Board of Directors
Walter Jenkins, Chair
Dwight Gee, President & Treasurer
James Wagenlander, Secretary
Andy Finch, Vice President
Regional Directors
Jo Kurth Jagoda
Erin Younger
Walter Jenkins, is Chairman of Zorig Foundation USA. He is a commercial real estate investor and developer living in the State of Colorado, USA. Mr. Jenkins has a career spanning more than forty five years which began with employment with the U.S. Government in the Department of Defense, the Atomic Energy Commission and Department of Energy. Subsequently as a consultant and small business owner he provided engineering services to the U.S. Government and private industry. His companies have provided telecommunications and IT services to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Office of Personnel Management.
Additionally, he has provided environmental engineering services to the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Air Force. His employees supported the United Parcel Service (UPS) in providing personnel services for their experimental airline passenger program. Mr. Jenkins is currently President of the Board of Trustees of the Zorig Foundation USA and he serves on the board of the Arts Council of Mongolia. He supports both financially and personally a number of educational programs for young Mongolians through his board activities. Mr. Jenkins holds degrees from the University of Maryland and George Washington University.
Dwight Gee has more than two decades of domestic experience and one decade of international experience in fundraising, leadership and organizational development, communications, and training. In addition to providing volunteer leadership and administration of ACM-US, he advises boards and executive leadership of a number of nonprofit organizations. He also serves on several nonprofit boards and committees.
He is a guest lecturer at Seattle University and the University of Washington on fundraising and nonprofit management, and also provides training sessions to boards of many nongovernmental organizations on fundraising, governance, and nonprofit management and leadership.
Dwight is a long-time member and immediate-past chair of the advisory committee of Seattle University’s Masters in Nonprofit Leadership Program. He also served two terms as board president of FareStart, a Seattle-based NGO training homeless people to serve in the food service industry. In 2002, as a consultant to the George Soros Open Society Foundations, he helped establish an arts council in Mongolia. He also serves on the board of the Laucks Foundation.
James (Jim) F. Wagenlander has had an extensive engagement with Mongolia since 1989. He and his Denver law firm, Wagenlander & Heisterkamp, LLC, have the oldest continuous involvement with Mongolia and Mongolian matters of any North American law firm. He is a long time Vice Chairman of the North-America Mongolia Business Council and since 1999 has been a very active Honorary Consul of Mongolia in Denver, Colorado. Jim helped start and Chairperson of the Ulaanbaatar Denver Sister Cities Committee. He is also a Board Member of the Arts Council of Mongolia-U.S. and is an urban development advisor to Mongolia’s Capitol City, Ulaanbaatar. Currently he also is the Principal Partner in AmeraWest, a company that manages international U.S. business forums, tours and trips. Mr. Wagenlander is a recipient of both Mongolia’s Polar Star and Friendship medal.
Andy Finch is Director of Policy for the Association of Art Museum Directors, working on issues including tax deductibility of gifts of art, federal indemnification of art exhibitions, arts education, and the federal cultural agencies. He served as Americans for the Arts' chief lobbyist on Capitol Hill and at the federal executive agencies from 2003 to 2007. From 1999 to 2001, he was a Special Assistant at the U.S. Department of Education, advising the Secretary, senior staff, and the First Lady's office on arts education policy. He was a lobbyist for the American Association of Museums from 1990 to 1999, specializing in tax policy, education, and grassroots organizing. During the 1980's, he worked on two statewide campaigns in Massachusetts, on two presidential campaigns, and as a Legislative Assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives. Andy holds a B.A. from Brandeis University in history and classical civilization, and a M.A. in Latin from U.C.L.A.
Erin Younger is a museum professional with nearly four decades’ experience in both museums and public arts administration. She currently works as research associate at the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and as a peer reviewer for the American Alliance of Museums. Erin worked at Seattle’s Burke Museum from 1995 to 2013, where she served as director of public programs and associate director for exhibits and institutional planning. Prior to her term at the Burke, she had worked at the King County Arts Commission and the Washington Commission for the Humanities. Erin completed her graduate studies in cultural anthropology and museology at Arizona State University, and she worked as curator of contemporary Native American Art at the Heard Museum in the 1970s. Since 2013, she has been pleased to serve as a regional director for ACM-US.