Teri Bordenave, MHSA has worked in the nonprofit sector since 1979 in a variety of senior leadership roles and as a consultant. Her expertise includes strategic planning, leadership development, strategic restructuring, organizational development, governance, change management and relationship building.

For twenty years, Teri served as President/CEO of Girls Incorporated of the Greater Capital Region in New York during which time the organization saw unprecedented growth – from serving approximately 4,000 girls in only one county to serving over 20,000 girls in seven counties.

An advocate for girls’ rights, Teri served on the national Girls Incorporated Board of Directors for seven years, was a member of its Executive Committee and chaired its Board Development Committee. She also spearheaded a governance structure change as well as the organization’s shift to a corporate model. She has served on a number of Boards of Directors including that of the Center for Women in Government and Civil Society, several Chamber of Commerce Boards of Directors and others at the local and state level.

Concerned with the relationship between the for-profit and nonprofit sectors and their respective roles in economic development, Teri was a founding member, Steering Committee member and Chair of the Tech Valley Nonprofit Business Council, an innovative, collaborative effort of several local Chambers of Commerce. Teri’s experience as a trustee on both local and national governing boards, plus her 20 years as a non-profit CEO, gives her a unique perspective and much expertise in the area of effective governance and management.

In her role as a member of the Leadership Team for the Nonprofit Executive Roundtable, a project of Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, Teri co–authored the 2006 case study entitled, High Tech Growth and Community Well-Being: Lessons Learned from Austin, Texas. She has also contributed to several publications on nonprofit governance and management.

Teri has received numerous awards including, the General Electric Accolade Award for Community Leadership, the Business Review’s Nonprofit of the Year Award, the Women’s Fund of the Capital Region’s Trailblazer Award, the Chamber of Commerce Women of Excellence Award, the YWCA Women of Achievement Award, the Agency Chief Executives’ Leadership Award, the Business and Professional Women’s Woman of the Year Award and the John F. Kennedy Community Service Award.

Teri holds a Masters of Human Services Administration from Antioch/New England Graduate School where she focused on organizational development and training/consulting.

Teri has consulted with diverse clients including: Family Planning Advocates of New York State, Mohawk Valley Physicians Health Plan, New York State AFL–CIO Workforce Development Institute, Rensselaer County Chamber of Commerce Leadership Institute, Capital District YMCA, Work Family Directions in Boston MA, Northeast Regional Council of the YWCA of the USA, Study Circles Diversity Project in Amherst MA, YWCA of Hawaii Island, Make A Wish Foundation, Women Work! in Washington DC, Women’s Center of Greater Lansing Michigan, Union College Graduate School and numerous Girls Incorporated affiliates across the country.

Sandra specializes in designing training curricula, and had produced turnkey training models in a variety of areas. Among her recent successful projects are [1] Diversity: The Competitive Advantage in the New Millennium, developed for the national organization Women Work!; [2] New Ventures, a statewide job preparation program that targets the technology sector; [3] Call Center Customer Service Training, a 4-week program to prepare adult re-entry women for employment in local call centers; [4] the NYS Career Plan Train-the-Trainer manual.

Sandra’s interest in workforce development combines her commitment to gender equity with programs that provide career pathways for underemployed women. She uses job training models that encourage individuals to make positive changes through opportunities in emerging technology fields. She developed the Career Challenge, a 5-day workshop for workers-in-transition that uses experiential activities to teach communication, team building, leadership and other skills to overcome cultural and personal barriers to success. She is the author of Roles in Conflict: Women Preparing for Technical Careers, which provided a model for efforts to help low-income women achieve economic self-sufficiency through high wage employment. She designed and coordinated New Ventures, a statewide training program that created partnerships between education and technology companies to successfully prepare women for positions in new and emerging fields.

Sandra is currently affiliated with the Center for Women in Government and Civil Society, of the University of Albany, where she is a director of programs that address the educational needs of girls and women. One of these, The NET Project, is a statewide program for gender equity in education at both secondary and postsecondary levels. A major focus of the project is to develop model programs that encourage young women to pursue nontraditional careers, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), for implementation by both schools and community organizations. She is the director of a research project to test a model curriculum for tutoring African American and Latina high school females in math skills in an after school program. As a result of her extensive experience promoting gender equity in education and the workplace, she was selected to be a gender equity content expert for the STEM Equity Pipeline Project of the National Association of Professionals in Equity (NAPE). Her portfolio is available through the NAPE website

Her work with the Center’s Nonprofit Education Initiative includes the development and facilitation of a statewide Leadership Retreat for executive directors and senior managers. She has taken leadership roles in various regional economic development activities and has served on local and national boards of nonprofit organizations. She recently completed two terms as chair of a national nonprofit board where she led a major restructuring of the organization’s membership and affiliate network. Sandra brings multiple perspectives to her work with nonprofit organizations.

Sandra is an experienced adventure-learning specialist, and uses experiential and interactive techniques to integrate participant involvement with a challenging informational curriculum in all her training sessions. She is a skillful trainer and applies extensive knowledge and experience of both the art and science of group facilitation in all her work.

Sandra earned an M.L.S. from SUNY Buffalo and an M.A. in Community Psychology from Russell Sage College.

Ellie has a B.A. in Fine Arts from Skidmore College University Without Walls, with a concentration in Theatrical Costume Design –training that combined artistic creativity and practical craftsmanship.

She has expanded her professional skills through an entrepreneurial and creative spirit and a broad range of experiences and activities.

In founding and operating Spectrum Sewing, a design and couture fashion business, she applied fine-arts creativity and hands-on business sense to conceptualization, production, marketing, retailing and wholesaling. For ten years her company operated a design and production facility in Schenectady, New York and a boutique in Saratoga Springs, with a professional staff of five and retail and wholesale accounts across the United States.

For eight years Ellie leveraged these experiences and insights as a staff instructor at the Anne Hyde Institute of Design in Winter Park, Colorado. Fashion design and garment construction was the nominal subject matter in her teaching of design and color. Ellie soon recognized that the actual result of these intensive workshops was the transformation of lives through the development of fashion skills as first or second careers for women who often had never participated in the workforce. For many of these women this was the first experience they had of doing something for and by themselves. This newly recognized self-confidence was instrumental in making Ellie want to continue working with individuals and groups in creative and innovative ways to promote change and personal growth.

As a trainer with Work/Family Directions, Ellie expanded her work in changing lives conducting workshops for childcare providers, following an adventure-based model based on exploring music, arts, games, theater and food from around the world.

Recognizing the confining power of gender roles, Ellie has long been involved with non-traditional education: the training of professionals for facilitating career change and development beyond stereotypical roles. She has presented workshops in this field through the New York State Department of Education and many school systems.

Ellie has been a practicing, creative visual artist all her life and has often combined a honed aesthetic sense with down-to-earth practicality. She has long recognized the power of effectively organizing space in fostering efficient and pleasing activities. She has become expert in the design, organization and decoration of homes and workplaces. Her professional work in this area spans many specific skills including the development of orderly systems that encourage productive workflow at job sites, convenient yet accessible storage for home or office, the design of processes for on going maintenance of orderly and pleasing spaces and the hands-on execution of painting and other renovations.

Recognizing that operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness is a function of staff attitude and training as well as of space utilization, Ellie has designed and presented workshops in customer service skills for organizations operating in many business sectors including non-profits, personal and professional services.

Ellie has developed her artistic activities in two principal directions: her own individual creativity and inspiring the creativity of others.

As a successful landscape and still-life painter particularly expert in watercolors, Ellie has presented her work in many one-person and group exhibitions and has undertaken commissions for public and private clients. As a trainer working in the general framework of The Artist’s Way, a model defined by writer Julia Cameron, she presents intensive one-day or weekend-long residential workshops on unleashing personal and organizational creativity. She also facilitates weeklong artists retreats in beautiful settings conducive to reflection and creative expression.

A committed community volunteer, Ellie was inspired by the plight of Hurricane Katrina survivors to facilitate positive and necessary change along the Gulf Coast. She has organized and led numerous volunteer trips to New Orleans and similarly devastated portions of Louisiana and Mississippi. In an ongoing effort, she and her fellow volunteers provide relief and rebuilding services including fund-raising, logistics, organizing and planning.