Who We Are
Amigos Hospitalito Atitlán is governed by a seven member
Board of Trustees. We have all travelled
extensively in Guatemala. Some of us are
medical professionals and others offer a variety of skills to our efforts. We are all volunteers, working from volunteer
facilities, in an attempt minimize administrative overhead and maximize the
impact of your financial support. At
this time we have no paid staff and our only overhead consists of legal,
accounting and bank transaction related expenses.
Bonnie O’Neill, Board Chair
Bonnie is president of O'Neill & Associates, a consultant to
nonprofits and philanthropic organizations she founded in 1996. Prior to that, in 1986, she co-founded
Alexander O'Neill Haas, an Atlanta based international fundraising consulting
firm. Bonnie has worked with hundreds of
nonprofits and directed numerous capital, annual and endowment campaigns for a
wide range of charitable causes. A
popular speaker, Bonnie has been a featured presenter at international
conferences of the Association of Fund Raising Professionals (AFP), has served
as a faculty member at the Georgia Center for Nonprofits, and as a guest
lecturer at Emory University, Duke University and Kennesaw University among
many others. Her presentations, workshops and seminars cover many subjects
including best practices of annual funds, major gifts programs, capital
campaigns, board development and volunteer training.
A 1984 graduate of Leadership
Atlanta, Bonnie helped establish MedShare International, a U.S. based nonprofit
that distributes surplus medical supplies and equipment to needy hospitals and
clinics in countries throughout the economically developing world. Since it began in 1998, MedShare has
distributed more than $60 million worth of medical supplies and equipment. Bonnie served as Chair of its Board of
Trustees from 2001 to 2005. In March
2006, in recognition of her work with MedShare and many other nonprofits,
Bonnie was named Atlanta Woman of the Year by Atlanta WOMAN Magazine.
A graduate of Rosemont College,
Bonnie also attended the Sorbonne in Paris and is fluent in French. She is an avid traveler and has participated in
numerous international volunteer programs in Central and South America. Currently, Bonnie splits her time between
Atlanta and Lake Atitlán, Guatemala, where she and her partner David Adams have
recently built a home in San Marcos La Laguna.
Narda Sherman, Secretary Narda is a physician assistant from Portland,
Oregon. After graduating from the Oregon
Health Science University she worked for many years at General and Burn Surgery
for The Surgical Center, Inc. and the Oregon Burn Center. Since 2007 she has travelled repeatedly to
Guatemala on volunteer medical trips, working at Hospitalito Atitlán as a
clinician in Family Medicine and as a volunteer coordinator. Prior to studying medicine, Narda spent three
years as a Peace Corps volunteer and, later, as a consultant for The Carter
Center, working in Cote d'Ivoire, designing and supervising the National
Program for the Eradication of Guinea Worm. She has taught at, and served as the Director
of, the Montessori Institute's Children's House, a private school in Denver,
Colorado. Holding a Master's Degree in
Education from Loyola University, and a Bachelor's Degree in International
Politics from the University of California, she is currently working towards a
Certificate in Nonprofit Administration at Portland State University. She has lived in England, France, Sweden,
Peru, the US Virgin Islands, Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire, and speaks Spanish and
French. She is married and has two young children.
Ulysses Sherman, Treasurer Ulysses
is a principal of Aspen Capital Management, a diversified real estate
merchant-banking firm located in Portland, Oregon. At Aspen he is responsible for originating,
structuring and managing residential and commercial real estate loans and
investments. He also manages several
closely held, discretionary investment funds and serves as president of a
portfolio management company specializing in alternative investments. Before his work in real estate and finance,
Ulysses worked as a water resources engineer, performing municipal water
resources planning for the City of Boulder, Colorado and hydrologic studies of
mines in Central America. He also served
six years on the Board of Directors of the nonprofit Childpeace Montessori
School, where he assisted the placement of tax-exempt bond financing and
associated interest rate swap to fund the purchase of the school’s
facilities. Ulysses served as a Peace
Corps volunteer in Côte d'Ivoire after obtaining degrees in Physics (B.A.,
Williams College) and Civil Engineering (M.S., University of Colorado). He
speaks French and is studying Spanish.
He is married and has two young children.
Lyn Dickey Lyn
drove to Guatemala in 1980 and dreamed of returning someday to live on the
shores of Lake Atitlán. After receiving
a Bachelor's in Fine Arts in Photography from Stephen’s College, a women’s
college in Missouri, she spent twenty-five years as a mother, photographer and
artist in Eureka Springs Arkansas. During
these years she continued to travel to Mexico and Central America. In 1988, she worked with the City of Eureka
Springs, writing a grant for a curbside recycling program that is now
state-of-the-art. Lyn started her own
Natural Foods business, and when it sold in 2001, she and her husband built a
solar-powered home near Santiago Atitlán on the shores of Lake Atitlán,
fulfilling her longtime dream. Lyn has
served as Treasurer of the Guatemalan nonprofit organization, Asociación Pro
Salud, Educación Y Desarrollo “K’aslimaal”, since it’s founding in 2003. K’aslimaal was formed to re-open an abandoned
hospital on the outskirts of Santiago Atitlán, which was inaugurated in April
2005. Six months later the devastating
mudslides of tropical storm Stan destroyed the newly opened Hospitalito
Atitlán. Lyn was instrumental in the
resumption of medical services fifteen days after the disaster in a
back-packers hotel. Her roles at
K’aslimaal include public relations, grant writing, fundraising, coordination
of the renovation and construction activities, Financial Comptroller for the K’aslimaal
Board of Directors and chief photographer. She is learning the Tz’utujil language, driven
by her love of the people of Atitlán. She
enjoys the visits of her three children and grandchildren and making pitaya
wine.
Bill Cuneo Bill retired in
1999 from a career in business and financial consulting. The following year he traveled for the first
time to Guatemala where he visited several communities, including Santiago
Atitlán, and experienced the rich culture, gentle ways and immense poverty of
much of the population. Bill returned
home with a great desire to help the people of Guatemala. He started raising funds and his efforts
resulted in establishing two churches, a primary and secondary school in El
Sitio, and a carpentry school in Patzun. He founded the Marin County Guatemala Mission
which supports several organizations in Santiago Atitlán and other areas in the
western highlands. Bill and fellow
members of his church, St. Rita's in Fairfax, California, regularly load and
send containers of equipment and supplies for the schools and for Hospitalito
Atitlán. Each year, Bill leads a group
trip to Guatemala from St. Rita's. They
spend time in El Sitio and Patzun, meet with the teachers and school children
and then visit Hospitalito Atitlán where they see first hand the results of
their hard work and generosity. Bill is
a native and resident of San Francisco.
Brian L. Strom M.D., M.P.H
Dr. Strom holds multiple degrees, including a B.S. in Molecular
Biophysics and Biochemistry (Yale University in 1971), a M.P.H. (University of
California, Berkeley), and an M.D. (Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine, 1975). He has been on the
faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine since 1980 where
he has many roles, both clinical and administrative: Professor in the
departments of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Biostatistics &
Epidemiology, Pharmacology, Vice Dean for Institutional Affairs, School of
Medicine, and the Senior Advisor to the Provost for Global Health Initiatives.
Dr. Strom founded The Center for
Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (CCEB).
This center has over 550 faculty, research and support staff, and
trainees. It receives over $38 million
per year in extramural support, out of a total budget $58 million. In addition to authoring nearly 500 papers,
Dr. Strom has been principal investigator for over 225 grants, including over
$70 million in direct cost alone. He has
been invited to speak at more than 360 events outside his local area, including
the keynote speaker for numerous international meetings. Dr. Strom has been a
consultant to NIH, FDA, CDC, USP, AAMC, JCAHO, foreign governments, most major
pharmaceutical manufacturers, and many law firms.
Dr. Strom is the 2008 recipient of
the John Phillips Memorial Award for Outstanding Work in Clinical Medicine,
awarded by the American College of Physicians, one of the most prestigious
awards in Internal Medicine.
Robert Meyer, M.D. Dr. Meyer
is a practicing pediatrician and Medical Director of the Windsor Street Health
Center of the Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is also an Assistant Professor of
Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Associate Pediatrician at Massachusetts
General Hospital and the Pediatric Residency Director at The Cambridge
Hospital. Dr. Meyer is a graduate
of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the University of Pennsylvania School
of Medicine, and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston where he completed
his Pediatric Residency as Chief of Residency. Dr. Meyer first visited Guatemala in 2006
for a week of intensive Spanish immersion. He has since spent 2-4 weeks each year as a
volunteer physician at the Hospitalito Atitlán. He is married and the father of two wonderful
young adults.