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Where Are They Now?
access Co-Chairs from the past 18 years:
1990-1992: TJ Bierman & Stephen Klorfein
1992-1993: Elise Eplan
1993-1994: Jane Butler
1994-1995: Caren Appel
1995-1996: Michael A. Morris & Faye Rosing Nozik
1996-1997: Marc M. Morrison & Mindy Selig-Shoulberg
1997-1999: Leslie Isenberg
1998-2000: Hugh Asher
1999-2001: Ann Olevitch
2000-2002: Robert Kremer
2001-2003: Kelly H. Richman
2002-2004: Daniel Israel
2003-2005: Peter Dosik
2004-2006: Susie Fages
2005-2007: Ross Kogon
2006-2008: Shira Blate
2007-2009: Jonathan E. Ganz
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Elise Eplan
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Elise Eplan is Vice President for Special Initiatives of The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. Eplan’s current responsibilities include overseeing the Foundation’s discretionary grant making and special initiatives. A native of Atlanta, Eplan received her B.A. from Brandeis University and her Masters in Public and Private Management from Yale University. She and her husband, Bob Marcovitch, have two children.
What do you remember most about access? I remember the excitement surrounding the start-up of this new program at AJC. The chapter staff and lay leadership at the time were really invested in creating access and in making it a success. It is a credit to them, people like Sherry Frank, Elaine Alexander, Richard Cohen and others, that access first came into existence.
Greatest accomplishment in access? Chairing the access board during the "pioneering" period was challenging and exciting. Seeing the response to this idea that young people wanted to connect to the issues and work of AJC was really invigorating.
What are you doing in the Jewish community now? My involvement in the Jewish community is currently focused on AJC and The Epstein School, where my children are in school. I continue (through my work) to be involved in issues of interest to the larger Atlanta community, and my early work with the Black-Jewish coalition provided me with wonderful contacts and context for this work.
Favorite access memory - Sitting with Joel Arogeti, Kent Alexander and Beth Paradies to brainstorm how this new entity should be shaped.
More AJC involvement? I was privileged to be the AJC chapter president from 2003-2005, the first access "graduate" to be chapter president. I love the organization and will continue to do what I can to advance its work for as long as I can!
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Jane Butler
Jane Butler and her family. |
I had an amazing year as Chair of Access from 1993-94. I had helped start The Temple Young Professionals in the mid 80's so I remember being so excited to become Chair of another great organization. We were growing so much during this time. We were very focused on growing our membership and communicating what access was to the community. I remember spending hours and hours at the AJC office inputing names and addresses. We had so many successful programs including a huge paid up membership event in the early summer at a member's home, cooking classes, fabulous speakers including Bernie Marcus and David Harris. AJC in NY was really taking notice of our success and loving it! During my year as Chair, I had my first child!! Now I have 3 girls. I continued to stay involved for many years with American Jewish Committee as a Board Member and helping with membership and fundraising. |
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Michael Morris
Michael Morris in Israel. |
Greatest Accomplishment: I don’t have any, but there are a few things that first occurred under my watch. I don't remember any specific programming, but we made a big structural change, we created the Social Action Committee of access. Believe it or not, the first couple of years, access did not sponsor any social action programming, events, walks, etc. While access had already grown to almost the size of the chapter, the board at the time felt that by adding this component, we would engage more people. This also went along nicely with another change we made at the time, we began to become a little more aggressive in fund raising so that we did not have to rely on the chapter for any of our funding. So, if we were being more aggressive on fund raising, we also needed to be more welcoming, and the Social Action component was perfect. In addition to these two changes, I believe that I was the first access Chair to sit as a trustee on the Board. While we had a non-trustee liaison position, and the Chair typically went to the board meetings, access was able to formalize the position. And finally, after having started with Individual Chairpersons and then changing to a Co-Chair style of leadership, we changed it to a Chair & Jr Chair or Chair and Chair Elect (depending on how you look at it).
I think I came on the board of access in its 3rd year. I was its sixth or so Chairperson. At the time, while our programming was "hot", we were still trying to figure out how to govern ourselves as we grew, in leaps and bounds, in the first 10 years, to equal the size of the Chapter. It was very exciting.
ACCESS was my first real investment in the community. I went on from there to Federation, UJC Cabinet, and back to AJC's Board now. Since access, I have been asked to help build the young adult division of the local JNF, Israel Bonds, Federation, Zoo Atlanta and others as they have made in-roads to the young adult community, but none has been nearly as successful as access. access was at the right place, at the right time, with the right message to the community.
My favorite memory must be Sukkot at Sherry Frank's home with the board. We did this almost every year from the beginning. I never went to Camp Barney, but we spent most of our time singing songs from Barney that Artie Gummer (I think that was his name - or close) was playing on the guitar. But really, the highlight was making close friends that I now have all throughout the community. Some people I see a lot, others I don’t get to see often, but we share a closeness, camaraderie, a bond that we can never shake and it has helped as we are involved in the shaping the community for the rest of our lives. There are at least 75 people that helped build access through its first 10 years. It was long hours, a lot of work, and a ton of fun!
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Faye Novick
Faye Novick. |
My greatest Access accomplishment: I had forgotten about the Social Action Committee until I read Michael Morris' comments. I am very proud that we were able to bring that portion into Access' realm. I hope it is something that is still on- going. I also was very proud of the fundraisers we pulled together. It actually lead me to my current career - event planning.
My favorite access memory: The board meetings - watching everyone work together and build an amazing organization. I also loved going to Washington to lobby on behalf of Jewish issues, and the Black/Jewish coalition had a major impact on me.
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Ann Olevitch
Ann Olevitch, access Co-chair (99-2001) with her husband and daughter Morgan. |
What do you remember most about access?
Making life long friendships with people who share the same values and sense of humor that I do. And, meeting Congressmen John Lewis during the Black/Jewish Coalition’s Project Understanding. He is a remarkable man who impacted our history.
Greatest accomplishment in access - Implementing the Entrepreneurs Night featuring Laurie Ann Goldman before anyone know what Spanx were! And, directing one of the most successful annual fundraising parties at Magnolia Hall at Piedmont Park.
What are you doing in the Jewish community now?
My husband and I support a lot of Jewish causes. I haven’t found the same niche just yet as I had with the AJC since we’ve been raising our baby, Morgan, now 2.5. We all hope to participate in more opportunities soon.
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Rob Kremer
I have three kids: Jacob (age 10), Justin (7) and Emma (5); two dogs; and my wife Karen and I will be celebrating our 15th anniversary this year. I am a Sr. Acct. Supervisor at Cohn, Overstreet and Parrish, an integrated marketing and public relations agency, where I lead the Chick-fil-A business for the agency.
What do you remember most about access? I joined access shortly after graduating from college and it provided a terrific opportunity to maintain my Jewish values/education while entering a very diverse world. However, most of all I remember making many good friends.
Greatest accomplishment in Access - I felt we were able to offer a wide array of social and education programs that attracted new members. I also took great pride in the silent auction portion of our major annual event which became a tremendous fundraiser.
What are you doing in the Jewish community now? I currently serve on the Board of Trustees at Temple Beth Tikvah in Roswell.
Favorite access Memory - A spectacular event in Piedmont Park, creating the first big donors event, the annual committee recruiter nights, more meetings than I could count, people coming together for a tremendous cause, etc...
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Dan Israel
Dan Israel with son and daugher. |
Since my formative years, involvement in Republican politics and the Jewish community have always been close to my heart.Within the Georgia Jewish community, I have gained a reputation as the voice of Jewish Republicans because of a bi-weekly column I write for the Atlanta Jewish Times. On a professional level, I work for AT&T as the Associate Director for Mobile Advertising and Search on Media Mall.
Greatest accomplishment in access - Tacking on a Good and Welfare at the end of all access Steering Committee Meetings.
What are you doing in the Jewish community now? I am mainly involved with my synagogue and AIPAC.
Greatest access memory?
Sitting on the patio of Sambuca at an access kick-off party with some dear friends. Becoming good friends with AJC Trustees like Steve Labovitz.
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Susie Fages
Susie Fages with son Bram |
Greatest Accomplishment in access: Energizing the steering comittee.
Involvement in the Jewish community now: I'm still involved with access and working on the L'chaim to access event. I got involved with access the first year of the Jewish Film Festival. It has been so exciting seeing it evolve and become not just a Jewish community event, but one that belongs to the whole Atlanta community. Access had really helped and inspired me to get involved and to help others get involved too. I will continue to be involved in access until they try and kick me out, can they do that? I don't think so!
Favorite access memory: I can't think of just one. I'm just so happy and thankful for the friends, relationships and experiences over the years. The Black Jewish Coalition's Project Understanding would be the most unique experience I have ever had.
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Ross Kogon
Ross Kogon with his daugher Marion. |
What do you remember most about access? A great group of people who really love to reach out and help people enjoy being and acting with Jewish Identity in a way that is meaningful but also very fun.
Greatest accomplishment in access: Creating the opportunities for others to take ownership of their ideas and lead.
What are you doing in the Jewish community now? How did access spark your interest? Very involved with Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta and AIPAC
Favorite Access memory? Too many to choose
More AJC involvement? Engaging America Participant; continuing member of the Board of Directors; Worked on Iran Divestment.
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Jonathan Ganz
Jonathan with wife Rebecca and daughter Sadie. |
Greatest accomplishment in Access? Helping to bring us into the 21st Century, technology-wise, via Facebook and Myspace pages and our fantastic new ajcatlanta.org website. This has enabled us to reach out to many more individuals, particularly younger ones, and grow access membership and awareness of our many diverse events. Previously, we had to rely more on word of mouth, person-to-person, and now the internet can help serve as our word of mouth. I am also very proud to have helped grow our annual access campaign into something much more substantial.
What are you doing in the Jewish community now? I am access co-chair for one more year. In addition, I happily serve on the board of AJC and I am active in Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta.
How did access spark your interest? Access had so many varied and different ways to meet other people, learn more about yourself and others, and take on leadership opportunities. I knew it was an organization I wanted to be involved in.
Favorite access memory? Organizing the first meeting between Israelis in the Atidim program (designed to help them enter into public service in Israel after completion) and access members in September 2005. Seeing just how similar these Israeli young adults were to access members in our thoughts, hopes and goals was an eye-opening and mind-enhancing experience.
More AJC involvement? I actively serve on AJC’s Board here in Atlanta. I also attend many of the AJC events around the city, which I highly encourage access members to go to. AJC is a part of access as much as access is a part of AJC. There is not an AJC or access event that I attend where I do not leave feeling I have learned something or bettered myself as a result of my attendance/participation.
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