Leadership

Larry Herman, President  |  Vivian Bass, CEO  |  Board of Directors  |  Executive Staff

Larry Herman, President

Larry Herman, the current president of the Jewish Foundation for Group Homes, has actively participated in the Jewish Foundation for Group Homes for more than 12 years as a director and officer, a member of numerous committees, and a leader in a variety of activities.

Larry, a Managing Director of BearingPoint and a leading national expert in state and local government management, leads state and local government business process reengineering and solution development practices. In this role, Larry is responsible for leading the development and implementation of leading edge government technology solutions, leveraging his thirty-five plus years experience in working in, and with, federal, state and local government elected officials and senior managers.

During his career with BearingPoint, Larry has directed several of the most visible and “ground breaking” government reinvention and process reengineering projects. For example, Larry was BearingPoint’s project director for the first ever performance audit and reengineering study of the State Government of North Carolina, and directed similar studies for the State of Oklahoma, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the State of Louisiana, the District of Columbia and several major cities and counties around the nation. He has worked on change management and systems integration projects with more than 50 state education departments and major public school systems.

Larry is a summa cum lade graduate of Tufts University with an MBA from Harvard University, and is an active member of the Boards of Directors of several not-for-profit organizations as well as publicly held corporations specializing in Internet technologies. He writes and talks extensively about government management, has published several articles and research papers on technology and government effectiveness issues, and is frequently asked to speak at national state and local government technology and senior manager association meetings. He is a member of the NASCIO Corporate Leadership Council and a frequent panel presenter at their conferences.

He and his wife Barbara are residents of McLean, Va. and are the parents of two daughters, one of whom is a resident of JFGH’s group home program.

Vivian Bass, Chief Executive Officer - Jewish Foundation for Group Homes (JFGH)

Vivian G. Bass, the Chief Executive Officer of The Jewish Foundation for Group Homes has been committed for 30-years to improve the quality of life, independence, community inclusion and dignity of individuals with disabilities throughout the metropolitan Washington D.C. area, nationally and internationally. She has worked in a leadership capacity for programs supporting individuals with disabilities in the Greater Washington D.C. community since 1977. An employee at The Jewish Foundation for Group Homes since 1986, she has served as the agency’s chief executive officer since 1995. Under Bass’s leadership, JFGH has been recognized as the “ Non-Profit of the Year” in 2006 by Victim’s Rights Foundation International and for five consecutive years has received a four-star rating (the highest rating) from Charity Navigator, an independent evaluator of charities’ financial health. JFGH has become a model and mentor for more than 25 Jewish communities on five continents.

Bass has played a pivotal role in consortiums and legislative/consumer advocacy efforts and is a recent chairperson of the Montgomery County Inter-Agency Coordinating Council for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities. She is an active board member of many organizations including; the Maryland Association of Community Services for People with Developmental Disabilities (MACS) and Potomac Community Resources.

She has presented and/or had papers delivered at professional conferences including the World Congress on Disabilities in conjunction with the Paralympics, American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) formally known as AAMR, The National Organization on Disability (NOD), National Association of Social Workers (NASW), Conference of Jewish Communal Service (CJCS) and Coalitions on Alternatives to Jewish Education (CAJE). Bass has developed a myriad of relevant policy, training, public relations and materials which have been implemented worldwide.

Bass has received numerous distinctions including Washingtonian of the Year for the year 2006 by Washingtonian Magazine; the City of Rockville Human Rights Commission’s F. Michael Taff Award; PCR’s Patricia Sullivan Award; the 2001 Sulam Award and is a Jewish Federation of Greater Washington ‘Woman of Valor’ (Lion of Judah), the highest recognition for Jewish women internationally. In December 2007 Vivian received the Community Leadership Award from the Jewish Woman International at their Women to Watch Gala.

Vivian Bass completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at The University of Michigan. She has been married to Raymond Bass for 36 years. They have 3 sons and one grandson.

Board of Directors
2007-2008