Our Board

Hiker extraordinaire – No peak too high!

Despite earning master’s degrees in finance and law, Victoria Gray has dedicated her career to education reform as founder of the nonprofit organization Student Achievement & Advocacy Services and its primary program Adven­tures of the Mind. Ms. Gray is also the founding creator of Take on Money, a finance capability and literacy course for students of all ages. As a complement to her mission to help young people fulfill their potential, she recently joined the board of How I Decide, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to studying and improving the decision-making skills in youths.

One of the world’s premier paleontologists, Jack Horner, discovered the first dinosaur eggs in the Western Hemisphere, the first evidence of dinosaur colonial nesting, the first evidence of parental care among dinosaurs, and the first dinosaur embryos. Dr. Horner’s research covers a wide range of topics about dinosaurs, including their behavior, physiology, ecology and evolution. He is the Curator of Paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana and worked as technical advisor to Steven Spielberg for the “Jurassic Park” movies.

Novelist, literary critic, and essayist Walter Kirn has written eight books including “Up in the Air” which was made into a major motion picture starring George Clooney. Mr. Kirn has written for a number of publications including GQ, New York, and the New York Times Magazine and has received popularity for his entertaining and sometimes humorous first person essays in Time where he currently serves as a contributing editor. Mr. Kirn’s newest book, “Blood Will Out”, is the true story of his ten-year friendship with Clark Rockefeller, an eccentric man of privilege eventually unmasked as a brazen serial impostor, kidnapper, and murderer.

Vice President of Louis L’Amour Enterprises, Beau L’Amour has worked as a literary editor, art director, and marketing director. Mr. L’Amour received praise for his script written for graphic novel reinterpretation of his father’s dust-and-blood western novel, “Law of the Desert Born”. He has served as a supervising producer, writer, and director on over 80 audiobook productions, many created in an ‘old time radio theater’ style.

Amy Sue Leavens has over 18 years of experience as an adviser to executive officers and boards of directors in for-profit and non-profit environments. She is currently the General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Capital Impact Partners, a Certified Community Development Financial Institution with over $1 billion in assets under management, more than 30 subsidiaries and offices in 3 locations. She is licensed to practice in the District of Columbia, Virginia, California and Pennsylvania.

In recent years Gerry has spent much of his time in the nonprofit sector. Prior to that, he worked in manufacturing, investment banking, and private equity. He is or has been a director of various corporations and nonprofit organizations, including the Reason Foundation, the Santa Fe Institute, the Property and Environment Research Center, Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Africa Fighting Malaria, the Gruter Institute, the Intelligence Squared debate series, the Museum of the Rockies, and the Yellowstone Park Foundation. He has been Co-Chairman of the President’s Council at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and is a member of the New York Academy of Science. In the film industry Gerry is Executive Producer of the award-winning Particle Fever, and of several other movies in development: The Earth Moves, The Fly Room, and Darwin’s America.

Bill Rice joined the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2007 after serving as the 12th President of Shimer College, the Great Books College of Chicago, and teaching writing seminars for many years at Harvard. He took a B.A. from the University of Virginia, taught English at the Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, and later apprenticed as a mechanic for Alfa Romeo. His verse has recently appeared in The Caribbean Writer, Measure: A Review of Formal Poetry, The New Criterion, and The Satirist. He earned an M.F.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Frank J. Sulloway is a Visiting Scholar in the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley. He has a Ph.D. in the history of science from Harvard University and is a former MacArthur Fellow (1984-1989). Dr. Sulloway has written about the nature of scientific creativity and he has published extensively on the life and theories of Charles Darwin.

Herschel Walker is a mixed martial artist and a former American football player. He played college football for the University of Georgia Bulldogs and earned the 1982 Heisman Trophy. He began his professional career with the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League (USFL) before entering the National Football League (NFL). In the NFL he played for the Dallas Cowboys, Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1999.

Former owner and Vice Chair of the Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Co., Inc., Shahara Ahmad-Llewellyn currently serves as a Vice Chair of Jazz at Lincoln Center and of The New 42nd Street. Ms. Ahmad-Llewellyn is a founding board member of Platform.org, a nonprofit organization focused on diversifying participation and success in the growing innovation economy, and she maintains her philanthropic activities and interests through the Shahara Ahmad-Llewellyn Family Foundation.

Since 1987 Kathy L’Amour has headed the publishing empire that manages the works of her late husband, famed and prolific author Louis L’Amour. Ms. L’Amour has more than doubled the number of books sold in his lifetime from 200 to over 400 million! She has utilized her position in publishing to distribute over one million free volumes to United States military personnel stationed across the globe and actively supports Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.

Former third-grade teacher Phyllis J. Washington built a career on her two great passions: education and design. She founded Maison Felice/Phyllis Washington Antiques, a world-renowned, carefully curated home furnishings boutique. A knowledgeable antiquarian, Mrs. Washington is also an ardent philanthropist and education activist acting as Chair of the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation which has provided hundreds of scholarships for higher education to youth since 1988. Mrs. Washington was influential in designing and furnishing what is now the Phyllis J. Washington College of Education and Human Sciences, named in honor of her contributions.

As the senior program coordinator for the mid-Atlantic region for A Better Chance, Keith Wilkerson is responsible for providing educational opportunities for middle- and high-school-aged students of color that will allow them to occupy leadership positions in America. He also runs ACE Tutoring, a small test preparation and college application and essay writing assistance firm. Keith has volunteered at Adventures of the Mind since 2009 and is our Dean of Students.