Kimberly Farah
Executive Director
Ms. Farah is President and Executive Director of R.Ed.I. Arts and Education Foundation, and CEO and Founder of Moves, Inc. Ms. Farah is the recipient of the 2012 Outstanding Preventionist of the Year Award from the Cebrin Goodman Center in recognition for her outstanding contributions to substance abuse awareness. For over two decades, Ms. Farah’s commitment to performing arts education and programming has awarded her the Outstanding Contribution Award from the Illinois Arts Council and recognition by the United States Department of Education and Justice for having “one of the top youth groups in the nation working to improve the health of our nation.” for her work with R.Ed.I.’s model group Good Vibes which provided a specialized prevention theater show for over 1 million students.
Personally she has been twice nominated for the Governor’s Award for the Arts. She has authored the book,Embracing the Dream, and has lectured for Columbia College, Chicago, St. Mary’s College and Notre Dame, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL. and the Illinois Theater Festival.
Ken Buckman
CEO/Co-Founder Tradetec Skyline Exhibits
As CEO and Co-Founder of Tradetec Skyline Exhibits, Ken propelled his tradeshow products and services company to achieve back-to-back INC 5000 rankings as one of America’s fastest growing companies for 2008 and 2009. Tradetec has completed design, exhibits, graphics and complete service for over 10,000 tradeshows for corporations since 2006. Ken personally specializes in vision casting, motivation, driving initiatives, sales, finance, branding, comp packages and open book management. Ken is active in the CEO group Vistage International and serves on many advisory boards and panels. The Business Ledger awarded Ken Young Executive of the Year in 2003. Ken is active as an advocate for Compassion International, and co-sponsors 6 children from Ethiopia with his wife and 4 children. Ken is dedicated to his family, church and several children’s cancer charities and initiatives. He is a founding Board Member of the R.Ed.I. Arts and Education Foundation.
Dan Campbell
Americas Business Development Manager, Hewlett Packard
Dan’s work as Worldwide Services Principal for Hewlett Packard positions him to pursue strategic vision for his global clients, with over 20 years experience helping them use managed services to optimize and transform their IT environments. Dan has earned Bachelor of Science Degrees in both Personnel Management and Business Marketing from Missouri State University. He has over 20 years experience working the charities as a board or committee member, helping raise over $1 million dollars over his career for various charities. Dan hails from a family of auctioneers, and himself completed auctioneer training. He has performed hundreds of commercial and charity auctions. Dan is a Deacon and Treasurer for his local church, New Covenant Bible Church in St. Charles, Illinois. Dan has a passion for working with kids through church, school, and charity organizations, and loves to serve the community at large. He is a founding Board Member of R.Ed.I. Arts and Education Foundation.
Tim Barg
Timothy Barg is President and Founder at ARTGEM LLC, a management consulting firm that serves small business, non-profit and professional service organizations in the areas of online strategy, business intelligence, new product development and general management. Tim has spent his career delivering new products to market and managing the operations of early stage entrepreneurial software, service and non-profit organizations. A strategic yet practical thinker, Tim has a unique ability to navigate visionary leaders and their organizations from idea to market.
Tim is co-inventor of US Patent 6707454: Systems and Methods for Visualizing Multi-dimensional Data in Spreadsheets and other Data. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from DeVry University in Chicago. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife Judy and their six children.
Diana Martinez
Diana Martinez Artistic Director/Co-Producer
Diana has over 25 years of professional theatre experience in directing and producing live theatre. She recently started her own consulting business, SPARK! Creative and performs creative consulting for theatres as well as keynote speeches on the subject of Empowerment and Igniting Creativity in the workplace.
Most recently she was the president of The Second City in Chicago and oversaw the operations and management of the organization. Her most notable contributions to the organization was the strategic planning of UP COMEDY CLUB, and the planning of their 50th Years of Funny star studded Anniversary Weekend Celebration. During her tenure the training center experienced unprecedented enrollments and record-breaking sales.
She started her professional career as the Executive Director of Entertainment and Marketing for Pheasant Run Resort and Convention Center in St. Charles, IL. There, she directed and produced over 40 musical theater productions, as well as managed the production and marketing strategies for the Main Stage Theatre, Children’s Theatre and all special events.
In her last previous position as Executive Director for the Paramount Theatre in Aurora, Illinois, she was involved in the community by producing the city-wide Aurora Idol Competition dedicated to supporting the talents of youth in Aurora. She also created, “Dreams Do Come True,” a program which was dedicated to bringing live theater to underprivileged children. This fund sent over 8000 children to live theater performances at the Paramount. During her tenure she was responsible for fundraising and construction of the beautiful $6.6 million dollar lobby of the historic Paramount.
She has also acquired experience producing and directing national tours, working on ten national tours for internationally known country singing star Kenny Rogers.
Diana is honored to be a part of STAND UP! and this project. She dedicates her work on the show to the teens of our communities, hoping that this show will inspire them to “Stand Up for themselves and realize that there is a whole big world out there just waiting for them if they believe in themselves and in their dreams – and that if they work hard, anything is possible.
Sandy Tucker
West Chicago, Illinois
Sandy brings and shares her years of experience and top sales achievements to her philanthropic endeavors. She is revered as a highly successful organizer and for her ability to bring people together for successful execution of funding and support for charity causes. Sandy is a founding Board Member of R.Ed.I. and has been instrumental in fundraising and program development for numerous other organizations, charities and programs. Sandy serves as Children’s Creative Director at her church and part of the Children’s Ministry Team and volunteers at Wheaton Christian Grade School. Sandy is a member of the Dupage Art League and an Artist of Watercolor, pencil and Porcelain painting.
Rick Smolke
Advisory Board
Betsy Hiller ~ Program Development
Andrew Farah ~ Strategic Program Development
Dawn Akelis ~ Program Development
James Scott ~ Audio, Video
Populist Recording
Michael Jacoby
Executive Director, Illinois Association of School Business Officials
Timothy Barg ~ Research and Statistics
President, ARTGEM, LLC.
Deborah Fitzgerald ~ Graphics
ProType
Marc Muszynski ~ Website Designer
Dennis Duke
Robert Young Center for Community Mental Health
Director of Outpatient Services
Dr. Nikki Duke Ph.D.
Psychologist