Our Team
Mark Peres is founder and president of Charlotte ViewPoint. He is an Assistant Professor in the School of Arts & Sciences at Johnson & Wales University, Charlotte Campus, teaching courses on leadership and business ethics. He is a graduate of Rollins College and The Florida State University College of Law. Mark finds joy in the liberal arts, the creativity of friends, and being involved in a great city.
Lila Allen is the editor-in-chief of Charlotte ViewPoint. She is a cum laude graduate of Davidson College, where she studied art history and gender studies, and served as editor of Libertas, the Davidson literary arts journal. Lila currently works for the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art and plans to pursue a graduate degree in visual culture studies.
Deborah Aguiar-Vélez is an engineer, entrepreneur, wife and mother of two wonderful daughters. She has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus. Deborah is President & CEO of Sistemas Corporation, a computer consulting firm she started in 1983. Deborah loves reading, great food and meaningful conversations.
Elise Anderson is Culture Editor of Charlotte ViewPoint. She majored in English at Davidson College and now resides in Charlotte. She fronts the band Brain Flannel and works as an order coordinator for Journalbooks.
Bo Boylan is co-founder and president of Ravenwood Consulting Group, an international development and consulting firm focused on individual and organizational sales effectiveness. When he isn’t busy enjoying his family, he is immersed in issues related to public education in Mecklenburg County. This combination Virginia Tech and Wake Forest graduate graciously supports whichever team has the betting winning record in football.
Carolie Brekke is an Associate Editor of Charlotte ViewPoint Magazine. After years spent touring the US and Canada with theatre & the circus, co-owning a restaurant, working as a wardrobe mistress in Ireland and teaching outdoor education in the beautiful NC mountains, she settled in Charlotte's Third Ward for three very happy years. She and her husband now live in Sasebo, Japan. Carolie enjoys her work as a freelance graphic designer, copywriter and professional storyteller.
Casey Brewton is Director of Marketing for Charlotte ViewPoint. A native Texan and art history graduate of Davidson College, Casey enjoys cultivating her interests in all things art from photography and fashion to dance and the visual arts. She currently works for Arts & Science Council. With the free time she plans to have in the distant future, Casey plans on traveling the world, learning the intricate art of French cuisine, and becoming a fashion historian.
Lindsay Brownell attends Davidson College, trying to reconcile interests in biology and English. She lives in the Ecological Co-Operative, a student-run house dedicated to living in a more ecologically friendly way. She enjoys tea, exploring campus at night, listening to music, sleeping, team sports, photography, appreciating art and traveling.
Originally from Greenville, SC, Uzzie Cannon has lived and attended school throughout North and South Carolina. After completing her Ph.D. at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro and teaching in Savannah, GA, she is in Charlotte for a second time and hopes to remain. When not teaching as an Assistant Professor of English in African American, American, and Caribbean literatures, Uzzie researches in Gender and Cultural Studies. In her spare time, when she finds it, she loves leisure reading, photography, sports, and listening to jazz.
Hilary Coman owns The Coman Company, a consulting firm that helps both for-profits and non- profits improve performance against their financial and social goals. Born and bred in Charlotte, Hilary moved out of the area after graduating from Davidson College. After almost ten years of studying and working both overseas (Spain and Latin America) and in the big city (Washington, DC), she came back home with fluent Spanish, two masters degrees and the capability to parallel park.
A former advertising agency creative director, Paul Cotter teaches photography and handles the marketing at Davidson Day School. He's been an avid photographer for 25 years and a Charlotte Viewpoint contributor since January 2004. Paul lives in Uptown’s Garden District with his wife Bonnie and their two kids, Ben and Jade. When he's not strolling with his Nikon digital camera, he enjoys music, movies and walking to Alexander Michael's pub for the occasional Guinness.
Kali Ferguson is a Charlotte native and child of the world who loves to share. She shares her love of creativity through storytelling, writing, singing and teaching anywhere she can. She shares her love of a good time with her fellow salseros and various other party people. She shares her love of good food with restaurant owners throughout the world, and she shares her laughter with anyone who wants to hear it.
Jennfer Garner is Head of Alumni Relations at King's College London. Previously, she was the Associate Vice President of University Advancement at Queens University of Charlotte, where she managed alumni programming, community lectures and the annual fund. She received her B.A. in English from Queens College, and an M.A in nonfiction writing from Chatham College. She is a former actress, and loves to cook and travel internationally.
Originally from Nashville, TN, Al Harris is a landscape architect, planner, urban designer, bartender and photographer. After chasing his design & planning career, he realized that working behind a computer seemed to extract the subtle beauty out of landscapes and urbanscapes. He has a MLA from UPenn and traveled extensively on 5 continents. With his education, training, need for adventure and desire to work on noble causes, Al launched Mile Marker Images and now spends his time seeking out compelling landscapes with unique photo opportunities.
Jeff Jackson is Arts Editor of Charlotte ViewPoint. He is a freelance writer covering the arts, founding director of the NoDa Film Festival, and member of the Obie-winning Collapsable Giraffe theatre company in New York City. He is also co-proprietor of www.destination-out.com, an acclaimed website dedicated to avant garde jazz. Jeff received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from New York University and is a three-time fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Sharon Lachow-Blumberg is the founder and president of The Lachow Group, a consultancy focused on sustainable organizational change. She graduated from Hofstra University with a degree in psychology; followed by a double master's degree in industrial/organizational and clinical psychology from Western Kentucky University.
Tom Lane is COO and Partner of Whitehead Associates, Inc. a management consulting firm that develops leaders and organizational cultures. Tom is passionate about transforming Charlotte's workplaces into environments in which people can grow and develop as employees and human beings. He is also cares deeply about Charlotte's children, especially the most vulnerable ones, and provides pro bono consulting to organizations who take care of them. He strives to keep a flexible mind and body, results so far are inconclusive.
Born in New York, raised in SC, Winn Maddrey went to high school in VA. After completing his history degree at Davidson College, he went to Washington and served on Capitol Hill as a speechwriter and correspondent before moving over to the Commerce Dept. In the mid-1990's, Winn relocated to Charlotte where he met his wife, started raising two children and is involved in civic, arts and other local and state activities. He has started two businesses and has more than 16 years in the communications/marketing world.
Chris McLeod is Executive Director of The Greater Charlotte Cultural Trust, a supporting foundation of Foundation For The Carolinas. An attorney with fifteen years of fundraising experience, Chris works with the ASC and its 24 cultural partners and their donors to build endowments through planned giving. Chris also serves as Chair for Leave A Legacy-Charlotte Region, a public awareness campaign dedicated to promoting the idea that everyone is capable of leaving a charitable bequest.
Decker Ngongang is Executive Director of Generation Engage, a Washington DC-based, nonpartisan youth-civic-engagement initiative that connects young Americans to all elements of the political process. A Charlotte native, Decker graduated from N.C. State University in 2003 and returned to Charlotte where he spent several years at Bank of America before leaving to join the non-profit world.
Amanda Pagliarini happily works in her pajamas as a freelance writer. A Washington, DC native and graduate of George Mason University, she relocated to Charlotte in 2007 to escape the traffic. Her obsessions include her boxer JJ, writing the next great American novel, volunteering with the Humane Society, and Christian Louboutin’s.
Michael J. Solender is a 20+ year Human Resources professional who spent the bulk of his career supporting Fortune 500 Corporations with HR and Organization Development strategy and implementation. Recently retired from Corporate America, Michael is a freelance writer. He writes a weekly Neighborhoods column for the Charlotte Observer and his Micro-Fiction is featured online and in print in over 1 dozen venues.
Anne Udall is Executive Director of The Lee Institute, a non-profit organization in Charlotte, NC. The Institute focuses on building collaborative leadership within the Charlotte region. Prior to coming to The Lee Institute, Anne was in public education for over 20 years in both the Tucson Unified School District and Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. Anne earned her undergraduate and Masters Degrees from the University of New Mexico in Education, and was awarded a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Arizona.
Christa Wagner, a native of Charlotte, is working toward a Master of Regional Planning degree at UNC-Chapel Hill. She graduated from Davidson College in 2002 and was a lobbyist for the Sierra Club of North Carolina until 2008.
Piper Warlick is the owner of Piper Warlick Photography, specializing in fine art photography with a focus on women and children. She earned her BA at Appalachian State University and then moved on to The Creative Circus in Atlanta, where she earned a degree in photography with a focus in portraiture. In her scant spare time, Piper is an avid beader, a dog lover, and a go-to girl for home closet organization. She is happily married and recently celebrated her first wedding anniversary.
Jonathan Webber is a copy-editor and freelance photographer. Born in Pasadena, California, he was raised under the red lights of his father's darkroom, and his first real job was as a gofer for an audio-visual company. Since then, he has been a press operator, an archaeologist, a museum educator, an illustrator, a book store manager, an editor, and a legal proofreader. After living on a Florida beach, in an Alabama college town, and on a Tennessee farm, he arrived in Charlotte in 1998. He now lives in Windsor Park with his family and multi-species menagerie.
Born in San Diego and raised in North Carolina since she was 8, Emily Williams has been a loyal patron of the Charlotte arts community since she was a young girl. Emily is a cum laude graduate of Belmont Abbey College, with a degree in English and a minor in history. She is a recipient of the 2007 Adrian Excellence Award for Literary Studies, with a love of classical music, theater, dance and the visual arts.