends and families. Her touching documentary films have been featured in festivals in the United States and Canada, and have won numerous awards.
» Read more about Jane » Email Jane Shafron |
Beth LaMie Online Director |
Beth LaMie of Kankakee, Illinois, discovered the joy of family stories while sitting around the kitchen table as a child, enthralled by the tales told by family members. In 2007, she started writing life stories about her family and realized there was a good market for short personal histories, such as tributes, memorials, and vignettes. Beth joined APH that same year and later contributed as a writer to the APH Toolkit on products & services (for members only). In addition to her writing, Beth teaches workshops, teleclasses, and webinars on personal histories and ethical wills for adults, teens, and children as young as eight. As the APH Online Director, she hopes to use forty years of corporate and project management experience and writing skills to urge people to preserve their stories while they can.
» Read more about Beth » Email Beth LaMie |
Dawn Thurston Regions Director |
Dawn Thurston, of Orange County, California, joined APH in 2003 and became regions director in 2011. A long-time genealogist and freelance writer, Dawn became interested in personal history after writing a family history of her grandparents, a Scots coal-mining family. She learned so much through the process of writing and publishing their story, she realized she could help others write their personal and family histories. She joined the faculty of Santiago Canyon College in 1997 and has helped hundreds of students—mostly older adults—write and publish their life stories. She has also taught classes at the University of Utah and Brigham Young University and has presented workshops for a variety of organizations affiliated with personal and family history, including APH. Dawn's husband, Morris, shares her interests; together they wrote Breathe Life into Your Life Story: How to Write a Story People Will WANT to Read (2007).
» Read more about Dawn » Email Dawn Thurston |