AbodesJoy Board of Directors
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Delaine, PMP, LEED AP., has over 22 years experience directing high profile, multi-million-dollar construction, multi-family, infrastructure, and maintenance projects in public and private sector industries. Through her innovative and unique approach to organizational change management, she delivers the best results for programs, as her focus is continuously on business value, risk management, and client success. Delaine’s portfolio of clients include: Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling (JBAB), Gainesville Library, Tides Luxury Condominiums, Riverview Hotel and more!
Delaine’s transformational leadership skills are utilized to motivate, while gaining trust and respect through demonstrating an optimistic attitude and establishing channels of open communication and dialogue. Her success is enhanced through her expertise in establishing highly productive teams through utterly understanding project objectives and aligning teams with those goals.
With a graduate certificate in Project Management and Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, Delaine’s entry into the project management industry came through her experience as sole proprietor of a construction company. The success of that journey sparked her desire to contribute her analytical, process improvement, time management, client relationship management, and strategic communication skills to the growing, thriving world of project management. She’s excited to bring this experience to AbodesJoy.
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Henry is the founder and CEO of Cross Museum Services which has provided fine art handling and exhibition services for over 30 years to such great institutions as The National Gallery of Art, The Freer and Sackler Galleries, The National Museum of the American Indian, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and many others. His experience with these world class institutions has helped him develop the skills, connections, and insight required to bring a focused professionalism to any project. His company has gained a reputation for providing highly skilled, experienced installers who are museum trained and are prepared to assist in any exhibition environment. With the collaboration of his production partners he is also able to provide a full range of exhibition services when required.
On the production front Henry has been an audio engineer for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival for the last twenty years. Through this association he has had the pleasure of mixing and recording numerous traditional and contemporary musical performers from around the world. He is also an audio engineer for the National Council for the Traditional Arts which organizes the American Folk Festival in Bangor, Maine, and the National Folk Festival which travels around the country. He is also sound engineer at Blues Alley, the legendary jazz club in Washington D.C.
Henry owns and operates Red Sky Audio which is a fully equipped studio in Takoma Park, MD. Recent projects include several prominent folk and world music artists. He has been performing and producing music professionally since 1980. He attended the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado where he studied with members of Oregon, a progressive world ensemble featuring the legendary Colin Walcott on sitar. While at Naropa, he also had the honor of performing with poet Allen Ginsberg in a Country/Western Haiku band.
The universe and the art world has been very good to Henry; he has abundant resources, years of experience, and actual tools that he’s excited to share with the AbodesJoy community
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Julie Drendall, MSS, MLSP, is a proud Philadelphian who has worked in nonprofit communications and administration for the past 20+ years. Currently, Julie serves as a Senior Technical Associate, Researcher and Writer for an organization focused on international medical education and global health. She also does communications and development consulting work for a handful of nonprofit clients.
Julie is passionate about social, racial, and reproductive justice; gender equity; and animal welfare. She completed her undergraduate education at Lafayette College, where she majored in English and minored in Women’s Studies; she completed her graduate education at the Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, where she earned a Master of Social Service and a Master of Law and Social Policy.
Julie is honored to serve as the inaugural Secretary of the AbodesJoy Board of Directors. She loves that AbodesJoy was established out of a desire to train and empower people in home repair as a means of building confidence and community. As a homeowner who is utterly clueless when it comes to home repair and renovation, she is excited to witness the evolution of the Home Repair Training Program (and perhaps sit in on a workshop or two).
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Licia Galinsky is a Silver Spring-based real estate investor and broker, and a co-founder of AbodesJoy. Raised in Montgomery County, she has lived all over the DC Metro area and is deeply invested in its residents and communities. Licia began her professional career in event production, and she was the manager of Woman Sound (later City Sound Productions), the first all-woman sound company. She was involved with many large-scale marches and other events in and around DC, served as production staff for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival as well as many other festivals, and has also done freelance technical theater work. However, investing in her first property in 1995 sparked an interest in real estate as a way to invest in the future. She spent a number of years working for small independent companies with investors and home buyers, and in 2013 she made the decision to expand herself and utilize her now growing skill set by opening her own boutique brokerage firm, Branches Realty.
Real estate is a vocation that comes naturally to Licia. Specializing in residential listings for buyers and sellers, she is an energetic and collaborative realtor who strives to ensure that her clients’ needs are first and foremost. She has deep roots in the DC Metro area and she is passionate about connecting and lifting people. Establishing a nonprofit that benefits the community has been a longtime dream of Licia’s, and the creation of AbodesJoy has enabled her to make this dream a reality.
Over the years, Licia has developed quite a knack for home renovations and repairs. If something around the house needs fixing, chances are she knows how to fix it—and if she doesn’t, she will take it apart, learn how it works, and then put it back together. Licia’s self-taught skills include carpentry, plumbing, locksmithing, and electrical work, and she gets great joy and satisfaction from her home improvement projects. She realizes, however, that these types of home repairs can be extraordinarily daunting for many female homeowners, and she is eager to help train and empower participants in the AbodesJoy Women’s Home Repair Training Program.
Licia and her family reside in Downtown Silver Spring, and when she is not working hard for her clients or playing ringmaster to her family circus, she enjoys travel, fly fishing, bowling, and having culinary adventures with her lovely wife.
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Chrissy is a Maryland native who works in the accounting and finance field and is currently living in Baltimore City. In her free time, she enjoys anything active, including hiking, playing basketball, and spending time with her two nieces. She has always enjoyed doing things with her hands and learning new things, and was excited to gain new skills through her participation in the third cohort of the AbodesJoy Home Repair Training Program.
After completing the AbodesJoy program in the fall of 2023, Chrissy expressed an interest in getting more involved. We are thrilled that she has joined the Board, and are confident that her financial expertise as well as her insights as a past program participant will prove invaluable to AbodesJoy as we continue to evolve as an organization.
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Saskia van Groningen, an AbodesJoy co-founder and Chair of the Board, was born and raised in the Netherlands and moved to the US to study architecture at the University of Oregon. After working for several architectural firms in the Baltimore and DC area, she has been in private practice since 1991.
Saskia has lived in the DC area for over three decades, during which she served on the Board of Historic Mount Pleasant for eight years, helping business owners with storefront renovations and aiding homeowners through the maze of Historic Preservation rules and guidelines.
In addition to over 40 years spent in Residential Architectural Design, Saskia has been part of a number of collaborative art projects in DC and Santiago, Chile. She also ran an International Product Design Company called Big Deal Design for 10 years that designed and produced tableware, furniture, and a chess set made out of salt and pepper shakers.
Saskia became a real estate agent with Branches Realty in 2017, providing clients with renovation guidance.
AbodesJoy provides Saskia an opportunity to share the knowledge and give back to the community, and the new experiences and people involved in the work gives her infinite pleasure.
Saskia has also managed to raise two beautiful human beings in the last three decades, who are both now building their own lives out in the world.
In her spare time, Saskia likes to share her love of music and food with others, write poetry, knit the occasional scarf, and plant lavender.