The following profiles were provided by the four finalists under consideration for the position of Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD).
Shane H. Feldman is a dynamic leader with over 10 years of experience championing the civil, human and linguistic rights of the deaf and hard of hearing community. He is passionate about the NAD from a professional and personal perspective.
As the NAD Chief Operating Officer, Feldman directs all organizational operations. He implemented strategies that strengthened the image and stature of the NAD. He is now steering the NAD out of a financial crisis and aligning programs to uphold its founding principles and promoting the core values of American Sign Language (ASL) and diversity on a national level.
Feldman’s passion has not been limited to his job; through his community advocacy, he helped to pass Maryland legislation that requires that TV captions be turned on upon request in public venues and added videophones to Montgomery County’s public libraries.
Feldman held business leadership positions before returning to the NAD where he originally led its marketing and communications department. He received his Master’s in Management from the University of Maryland University College, his Bachelor’s in Professional and Technical Communications from RIT/NTID, and is a Certified Association Executive.
As a highly motivated and effective non-profit executive with a firm grasp of the challenges that lay ahead, Feldman is eager to carry out a forward-looking vision for the NAD as a stronger and more influential organization with the support of its stakeholders.
During his free hours, Feldman enjoys nature outings with his wife Julie and their two children.
Charity Reedy Hines is the youngest of five children and grew up in Singers Glen, Virginia, approximately 15 miles from the state line which separates Virginia and West Virginia. Singers Glen is situated at the foot of the Shenandoah Valley portion of the Appalachian Mountain range where poverty meets the life of hard work.
Reedy Hines comes from a long line of deafness on both sides of her family. As a child, she was hard of hearing until she lost all of her hearing at 13 years of age. It was her stints as staff member of NAD’s Youth Leadership Camp (YLC) and also as a contestant for Miss Deaf Virginia in NAD’s Miss Deaf America Pageant that brought her back to Kendall Green and became a lifelong member of National Association of the Deaf. She graduated from Gallaudet University with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and a Master's degree in Deaf Education. In seventeen out of eighteen years of her professional career, she has served in a supervisory capacity at Gallaudet University and the West Virginia Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. This offered Reedy Hines an opportunity to develop her expertise in working with and managing people in a way that fosters a team-building and collaborative work environment to meet the mission and its goals.
Reedy Hines is currently employed as Director of Admissions at Gallaudet University. She resides in West River, Maryland with her husband, Danny Hines and their two children, Amberlin and Reedy.
Howard A. Rosenblum has been a Senior Attorney for the last eight years at Equip for Equality, a nonprofit organization designated as Illinois’ Protection and Advocacy entity, after nearly ten years as an associate attorney with Monahan & Cohen.
Rosenblum focuses his legal practice in the areas of disability rights, mental health issues, and special education. He has been involved in major litigation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other disability rights laws. He has provided numerous workshops on the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and other laws impacting the rights of people with disabilities.
Rosenblum co-founded and serves as Chairperson of the Midwest Center on Law and the Deaf (MCLD), dedicated to ensuring equal access to the legal system for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. He is also the Public Policy Chair for the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), and has served in this role since 2006. In addition, he served on the NAD’s Fulton III Committee as the Advocacy Cluster Chair from 2004-2006.
Rosenblum received his law degree from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law (1992), and his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Arizona (1988). He has lived in Chicago, Illinois since graduating from college in 1988.
Darlene Goncz Zangara, ABD, LPC, is currently the CSD Senior Vice President for National Centers of Excellence (Human Services). She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Deaf Education, with a minor in Art Education from Bowling Green State University and her Master of Arts in Counseling for the Deaf from Gallaudet University. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Antioch University, PhD in Leadership and Change.
Zangara is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Ohio. She has extensive experience in Leadership, System Advocacy, Human Services, Mental Health, Drug & Alcohol Services, Prevention, Resiliency Enhancement, Mental Health Interpreting, Non Profit Organization Management, Change Initiatives, Board Development, Program Development, Training, and Consultation. Aside from her work, she provides workshops and presentations nationally and internationally. Prior to her doctoral studies, she served and volunteered on many advisory committees.
Zangara served on the NAD Fulton III, Finance and Development Committees from 2003-2006 and served as Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) Mediator. She also served as the National President of Deaf Women United (DWU) from 2001 to 2005. She was born and raised in Ohio to a deaf family, and currently resides in Brandon, South Dakota with her husband, Mark, and two teenage sons.