Barbara Goldberg, President & Founder
A native New Yorker, Barbara began a very exciting advertising and marketing career on Madison Avenue. She founded Responsive Research, Inc. and spent over thirty years as a marketing consultant, conducting focus groups for Fortune 500 companies, including Bank of America, Coca-Cola, American Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, General Motors, General Mills, IBM, and 3M to name a few. In 1975, she moved to Los Angeles where she continued to work and raise two children. In 1993, she founded Salon Forum, a non-business venture, to bring women together in her home for monthly events that support personal enrichment and connection. It has grown to include over 800 women.
In March of 2008, Barbara and other women of Salon Forum were inspired by one of its speakers, Gil Garcetti, to start “Wells Bring Hope.” She saw it as an opportunity to “give back” and so decided to devote her full time to saving lives in West Africa. In January of 2009, she was one of six women who went to Niger, a life-changing experience. She began speaking to community groups and schools to inspire others to take up this cause.
Gil Garcetti, Vice President
Gil Garcetti spent 32 years in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, including eight years until 2000 as Los Angeles County District Attorney. His involvement with bringing safe water to the people of West Africa began in January 2001, when he visited West Africa as the guest of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. The most startling fact he learned on this trip: roughly 70% of rural villages do not have access to safe water. He made four subsequent trips to West Africa and from the photographs he took, a book was born: “Water Is Key. Since 2006, he has worked tirelessly and successfully to raise awareness and funds to drill wells in West Africa. His life goal is to continue to fund wells to save lives with safe water.
Gil is an internationally acclaimed photographer, having published five photo books since 2002. In the Fall of 2007, the UCLA Fowler Museum had an exhibition of his photographs, “Women, Water and Wells.” In 2009, many of these photos were on exhibition in the visitors lobby of the United Nations in New York. In February, 2008, these same photographs and his words inspired the founding of “Wells Bring Hope.”
Lawrence Johnson, Treasurer
Larry has over 30 years of senior level executive management and business advisory experience. He currently serves as President of Passage Foods Group, LLC the US Marketing and distribution arm of Passage Foods Pty Ltd of Australia. Additionally, Larry is the founder and CEO of LR Johnson Associates LLC, a specialty products marketing and distribution company. Larry also provides strategic marketing advice and counsel for middle market businesses in food and related industries.
Larry is an active Member of the Rotary Club of Manhattan Beach, and has served in a variety of leadership roles in Rotary International’s District organization in the Los Angeles area. He is active in the local Episcopal Church, where he currently serves as a youth leader. A Louisiana native, he is a graduate of Boston College and also has an MBA from Columbia University.
Shanna Batten Aguirre, Secretary
A graduate of Duke University and the University of Virginia School of Law, Shanna Batten Aguirre moved to Los Angeles from Virginia in 1995 to pursue a career as a criminal prosecutor with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. She dedicated the subsequent fifteen years to zealous advocacy on behalf of victims of violent crimes both inside the courtroom and out in the Los Angeles community, working with a variety of non-profit organizations. Her career focused on the prosecution of gang murders, intra-familial violence, and sexual assaults on both adults and children. Initially on a temporary basis in 2008-2009 and now permanently, Shanna works as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, in their Office of International Affairs. She is based in Washington, DC– a dynamic location which, for her, has redefined the definition of ‘epicenter.’
Her pursuit of justice has led her to work with community-based organizations such as Peace Over Violence, Justice for Murdered Children, and Stand Up for Kids. For several years she served as a Big Sister and a member of the Board of Directors for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles. A seven-year survivor of breast cancer, Shanna is working on establishing a website and programming to promote breast health awareness in younger women. She is passionate about achieving justice in all forms and recognizes the potential of WBH’s work to enrich and to empower African communities.
Deborah Rothman, Member at Large
Deborah has a BA from Yale College, a law degree from NYU Law School, and a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. After practicing law, she started Baby Fair Enterprises, which put on fairs all over the U. S. for the pregnancy through preschool market, complete with educational presentations and non-profit exhibitors. She then trained to become a mediator and arbitrator, which has been her profession since 1991. In that time, she has helped resolve literally thousands of disputes in all industries, both domestically and internationally, involving people in all walks of life, including pro bono mediations through the Los Angeles Superior Court. In the field of Alternative Dispute Resolution, she has been named both a Southern California Super Lawyer, and a Best Lawyer in America, every year since 2006. She is devoted to increasing the number of women and minorities in the field of Alternative Dispute Resolution.
