Board of Directors

Howard W. Gleason | President

Howard has been a board member of Feed the Hungry for over two years having been recruited to raise funds for the organization. He and his wife Lynne first summered in San Miguel in 1978, making it their full-time home since 2003. He has many contacts locally and internationally through his business experience. Following graduation from Tulane University, he progressed through General Electric’s Business Training program and then on to a series jobs before establishing his own construction-related consulting business in 1977. His firm had offices in Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles and London. They worked in 48 States and 17 foreign countries. Projects included the Channel Tunnel, Euro Disney, Kuala Lumpur City Center, New York City Water Tunnel III, flood control projects in Arizona and the Florida State Capitol. Clients included Disney, Anaconda, Texas DOT, Consolidated Edison, Seimens Corp, New Orleans Airport Authority, BOAC and ARAMCO.

C. Anthony Adlerbert | President Emeritus

As CEO of Preferred Investment Group, Tony has more than 25 years experience in financing, development, purchasing of failing companies and acquiring and rehabilitating large scale apartment developments. He has figured in the development of an 18,000 acre model city, as well as in the formation, redevelopment and management of projects for inclusion in investment tax shelters. He has packaged development financing and syndication of over forty projects. His broad knowledge has resulted in his association with such entities as Ticor Relocation Corps, United Airlines, ATT Long Lines, Larson Mortgage Company, and Executive Plans. His education background includes graduate course work at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Vermont's Princeton ETS Exam, in addition to the Society of Real Estate Appraisers certification courses. Vermont Governors appointed him to the Vermont Business Roundtable, the Vermont Higher Education Planning Commission, and the Finance Review Commission. In 1991, he and his wife Shirley purchased their home in San Miguel. At that time Feed the Hungry was an outreach program of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. It had been started by Bill Casleberry and comprised of three soup kitchens. Three years later, when Tony was asked to take it over, he designed a new business model, closed one kitchen and the rest is history. He remained Executive Director for more than ten years.

Carol Sedestrom Ross | Vice President

Carol was born in Ohio and raised in Michigan. She graduated from the University of Michigan, School of Art with a BS in Design and a teaching certificate. She continued her education at the Horace Rackham School of Graduate Studies in Ann Arbor. She taught art for seven years, grades 1–12. In 1973, she took over the management of a craft fair in Bennington, Vermont, moved it to Rhinebeck, New York, and in 1975 she became president of American Craft Enterprises, a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Craft Council. During her 19 years as president, she initiated 11 major craft marketing events in the US and supervised the advertising and public relations for all of them. She has served on the boards of many craft organizations, has made marketing presentations in all 50 states and in 35 countries. She served as a consultant to The National Endowment of the Arts, the State Department, the White House and the Corporate Council on Africa. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Museum of Women in the Arts for her work in bringing American crafts to the attention of the public. In 1992, she became Director of Craft Marketing for George Little Management, the largest producer of consumer goods shows in the US. She retired from that position in 2005 and she and her husband moved to San Miguel. They volunteered to help with events for Feed the Hungry and she was invited to serve on the Board in 2006. Her extensive experience in advertising and public relations has earned her the title of “Mrs. Communications” at Feed the Hungry.

Pat Donnelly | Treasurer

Pat graduated from John Carroll University with a degree in Management and was promptly drafted by the US Army. He served as an officer in Viet Nam, returning to the states to work in a manufacturing company making machinery, working his way up to be president. He went on to work for a Japanese transplant company and another automotive supplier. In addition he served on the boards of directors of two publicly traded companies. He and his wife Jackie first came to San Miguel de Allende in 2003 and bought a house in 2004. They spend half of their time in San Miguel and the balance in Michigan.

Duane Eriksmoen | Director Food Distribution

Duane received his BSc in Agricultural Science from North Dakota State University. He specialized in international agricultural development mainly in Africa, residing in Tanzania, Sudan and Uganda for nearly 20 years. During his last assignment in Uganda he managed the USAID PL480–Title II program involving the importation, warehousing and distribution of US$ 21 million surplus food throughout Uganda as well as managing the US$20 million program for the rehabilitation of agricultural marketing cooperatives. He and his wife Bonnie moved to San Miguel in 2003 and found the Feed the Hungry program a natural extension of his experience in Africa. He is responsible for stocking, warehousing, allocating, and distributing of food commodities to all Feed the Hungry kitchens.

Michael Long | Recording Secretary

Michael grew up in Texas, receiving BA and MA degrees in English from Texas A&M University. His service as an Army officer took him to Ft. Bliss, Texas, then to Ft. Sheridan, Illinois. He and his wife Cheri fell in love with the Midwest and remained in Illinois for twenty-two years (except for a three-year stint in Brazil). He received Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry degrees from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. He has been an Episcopal priest for 32 years, having served parishes in northern Illinois and Brazil before coming to San Miguel in 1997 to become rector of St. Paul’s Church. One of the influential factors in his enthusiastic acceptance of the position at St. Paul’s was that church’s commitment to reach out to the needy in San Miguel, and Feed the Hungry was the most potent manifestation of that commitment. He also serves as archdeacon for the Bajío Region of the Diocese of Mexico and serves on the Standing Committee of the same.

Dianne Walta Hart | Board Member

Dianne became involved with Feed the Hungry by writing articles about the kitchens’ cooks, something she loved doing because for several years she has written oral histories, among them two books on Nicaraguans (Thanks to God and the Revolution and Undocumented in L.A.). Her academic education at Minnesota’s College of St. Catherine and Oregon State University led to teaching positions in the Los Angeles schools and then to OSU, where she directed a statewide study-abroad program in Ecuador, OSU’s International Degree, and finally served as the Latin America Director of the Oregon University System’s international internship program. Over the years she has taught English, Spanish, Latin American Culture, and in 2005 she taught Migrant Studies at UNLA in Morelia. She first came to San Miguel in 1992 to visit a friend, returned every year after that, and since 2001 she and her husband Tom have been homeowners and part-time residents.

Frederick A. Stresen-Reuter II | Board Member

Fred is a fourth-generation Midwestern American. Although his parents and teachers despaired of his ever finding a suitable occupation, Lake Forest College finally granted him a B.A. in history after countless futile attempts to pass a comprehensive mathematics examination. He spent a summer studying German in Salzburg, where he fell in love with the music of Mozart despite having no musical inclination whatsoever. While employed for most of his adult life by a multinational corporation in a marketing capacity, Fred was elected the founding president of the Woodstock Mozart Festival largely because he did not want to drive all the way to Chicago to hear such music. For this he was decorated with the Austrian Knight's Cross of Honour for Science and Art by the Federal President of Austria. Bringing his talents to bear on a career in agricultural advertising and marketing, he received a surprising number of national and international awards and has been listed in Who's Who in the Midwest, Who's Who in Finance & Industry, and Who's Who in the World. After becoming redundant at the multinational corporation, Fred bought a metal fabricating company in Wisconsin and later a B&B in Lake Geneva, which was an exercise in creating a small fortune out of a large one. His interest in Feed the Hungry began when he moved to San Miguel. He specializes in finding new kitchen locations, working with indigenous Mexicans and exploring remote locations.

Horst Tutepastell | Board Member

After tasting the flavor and difference of foreign countries' cultures on many bicycle excursions in Europe during his high school years, Horst decided to be trained in export promotion, selling and marketing. As a result, he lived and worked with German companies in Egypt, Lebanon, Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. During the six years that he served as the Latin American Director of an international German company in Sao Paulo, he traveled to all the Latin American countries including the Spanish-speaking Caribbean Islands. Since Mexico was his first contact with the Americas as Assistant Commercial Attaché at the German Embassy in Mexico City (1968-1970), Horst and his wife Stefanie decided that there was no other choice left but to choose Mexico and San Miguel de Allende as their retirement residence, following the Mexican motto "Como Mexico, no hay dos.” Having lost their only child in a car accident in Peru, Horst and his wife became involved in Feed the Hungry soon after their arrival in 1998 by building the kitchen in La Cuadrilla. Since 2007, Horst has served as a Board member.