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Board Members

Douglas Evans

Chairman of the Board

Douglas C. Evans is President of the Society for the Preservation of the Great American Songbook and the founder of Douglas Evans International, LLC a consulting firm dedicated to working with non-profit organizations.  Recently he served as Founding President of Classical South Florida, 89.7FM, 90.7FM, 101.9FM in the Palm Beaches and 88.7FM in Naples, Marco Island and Ft. Myers.  The non-profit public radio station has a weekly audience in excess of 400,000 listeners.  Evans recently held the position of Chief Operating Officer of Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment and President of Broadway China Ventures, a division of the Nederlander Organization charged with opening offices in Beijing and Shanghai and creating a network of 25 theaters nationwide in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao.

He is also a founder of Goehring Evans Productions, LLC launching the national tour of “Raisin Cane” starring Jasmine Guy and produced the Off Broadway blockbuster production of “Frankenstein” starring Hunter Foster, Christianne Noll and Steve Blanchard.  Current theatrical projects include the award winning “Spring at the Willowbrook Inn” and “Boynton Beach Club, The Musical”.  Evans has worked with a galaxy of stars including Nell Carter, Ann Miller, Juliet Prowse, John Raitt, Shirley MacLaine and Paula Zahn to name just a few. Evans also continues to be a guest on the “Brad Davis Radio Program” every Friday broadcast over numerous stations in the Northeast, a program he has appeared on for 22 years.


Celeste Simon

CEO

Celeste Simon was instrumental in the founding of the World Affairs Council of Palm Beach in July 2013. Previously she completed a 7 year affiliation with the former World Affairs Council of the Florida Palm Beaches, first as Administrative Director and subsequently as Executive Director. She continues her commitment to world understanding with the World Affairs Council of Palm Beach and is a member of the Florida Advisory Committee of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.

Celeste earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree from New York University Washington Square College where she participated in a comprehensive honors studies program. She is a member of the Pi Delta Phi French Honor Society. She did graduate studies in theatre and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin.

Celeste has had an extensive professional career as an actor-singer and is a member of SAG/AFTRA and Actors’ Equity. She has appeared on TV and in numerous theatrical productions and has sung with the Vancouver Symphony and the Buffalo Symphony.

Celeste has often combined her theatrical background and her commitment to educational outreach, directing musical productions with high school students and participating in artist-in-residence programs in the Westchester County School System. She created several summer programs for the New York State Council for the Arts, which integrated art, music, mime, dance, acting, improvisation and blended together students from elementary school through high school.

Pursuing her creative muse, Celeste has intertwined her love of music and foreign languages in her cabaret act “The World’s My Stage” singing in French, Spanish ,Italian, Japanese, Chinese and English.


Lyn Dea

Vice Chair

I have always had a profound interest in government policy and education.  I received my B. A. degree from Florida State University in 1972 and immediately began my teaching career.  For ten years I taught severely emotionally handicapped children at the Children’s Center,  I worked in the diagnostic classroom for a year then began Team Teaching with another teacher in a regular classroom.  As a team we taught up to seven children per class using  a behavior modification that was developed in California. After eight years of classroom team teaching, I worked as an Art Therapist.

l left education to raise two sons,  After my sons started  school, I began my second career in business.  I worked for two years as an Administrative Assistant  at the Mass Mutual Insurance office in Ft Lauderdale. I then became Executive Assistant and Bookkeeper for the SAE Group, a software company,  and remained there until I retired.

I continue to have a strong interest in local and global government policy.


Nancy Menges

Nancy Menges is currently the Director of the Menges Hemispheric Security Project at the Center for Security Policy in Washington D.C. In this capacity she edits the Americas Report, an on-line bi-weekly publication focused on Latin American regional security and its impacts on United States national security. Ms. Menges has provided written and oral testimony to the House of Representatives Sub-Committee on the Western Hemisphere.

Ms. Menges was instrumental in editing her late husband’s book on Russia and China which was published posthumously in 2005.

Ms. Menges worked as a social worker with abused and neglected children, parents, foster parents and the courts for 32 years in Montgomery County Maryland.

She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in International relations from the University of Wisconsin and a Masters of Social Work degree from the University of Maryland.

Organizations that are members of the national association of World Affairs Councils of America enjoy a variety of unique benefits, including access to nationwide program series, discounts on a number of international journals and publications, reduced rates during our annual National Conference, monthly updates on available speakers and other resources, and of course, opportunities to network with colleagues from across the country.

Member councils can be found in 40 U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. 


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