Presenter Biographies
Ellen Bravo is Director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women, a grassroots organization founded in 1973 which has long been active on work-family issues. Ellen has been with 9to5 since 1982, when she helped start the Milwaukee chapter. Among her publications are The Job/Family Challenge: A 9to5 Guide (Not For Women Only) and a report entitled “Keeping Jobs and Raising Families in Low-Income America: It Just Doesn’t Work,” which she co-authored with Lisa Dodson and Tiffany Manuel. Ellen has also taught several courses on women and work, including graduate seminars on work-family issues and on sexual harassment. A popular speaker, she is frequently interviewed by the media on working women’s issues.
In 1995 Ellen was been appointed to the bi-partisan Commission on Leave appointed by Congress to study the impact of the Family and Medical Leave Act. She has served on a number of other state and federal bodies.
Ellen is currently working on a novel about women who work in the call center of an airline. She lives in Milwaukee with her husband. They have two adult sons.
Janine G. Bacquie is currently the director of the Division of Early Childhood Programs and Services for Montgomery County Public Schools in Rockville, Maryland. She has an undergraduate degree in Early Childhood and Special Education from the University of Maryland at College Park and a graduate degree in Elementary Education Administration and Supervision from Bowie State University. As director she advocates for Early Childhood Education Reform and helps to execute programs and policies on both a local and national level, which will work to ensure a strong start for our youngest learners.
Prior to serving in for Montgomery County Public Schools, Ms. Bacquie served as Early Childhood Supervisor, assistant principal, coordinator, and classroom teacher for pre-kindergarten through Grade 2 in Prince George’s County Public Schools. She continues to successfully collaborate with teachers, parents, administrators, childcare providers, community organizations, research institutions, and state and federal education officials to ensure the highest possible quality standards for the care and education of all young children.
H. Kevin Knussman is a 45-year-old resident of Easton, Maryland. He graduated from public schools and in 1976, at age 19, became a Maryland State Police cadet. He graduated from the Maryland State Police Academy in 1978. Kevin was assigned to the Forestville and Easton Barracks as a trooper. In 1983 he was assigned to the world renowned MSP Aviation Division as a flight paramedic. MSP flight paramedics are the sole emergency care provider on medevac flights and also fulfill search, rescue, and law enforcement missions as part of their helicopter duties. This assignment would take Kevin through the remainder of his 23-year career and retirement in July 1999.
Kevin also is a graduate of Chesapeake College (law enforcement and humanities and social science) and Salisbury University (political science). He is a nationally registered and Maryland certified paramedic and has been active his entire life in volunteer emergency services. He chaired a task force that started a volunteer advanced life support program in Talbot County. Kevin was recognized by Maryland’s EMS system for his contributions in getting this advanced emergency care program started where none had previously existed. He currently is a volunteer firefighter and serves on an advisory board on emergency medical services for the Talbot County Council. He also works part-time as a paramedic.
In 1994, following the birth of Kevin’s first child, he asked to be his daughter’s primary care provider. Told it was not possible for a man to be a primary care provider, Kevin challenged the department’s position and was later advised it might be possible for him to become a primary care provider…only if his wife were in a coma or dead! In March 1995 Kevin, along with the ACLU of Maryland filed suit in U.S. Federal Court in Baltimore. The discrimination suit was the first in the United States to link gender discrimination with the Family and Medical Leave Act. In 1996, Kevin’s second daughter was born and he was designated primary care provider and obtained 12 weeks of FMLA leave. In February 1999 a jury found the Maryland State Police and all defendants guilty of “willful and intention” gender discrimination. The State of Maryland continues to appeal parts of the subsequent court orders.
Kevin’s efforts to become a primary care provider resulted in national media exposure including Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, National Public Radio, People Magazine, Time Magazine and countless other media outlets. Kevin testified before the Family and Medical Leave Commission in Washington, DC. Kevin, Kim, and daughter Paige met President Clinton during a radio address on the first anniversary of the FMLA and were included in Hillary Clinton’s book “It Takes A Village.”
Kevin in now a stay at home dad caring for daughters Paige (9) and Hope (7). He works several days each month as a paramedic for Caroline County, Maryland. Both girls are students in Chesapeake Christian School and enjoy a variety of sports including soccer and swimming. They especially enjoy when their dad substitute teaches or helps at their school. Kevin’s wife, Kim, works for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Kevin and his family are very grateful for the many people, including family and friends that have helped during the eight-year legal battle to ensure the State of Maryland is held accountable for their illegal discriminatory policy.
Eileen Appelbaum is Professor and Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. Formerly she was Research Director at the Economic Policy Institute and Professor of Economics at Temple University. She has been a researcher at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), has served on the Executive Board and Editorial Committee of the IRRA, has participated on a commission of the National Academy of Sciences, and is currently on the Advisory Committee of the WZB.
Dr. Appelbaum has 20 years of experience carrying out empirical research on workplace practices and labor-management cooperation in a variety of settings. One strand of her current research focuses on work-life practices of organizations, with an emphasis on staffing and scheduling issues related to work time and flexibility. She has published the edited volume Balancing Acts: Reducing the Burdens and Increasing the Options for Working Families (2000) and recently completed two coauthored papers on the work-life practices of organizations: Organizations and the Intersection of Work and Family and Contesting Time: International Comparisons of Employee Control Over Working Time.
A second major strand of her work focuses on modern human resource and work organization practices. Dr. Appelbaum has studied and written extensively about employee participation. Among her authored or co-authored books are Job Saving Strategies: Worker Buyouts and QWL (1988), The New American Workplace (1994), and Manufacturing Advantage: Why High Performance Work Systems Pay Off (2000) The last two books were chosen by Princeton University for its lists in 1995 and 2001 respectively of Noteworthy Books in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics.
Dr. Appelbaum received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Celinda Lake is President of Lake Snell Perry and Associates, a research-based strategy firm. Lake is one of the Democratic Party’s leading political strategists, serving as tactician and senior advisor to the national party committees, dozens of Democratic incumbents and challengers at all levels of the electoral process, and democratic parties in several Eastern European countries and South Africa. Lake and her firm are known for cutting edge research on issues including the economy, health care, the environment and campaign finance reform. They work for a number of institutions including AFL-CIO, AFSCME, Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, The White House Project, Human Rights Campaign, EMILY’s List, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Kaiser Foundation. Lake is a pollster for U.S. News and World Report.
Lake is one of the nation’s foremost experts on electing women candidates and on framing issues to women voters. American Politics calls Lake a “super-strategist or, better yet, the Godmother,” and Working Woman says she is “arguably the most influential woman in her field.” In past election cycles, Lake served as pollster for many candidates at all levels of government, including Governor Gary Locke of Washington state, the first Asian-American Governor in the country; Blanche Lincoln, U.S. Senator from Arkansas; Mary Landrieu, U.S. Senator from Louisiana and the first woman Senator from the South elected in her own right; Patricia Madrid the first Hispanic woman Attorney General in New Mexico; and the historic victory of Carol Moseley-Braun, who was the first African-American woman to be elected to the United States Senate.
During the 1992 election cycle, Lake oversaw focus group research for the Clinton/Gore campaign and served as a general consultant throughout the campaign.
Prior to forming Lake Snell Perry and Associates, Celinda Lake was partner and Vice President at Greenberg-Lake. Lake has served as Political Director of the Women’s Campaign Fund. She has also been Research Director at the Institute for Social Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Policy Analyst for the Subcommittee on Select Education.
Lake, a native of Montana and one of the political world’s most avid whitewater rafters, holds a Masters degree in Political Science and Survey Research from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and a certificate in political science from the University of Geneva, in Geneva, Switzerland. Lake received her undergraduate degree from Smith College in Massachusetts.
