Foreign Policy Research Institute Announces New Members of its Board of Trustees

• January 5, 2021

The Foreign Policy Research Institute is very pleased to announce the election in 2020 of six new members to its Board of Trustees.

Each new Trustee brings decades of expertise and leadership in the foreign policy, business, and philanthropic communities. We look forward to their contributions.

 

Richard L. Berkman is a retired partner at Dechert, LLP. He is particularly known for handling AIDS and Hepatitis C cases, representing clients such as Baxter Healthcare Corporation. He handles large commercial cases in federal court trials, arbitrations, and when possible, in settlements. Since 2013, Mr. Berkman has authored numerous articles and treatises regarding mass torts, particularly regarding AIDS cases. Mr. Berkman has been involved with the American Jewish Committee for 45 years. He is a past President of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia. Currently, Berkman is Vice Chair of the Monell Chemical Senses Center and is also on the board of the Children’s Literacy Initiative in Philadelphia.

 

Larry Ceisler is the Founder and Principal of Ceisler Media and Issue Advocacy. With offices in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh, CMIA represents clients from Fortune 50 Corporations to community-based non-profits. It is a nationally recognized issue management firm. Mr. Ceisler is a respected analyst of electoral politics and government and is frequently quoted in publications across Pennsylvania and nationally, including: The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The New York Times, The Washington Post and NPR. In 1986, he served as Deputy Campaign Manager for Mayor W. Wilson Goode’s successful re-election effort. He then served as the Goode Administration’s Special Assistant for Governmental Relations and later joined the City Commerce Department as Special Counsel.

 

Laura LaRosa is Glenmede’s Executive Director of Client Development for all of Glenmede’s offices. As one of two executive members of the Company’s Management Committee, she is responsible for setting the strategy and practices that guide the Company’s business development professionals. Ms. LaRosa and her team spearhead initiatives to broaden relationships with individuals, families, endowments and foundations. Ms. LaRosa is also a Board member of the Committee of Seventy, Mural Arts Philadelphia, Friends of Rittenhouse Square, St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, the Acorn Club and Friends of The Avenue of The Arts. In addition, Ms. LaRosa is on the Corporate Leadership Board for The Barnes Foundation.

 

Alan Luxenberg Alan Luxenberg retired after 44 years of service at FPRI, serving as president from 2012 to 2019 (and Acting President from 2011 to 2012).  During his presidency, he diversified the Institute’s sources of revenue, strengthened its commitment to nonpartisanship and fostered the presentation of different points of view, expanded its public programming and its educational programming, developed new partnerships with numerous institutions in and out of Philadelphia, and elevated its public profile. He served on the boards or advisory boards of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, the World Affairs Council of Greater Valley Forge, the Satell Institute for Corporate Responsibility, and the Global Philadelphia Association.

 

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.  He serves as the Japan Chair at the Hudson Institute and Chairman of the Center for Political and Military Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy.  He was the 26th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years after graduation from West Point.  He holds a PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He is author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World and Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam.

 

Amb. Charles A. Ray served as U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Republic of Zimbabwe. In addition, he was the first U.S. Consul General to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, opening the Consulate General there in 1998. From 2006 to 2009, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs, responsible for DoD efforts to account for those missing in combat from World War II to the then current conflicts and for policy related to the rescue of personnel who become isolated, missing, or taken in service abroad. Ray is currently a member of the board of directors of the American Academy of Diplomacy, communications director for the Association of Black American Ambassadors, chair of the Una Chapman Cox Foundation Advisory Council, and a member of the board of the Cold War Museum.

 

“Our new trustees represent the very best in their diverse fields and they will bring deep expertise and commitment to FPRI’s mission to inform and educate policy makers and the public in national security and international affairs. We’re deeply honored to have them join FPRI’s Board of Trustees,” commented Rollie Flynn, President of FPRI.

“That we have attracted to our board six people so highly qualified in the public, private and philanthropic sectors of our society is a tribute to the appeal of our non-partisan, thoughtful, quality research into the issues confronting American foreign policy.” Robert L. Freedman, Chairman of the FPRI Board of Trustees

About the Foreign Policy Research Institute

FPRI is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank located in Center City Philadelphia. Its mission is to bring the insights of scholarship to bear on the foreign policy and national security challenges facing the United States. It seeks to educate the public, teach teachers, train students, and offer ideas to advance U.S. national interest based on a nonpartisan, geopolitical perspective that illuminates contemporary international affairs through the lens of history, geography and culture.

For more information about FPRI, please visit http://www.fpri.org or contact Eli Gilman at 215-732-3774 ext. 103.