New Mexico Community Foundation (NMCF) Board of Directors is a volunteer group of community leaders and professionals with a deep passion for philanthropy and a commitment to the people and places of New Mexico. Their unique and diverse interests, vision and experience provide inspired leadership on vital issues that impact all New Mexicans.

Read on to learn about Board members’ community work in New Mexico and beyond, and to hear why they choose to serve NMCF.

Grace Allison

Albuquerque, NM

Grace Allison’s current “labor of love” is serving as Adjunct Professor and Qualified Tax Expert in the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic at the University of New Mexico School of Law. Prior to “retiring” here in August of 2011, she was Senior Vice President and Tax Strategist for Northern Trust in Chicago. A tax lawyer, her long-time focus is on charitable giving strategies that make sense for affluent donors. For more than 20 years, she has been speaking and writing on this subject for clients and professionals nationwide.

Bruce Bleakman, Treasurer

Albuquerque, NM

Bruce Bleakman is a partner in REDW, The Rogoff Firm, New Mexico’s largest public accounting firm. With more than 20 years of experience in public accounting, he specializes in serving tribal governments and enterprises and has worked with tribes and pueblos in New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, Colorado, California and Washington State.  Bleakman is a nationally recognized speaker on corporate governance and audit independence issues and serves on the Albuquerque Public Schools audit committee and the investment committee of the nonprofit American Indian Graduate Center in Albuquerque.

Peter Brill

Santa Fe, NM

Peter Brill is the President and Chief Executive Office of both Peter Brill, Inc., an independent construction consulting firm and Sarcon Construction Corporation, a general contracting firm, each of which are located in Santa Fe. He is also a licensed attorney in New Mexico having received his degree from the University of New Mexico, School of Law.

Peter Brill, Inc. (PBI) is a highly experienced owner’s representative and construction management corporation. Sarcon is primarily a building contractor engaged in the public and private commercial markets throughout the state. Sarcon is a second-generation company originally founded by Peter’s father in New York City in 1963.

Peter is a 2000 graduate of Leadership New Mexico. He is closely involved in civic affairs having served on a number of Boards and commissions, such as the City of Santa Fe’s Historic Design Review Board, Long Range Planning Subcommittee, Community Development Commission and the City Planning Policy Commission.

Peter is also very involved in community nonprofit work. He has served on the Boards of the Santa Fe Children’s Museum and the National Dance Institute, as well as, the Citizen’s Review Committee of the Santa Fe Public Schools and the Railyard Park Stewards. Peter is a twenty-one year resident of Santa Fe, where he resides with his two children, Shane and Sam.

Ted Olin Harrison, Secretary

Santa Fe, NM

Ted Harrison is the Founder and President of Commonweal Conservancy, a nonprofit conservation-based community development organization. With more than 25 years of experience in the practice of nonprofit conservation real estate, Harrison has facilitated more than $200 million in open space, parks and community development initiatives throughout the country. Currently, Harrison’s work is directed to the planning, design and entitlement of a $150 million mixed-use, mixed-income conservation development initiative known as the Galisteo Basin Preserve. Prior to founding Commonweal in 2003, Harrison served as the Southwest regional director and a Senior Vice President for The Trust for Public Land, a national land conservation organization.  Harrison has celebrated a life well-lived in New Mexico since 1988.

“The New Mexico Community Foundation’s long service to communities and landscapes has yielded valuable dividends to the state. At this moment in the foundation’s history, I am honored to play a role in the organization’s evolution as a resource and partner to community-serving organizations across the state. Refocused in its mission and re-inspired in its leadership, the NMCF is poised to empower people and social welfare organizations in increasingly effective ways.” —Ted Harrison

Sandy Kiser, Chairman

Corrales, NM

Sandy Kiser brings considerable experience in corporate social responsibility and human resource management to NMCF. She owns Sandra Kiser Consulting, LLC, a firm which provides expertise to client organizations in the areas of community relations, charitable contributions/philanthropy and human resource management. Kiser formerly led the charitable contributions and public affairs functions for Ethicon, Inc., a Johnson and Johnson company, in New Jersey. She also served in a number of senior human resource management positions with Ethicon, Inc. and Atlantic Richfield Company.

“As a native New Mexican, it’s truly a gift to be part of an organization which focuses its considerable talent and resources on causes near and dear to my heart. By serving and investing in our communities, we are supporting a quality of life every New Mexican deserves.” - Sandy Kiser

Barbara Poley, Vice Chair

Kykotsmovi, AZ

Barbara Poley (Hopi/Laguna) is Executive Director of the Hopi Foundation, a nonprofit corporation established by the Hopi people to promote self-sufficiency, community participation, self-reliance and self-determination. Poley has decades of urban, rural and reservation grassroots community experience as well as professional experience with communities of color. She was formerly the vice president of Native Americans in Philanthropy and president of the Hopi Tribe Education Endowment Fund. She is a recipient of the 2005 Ford Foundation Leadership for A Changing World award and a 2006 Louis T. Delgado Distinguished Grantmaker Award from Native Americans in Philanthropy.

“I am honored to participate in NMCF’s organizational cycle of growth and renewal. My life experience created my belief in building endowments to provide grant making to invest in the great ideas that people create for their self-sustaining destiny. One reason I accepted the invitation to join the NMCF board comes from a Hopi value which I aspire to complete: To have the greatest feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment by participating in social and community functions, and to know that my contributions will result in benefits to the community and people, and that it makes a positive difference.” —Barbara Poley

Jay Rosenblum

Albuquerque, NM

Jay Rosenblum is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Sutin, Thayer and Browne law firm. Rosenblum concentrates his practice in business, tax and estate planning and has been active in statewide economic and business development efforts. He is a longtime member of the NMCF Board and was its chairman from 2010 through 2012.

“I was honored to be Board Chair of this extremely worthy organization, and proud to be part of its effort to confront and solve the problems affecting the disadvantaged and vulnerable populations in our state.”—Jay Rosenblum

Robert Otto Valdez

Albuquerque, NM

Robert Otto Valdez, Ph.D. is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Professor of Family & Community Medicine and Economics and conducts policy analyses and research at the University of New Mexico where he serves as the Executive Director of the RWJF Center for Health Policy. He is an adjunct Senior Health Scientist at RAND and a Senior Fellow at Emory University’s Institute for Advanced Policy Solutions. He is internationally recognized as an expert on health services research methodology, the U.S. health care system, and health policy analysis. In 1998, Dr. Valdez served as Senior Advisor to the White House Initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. From 1993 to 1997, he served in a dual capacity at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health, Public Health Service and Director of Interagency Health Policy, Health Care Financing Administration. Prior to joining the Department of Health and Human Services, he served as a Senior Advisor to the White House on health care reform.