ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The Foundation’s Advisory Committee assists the Grant Committee of the Board of Directors in the review and selection of the Foundation’s annual grant recipients.

  • William Baumgartner

    Bill is a former U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral and experienced senior executive in both the public and private sector. In 2013, he completed a 33-year career with the Coast Guard. As a Rear Admiral, Bill served as The Judge Advocate General/Chief Counsel (TJAG) of the Coast Guard managing the Coast Guard’s worldwide legal program with over 250 attorneys, including a trial and appellate court system. He also served as the Seventh District Commander directing all U.S. Coast Guard operations in the Southeast U.S. and the Caribbean Basin, including safety and regulation of shipping, environmental protection, search and rescue, aids to navigation, law enforcement, maritime homeland security and national defense. From 2013-2017, Bill was the Senior Vice President, Global Marine Operations, for Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. where he managed a fleet of 49 cruise ships operating throughout the world. Since 2018, he has led Baumgartner & Associates, LLC, a maritime consulting practice. Bill graduated from the U. S. Coast Guard Academy in 1980 with a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and Marine Engineering. He has an MBA from the University of New Orleans and a JD from Harvard Law School where he was an editor on the Harvard Law Review.

  • Christina Biebesheimer

    Christina has worked for much of her career to make it possible for ordinary people and marginalized groups in developing countries to be able to resolve conflicts peacefully, and to seek redress from wrongs and accountability from government. From 2005 - 2016, she was Chief Counsel for Justice Reform and then Manager of Justice, Rights and Citizen Security in the World Bank. She led a diverse team of world-class experts on rule of law reform operating in locations ranging from conflict settings to capitals of leading economies, with budgets in tens of millions and project portfolios in excess of $200 million. From 1989 - 2005 Christina focused on strengthening justice, public sector management and violence prevention at the Inter-American Development Bank, where she was first an Attorney and then Principal Specialist in Modernization of the State. From 1986 - 1989 she was an Associate with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. Christina has served as Chair of the Board of Directors of Offender Aid and Restoration (OAR) of Arlington County, as Hague Visiting Chair on the Rule of Law, as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University, as editor and author of publications on justice in development, and as a foster parent. Now retired, Christina continues to work for justice for the poor and accountability to the public: she serves on the Hearing Committee of the D.C. Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility; as a volunteer lobbyist for RESULTS, advocating before the U.S. Congress for policies to end poverty; and on the Governance Committee of Foundry United Methodist Church. Christina is a graduate of the University of Iowa, the Universidade Classica de Lisboa, and Harvard Law School.

  • Michael Cleveland

    Michael Cleveland practiced labor and employment law at Vedder Price P.C. for 41 years until his retirement in June 2015. During that time, he litigated cases in state and federal courts throughout the country, including multiple class actions. He also held multiple firm management positions, including on the firm’s Executive Committee, and for the last several years of his practice served as the firm’s Ethics Counsel.

  • Vince Gentile

    After 30 years as a partner at an AmLaw 100 law firm, Vince began his own law firm, concentrating on serving individuals and closely-held businesses. For more than 20 years, he has been certified as a trial attorney by the Supreme Court of New Jersey, a designation held by less than 2% of the New Jersey bar. He is an AAA arbitrator for commercial and consumer cases and has also served for many years as a court-appointed mediator and arbitrator in the New Jersey state courts. In 2013, he was appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court to its Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct. He has also served on the District VII Fee Arbitration Panel and the District VIII Ethics Committee and has been appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court to conduct attorney ethics investigations. Throughout his career he has been engaged in pro bono work, and for several years he served as chair of a national law firm’s pro bono program. He is currently representing a number of Afghan asylum seekers. Between 1983 and 1989, Vince was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of New Jersey, and served as Chief of the Civil Division under then U.S. Attorney Samuel A. Alito, Jr. Before that, he worked at a large New York City law firm and clerked for a judge on New York’s highest court, the New York Court of Appeals. Vince holds a J.D., cum laude, from New York University School of Law, where he was a member of the Law Review. He has a B.A., magna cum laude, from Cornell University, College of Arts & Sciences.

  • Alan Joaquin

    Alan Joaquin began his legal career in New York law with a firm engaged in commercial litigation primarily involving corporate liability and breaches of fiduciary duty. Alan then moved to the Department of Justice ("DOJ") in Washington, D.C. as a prosecutor in the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section where he litigated bank and healthcare fraud cases and worked with members of the Department of Health and Human Services to develop anti-kickback regulations.

    After more than three years at the DOJ, Alan joined and became partner at an AmLaw 100 law firm in the District of Columbia, where he was a commercial litigator for more than twenty years. At that firm, Alan worked with Jerry Hartman on various pro bono cases affiliated with the Barbara McDowell Foundation. Recently, became a founding partner at Werner Ahari and Mangel LLP.

  • Jim Kilbourne

    Jim Kilbourne is a former attorney with the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice, having recently retired after working for the ENRD for nearly 43 years. In 1979, he joined ENRD through the Honor's Attorney program as a staff attorney in the Appellate Section; later transferred to the Division's Wildlife and Marine Resources Section, ultimately becoming Chief of that office; and then in 1995 he transferred back to the Appellate Section, as its Chief. He argued appeals in many of the federal circuits across the country and, over the years, worked closely with the Office of the Solicitor General on ENRD cases that went to the Supreme Court.

  • Hayley Maclean Coker

    Hayley Maclean Coker, Barbara McDowell’s niece, is an Obstetrician/Gynecologist in private practice in Sacramento, California. She completed medical school and residency at the University of California, Davis. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she also competed on the women’s water polo team. Hayley had the pleasure of living with Barbara and Jerry for a summer while completing a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C. Haley served on the Board of Directors of the Foundation from 2009 to 2021 before transitioning to the Advisory Board.

  • Rebecca Tarneja

    Rebecca Tarneja, Barbara McDowell's niece, is an attorney at Cooley LLP, where she handles a variety of complex business and commercial litigation matters. She is also active in pro bono, litigating several high-profile cases with the ACLU. During and after undergrad, Rebecca moved to Washington, D.C., where formed indelible memories with Barbara and Jerry. Barbara was and remains a big influence on Rebecca's pursuit of the law and social justice. Rebecca served on the Board of Directors of the Foundation from 2009 to 2021 before transitioning to the Advisory Board.

  • Richard Ugelow

    Richard Ugelow was a faculty member at the American University Law School until 2019 when he retired. Richard joined the law school faculty in 2002 following a 29-year career as a senior trial attorney and deputy section chief in the Employment Litigation Section, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice. At the Department of Justice, he supervised investigations and litigation to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and challenges to the constitutionality of federally sponsored affirmative action programs.

    Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Richard was a captain in the Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps for four years. Richard is a complaint examiner for the District of Columbia Office of Police Complaints, which is responsible for investigating and resolving citizen complaints filed against individual members of the Metropolitan Police Department. He is also a member of the Personnel Appeals Board of the United States Government Accountability Office.