Jamie Kaplan is a co-founder and the Executive Director  of the Center.  Before his involvement with the Center, he practiced law for nearly 25 years as a partner with law firms in the District of Columbia and Maine.  His practice focused on complex commercial litigation, professional responsibility and legal ethics, and disability law. 

Throughout the 1980s, he participated in several major disability rights cases in the federal courts of appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court.  He has written extensively in the areas of disabilities rights in education and legal ethics, and regularly presents workshops, conducts trainings, and lectures on inclusion and disability awareness.

Jamie graduated from Brown University and the law school at the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall), where he was an Editor-in-Chief of the California Law Review.  Upon graduation, he clerked for a federal judge, spent a year as Research Associate at Harvard Law School, and then joined a prominent Washington, D.C., law firm.  In 1987, he served as an Associate Counsel to the U.S. Senate Iran-Contra Committee at the behest of then Senator George J. Mitchell.   

He and his family relocated to Maine in 1990, where he practiced law until founding the Cromwell Center in 2003.  Based on his work at the Center, Jamie was one of 14 inaugural Advanced Leadership Fellows in 2009 at Harvard University, an initiative for social enterpreneurs.   

He has served on several non-profit boards of directors, and is a member of the American Law Institute.  He and his wife, Suzanne Meeker, live in Brunswick, Maine.  They have two sons, ages 23 and 20.  His e-mail address is jkaplan@cromwellcenter.org.

Donna Richard is the Center’s Program Director.  She primarily is responsible for the Student Disabilities Awareness Program, and has grown the program almost three-fold over the past five years.  She has over 25 years of experience working with non-profit organizations with development, implementation, and oversight of a variety of programs serving youth and families in Maine. Donna has developed innovative mental health, abuse prevention, and education programs that have received awards and recognition from the state and federal government for quality and exemplary services.

Donna has also worked for over ten years as a federal review program consultant and evaluator for Head Start programs throughout the country with expertise in the areas of education and program design and management. She is an accomplished educator and has led numerous training sessions and workshops at the local community, state, regional, and federal levels on a variety of topics relating to her work in the fields of education and family services.

Donna has spent many years devoting her spare time to volunteer work with domestic violence programs, schools, and health organizations. She has a special interest in literacy and advocacy on behalf of disenfranchised populations.  Donna's e-mail address is drichard@cromwellcenter.org. 

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