Board of Advisors

First convened in 1994, The David and Lura Lovell Foundation Board of Advisors represents a broad spectrum of professional experience and personal passion for causes near and dear to the Lovell family. The founding advisors were all hand-picked by Lura Lovell, who remained active with the Foundation until her death in September 2013. Current members span five states – New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Arizona and California.

Sam Coppersmith is an attorney with Coppersmith Brockelman PLC in Phoenix. His practice centers on business and transactional issues, with an emphasis on business organization, governance, exempt organizations, contract negotiation, land use, and business planning. He has more than three decades of experience assisting both local and national businesses and nonprofits, particularly in the healthcare sector. Sam also has extensive political and governmental experience, serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing Arizona’s (then) 1st Congressional District. He has also served as the Chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, on numerous state and local boards and commissions, and was a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State prior to law school. Sam holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in Economics and earned his law degree at Yale.

Longtime Tucsonan Bonnie Kampa has managed nonprofit organizations for nearly 30 years. Most recently she was chief executive officer of Interfaith Community Services (ICS), a Tucson nonprofit that now serves over 45,000 seniors and other individuals in need. That’s how she met Foundation co-founder Lura Lovell. She credits the support of the Foundation for ICS’s significant work in integrating mind, body, spirit and community into its array of programs. This included producing two conferences and other programming that brought faith communities together around the issue of mental illness. The Foundation currently supports ICS as part of the Arizona End of Life Care Partnership and their role conducting and training volunteers to deliver Honoring A Life workshops with faith communities and other organizations around Southern Arizona. After 13 years with ICS, Bonnie retired in December 2014. She served as chair of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Board of Trustees from 2014-2016.

Francine Lawrence and Lu Lovell served together on the Lucas County Mental Health Board. They connected immediately and soon became fast friends, tackling numerous challenging community projects and sharing a passion for golf. Fran has served on The David and Lura Lovell Foundation Board of Advisors since its inception.

From 1997 to 2011, Fran was president of the 3,000 member Toledo (Ohio) Federation of Teachers. She led contract negotiations that focused on what matters most, student achievement, including a milestone program that provided incentives for excellent teachers to accept assignments at schools identified as high need. She co-chaired the Intern Board of Review which governs the district-union teacher evaluation peer review program, and co-chaired the Ohio 8, a strategic alliance of superintendents and teacher union presidents from the eight largest urban school districts in Ohio.

From 2011 to 2014 Fran was executive vice president of the 1.7 million American Federation of Teachers which champions economic opportunity and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for students, their families, and communities. She served on the board of directors for United Way USA and chaired the Learning First Alliance board, a partnership of 16 national education associations dedicated to improving student learning in America’s public schools.

Fran is a current member of the Toledo Jazz Orchestra board of trustees. An experienced educator, she was a speech-language pathologist in the Toledo Public Schools. She holds a bachelor’s degree in speech and hearing therapy, and a master’s in speech pathology, both from Bowling Green State University.

 

John G. Lewis was a tax principal in the Toledo office of CliftonLarsonAllen, one of the  ten largest accounting and consulting firms in the United States, before retiring in 2018. His connection to the Lovell family goes back decades. He completed a bachelor’s degree in economics from Davidson College in 1977 and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago in 1978. He then joined the Toledo office of KPMG Peat Marwick, where one of his clients was David Lovell and the Coulton Chemical Corporation. KPMG sold in 1995 to Clifton Gunderson, then subsequently merged with Larson Allen in 2012, forming CliftonLarsonAllen. John is a certified public accountant  with extensive experience serving a wide variety of commercial operations, including manufacturing entities, nonprofit organizations, banks and individual taxpayers. Along the way he also met Lu and was impressed with her keen interest in him and his family even as they worked together after David died. John was involved in the formation of the Foundation and has served as one of its financial advisors ever since. He’s a member of the Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He serves on the finance and audit committee of the United Way of Greater Toledo, and and as treasurer of the Woodlawn Cemetery Association and Foundation.  He also was elected to serve on the council of the Village of Ottawa Hills, Ohio

Molly Robertson represents the next generation of the Foundation and feels honored to be able to participate. She is currently a tour professional in the San Francisco Bay Area. Previously she worked with Up With People, a global nonprofit organization focused on community service and performance while traveling the world.  She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Wagner College. She has served as co-director of the Farkas Center for Holocaust education in Catholic schools and is an ensemble member of the Un-Scripted Theater Company in San Francisco.

Linda Sutkin is a vice president at William Blair in New York City. Prior to accepting that position, she served as a managing director/portfolio manager at Wall Street Access Asset Management.  Linda joined Wall Street Access in 2010, having previously spent 20 years at Carret Asset Management as a portfolio manager.  She has been honored to serve as an advisor to the Foundation for over a decade.  Linda is a Cum Laude graduate of the City University of New York at Queens College.