Meet the Board of Directors

Ernie Canadeo - Board Chairman, elected in 2009.  Ernie has been an NSA member for over a decade and has served on the NSA board of directors for 6 years.  Ernie’s involvement with the NSA, in addition to marketing and fundraising, has included being the creator of NSA Kids and Stutter Buddies. He has worked hard to increase the number of families reached by the NSA, and as a result the NSA has more than tripled the number of families attending its conferences in the past 3 years, and dramatically increased the number of programs available to them.  He has just initiated the NSA Research Symposium which will become an integral part of the NSA’s annual conferences, and is placing a greater emphasis on the need for more research into the causes and treatment for stuttering.  Ernie is the founder and President of The EGC Group, an advertising and marketing agency based in Long Island New York, and lives with his wife and twin boys in Oyster Bay Cove, Long Island.   Email is ernie@egcgroup.com.  (2012)

Barry Liben - Fund Development and Secretary, elected in 2002.  The Liben family have been members since 1998. Barry's son, Michael, stutters as does his wife, Sindy.  He owns a  travel management company headquartered in New York City and has been instrumental in making our Annual Conference live auction a success. Since 2002, NSA has been located within Tzell Travel thanks to Barry donating office space, infrastructure and support for our new New York office. Email is barryl@tzell.com.  (2011)

Bill Smith - Treasurer and Chairman of the Finance Committee, elected in 2005.  Shortly after hearing about our 2000 annual conference in Chicago, Bill made contact with the NSA and has since been an active member of the Chicago Metro North chapter.  Bill holds BA (Math) and MBA (Finance) degrees.  He retired from the insurance industry in 1999 and has been pursuing other interests, including his hobbies of amateur radio and playing tournament bridge.  Email is W9va@aol.com.  (2011)

Marybeth Allen - Family Programs.  Marybeth co-chairs the Family Program Committee along with Debbie Nicolai.  She is a person who stutters and a long time member of the NSA, founding the Eastern Maine NSA Chapter in 1996 and joining the Board in 2004.  She is an SLP and a Board Recognized Fluency Specialist, working part-time in her private practice and part-time at the University of Maine as a Clinical Supervisor and Faculty Associate.   Marybeth has helped organize Family Workshop Days in Maine and has led a variety of sessions for the Family Program’s Track at the annual NSA annual conferences.  Email is mbslp@midmaine.com.

Stephanie Nicolai - Leader of the Teen Advisory Council.  She is 19 years old and has been a TAC member for 5 years.  Stephanie is currently a sophomore in college majoring in psychology.  Stephanie and her family have attended eight conferences. Steph looks forward to attending the conference every year and especially enjoys being with the kids and helping them to understand and accept stuttering.  As leader of the TAC, she is also on the NSA Board of Directors.

Tracey Wallace – Adult Programs. Tracey has stuttered since she was three years old and lived as a covert stutterer until age 27. Since then, she has embraced her stuttering and is now moving forward in her personal journey. Tracey received her Audiology PhD from the University of Florida. She works as an educational audiologist for the Washington, D.C. public school system and has been in private practice for 13 years. She resides in Maryland with her husband, Vaughn and their two children, Alexandria and Devin.  Email is drheargood2003@yahoo.com.  (2011)

Cathy Olish - Special Projects and Volunteer Coordinator. Cathy is from Ferndale, Michigan and has been a member of the NSA for ten years. She is Co-Chapter Leader of the Royal Oak (Detroit) adult chapter and the Dearborn Kids/TWST chapter. She is also the moderator of the Covert-S Yahoo group. She works in Human Resources at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan. Email is babyO20@aol.com. (2012)

John A. Tetnowski, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, BRS/M:FD. - Research Committee & Professional Relations:  SLP specializing in stuttering.  He received his Ph.D. from Florida State University in 1993 and now holds the Ben Blanco/BoRSF Endowed Professorship in Communicative Disorders at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.  He is a Board Recognized Fluency Specialist and Mentor and was the NSA’s Speech-Language Pathologist of the Year in 2006.  He is the Coordinator of the Ph.D. program in Applied Language and Speech Sciences at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where he sits on the Graduate Council, teaches courses in fluency and research methods, and currently mentors four doctoral students specializing in stuttering.  He has authored nearly 50 publications relating to stuttering, assessment procedures and research methodologies.  He is the founder and co-leader of the Lafayette Chapter of the NSA and has worked clinically with people who stutter for over 20 years.  Email is tetnowski@louisiana.edu.  (2011)

Jim McClure – Public Relations.  Jim was a chapter leader in Chicago for more than 20 years before relocating to Albuquerque, NM, and served on the NSA board from 1997 to 2003. He also is the consumer representative to the Specialty Board on Fluency Disorders.  Jim started his career as a newspaper reporter, worked in corporate public relations and his own consulting practice, and is a retired Navy reserve officer. His email is jim@jamcclure.com. (2011)
 

Marc Rosenbaum - Born and raised in Miami Beach, Florida.  Attended the University of Florida.  Degree in Marketing; further studies at the University of Miami majoring in Accounting.  Worked in public accounting for 23 years, now working as the Controller for a golf supply distributor in Fort Lauderdale.

Avid golfer, competing in golf tournaments on the state and national level. Email is rosenbaummarc@gmail.com.  (2011)