Board of Trustees

Jo Cooper is from Mt. Desert Island, Maine. She attended local schools and earned a BA from Wellesley College and a Master of Letters (M.Litt.) from the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland. She helped run her family’s small manufacturing business for 14 years, producing fine natural fiber textiles sold across the country and in Japan and the UK. She began volunteering for Hospice in 1995, when an elderly friend died alone in a nursing home. As an active hospice volunteer, she became aware of the many unmet needs of older people in the community. In 2001, she became Program Assistant for Island Connections, one of the early Faith in Action programs that was started in 1996. Excited by the potential of the Faith in Action model, she formed a community task force in Ellsworth to discuss the needs of older people in the rest of Hancock County. This led to the founding of Friends in Action through a RWJF grant in 2003, with a coalition of 14 churches, and 10 other community organizations. She has been the Executive Director since then and is retiring in May, 2022.

After re-entering the paid labor market in 2016, Jane has been fortunate to have some wonderful opportunities in the nonprofit sector. In her last assignment, she led one of the original Faith in Action organizations, Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers of New Haven (carenewhaven.org) where she championed services for older adults seeking to age in place.  She is currently the Executive Director of The Get In Touch Foundation, a Milford-based nonprofit organization, where she combines her long-standing interests in women’s health and wellness, the practical details of helping people connect to health care and engage in networking and creative collaboration to help make great things happen. 

Paula Marrone-Reese not only serves as NVCN’s Ambassador for the State of West Virginia, she is one of the Lead Ambassadors for the country helping to represent the Volunteer Caregiving movement at the national level.  A veteran director with more than 20 years of experience and a specialty in grant writing, Paula’s local program was recently honored as one of the top non-profits in West Virginia.  She enjoys sharing Best Practices with Volunteer Caregiving Program Directors across the country.

Tom Purdy, Ed.D., spent most of his career teaching post secondary, secondary and middle school mathematics and raising his two (now grown) children. Today, he resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee with his wife and runs a land development and property management business as President of Purdy-Gregg Properties, a business business he and his wife started in 2014.

Inez Russell is the founder and Executive Director of Friends for Life, a charity that provides care for the elderly and people who have disabilities.Friends for Life received national recognition for its work when it was selected as one of 16 ‘outstanding charities’ nationwide to be featured in a report published by the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C. based research firm. The charity has been recognized three times by the Acton Institute of Michigan who named Friends for Life one of the ‘most compassionate and effective human service initiatives’ in the United States. Fordham University in New York in their Grotta Report, named Friends for Life one of the nation’s best practice models for caring for the elderly and the University of California at Berkeley named Friends for Life at best practice model in caregiving. Inez received the YWCA Pathfinder’s Award for Civic Leadership, the Woman of Distinction award from the Girl Scout Council, was named Woman of the Year by Altrusa International, Inc. of Waco, Citizen of the year and in 2015 she was named CNN Hero for the work of Friends for Life.

For more than 30 years, James Firman, EdD, has been a leading force for innovation in services, programs, and public policies for older persons. After 45 years of service in nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, including serving as NCOA CEO and President for 25 years, Firman recently co-founded BellAge Inc and BellAge Labs, social enterprises that are using artificial intelligence and machine learning to help millions of people across the world to age well. 

Until now, Jeff Miller has been living his “volunteer caregiving” life vicariously through his father Doug who has been volunteering in California for several years.  While his professional endeavors are weighted in the public sector where he leads a marketing team for NowSecure, a cybersecurity firm based out of Chicago, Illinois, his academic roots are at the University of Arizona where he studied Sociology and Communications.  He looks forward to blending his skillset to bring fresh ideas to fundraising, to promote NVCN’s CareWorks platform and to support the 40th Anniversary celebration.

CEO Mike Reese has been a Signarama franchisee for more than 20 years.  He first purchased the Ventura County-based business in 2000, and has become one of the long-standing members of the Franchise Advisory Council for Signarama’s Corporate Headquarters out of Florida.  He is a respected member of the Ventura South Rotary Club and former Ambassador for the Ventura Chamber of Commerce.  In addition to his passion for marketing, Mike is an avid fisherman and family man.