 | Max Flehinger - our Board Chairman, has a long resume in public service. He was past Chairman of the Board of the Los Angeles unit of Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, Director of Volunteers for the Los Angeles Radio Reading Service (LARRS) for ten years, and a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Tarzana Neighborhood Council and the Tarzana Community Center. Along with other former volunteers at LAARS, he founded AIRS in 2005. |
 | Dr. Bill Takeshita - is the founder of the Dr. Bill Takeshita Foundation, which provides information and assistance to help children who are visually impaired. The Foundation was established in 2004 after Dr. Takeshita, a pediatric low vision optometrist ironically lost his own sight, but gained a new perspective on vision impairment. |
 | Steve Heller - our Vice President, has worked in sales, marketing, and product development of assistive technology for over twenty years. He has been involved with products for the visually impaired, and with learning disabilities. Among these products are desktop reading machines that convert text to speech, video magnifiers that enlarge print and images, a portable "reading pen" that scans and speaks words a learning disabled person needs help with, and software that permits text appearing on a computer to be spoken, highlighted, and the words defined. Through this experience he has firsthand knowledge of the benefits of technology to help those with visual impairments gain access to the printed word. |
 | Richard Burden - our Treasurer is an AIRS founding member and former Chief Engineer. He has been a broadcast engineer for more than fifty years. He was instrumental in bringing FM stereo to the public and is one of only seven colleagues who have been given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Broadcast Engineers. He currently operates Burden & Associates, his own broadcast systems engineering firm. |
 | Joe Jurca - AIRS Secretary, has 40 years experience as an Aerospace and Sonar Systems Engineer, 15 years of which was spent managing military contract proposal teams. He was named Engineer of the Year at The Bunker-Ramo Corporation and, at Bendix Ocean Systems, won a special award for excellence running a losing proposal effort (Really! - Ask him about it. It was like winning second place in a tug-of-war.) Since his retirement in 2000, he has been a volunteer reader at Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFBD), in Reseda, CA and jumped aboard AIRS-LA shortly after its founding. He is currently AIRS's Chief Engineer and Web Designer and records a series of podcasts featuring scientific articles from popular journals and another of articles from The L.A. Weekly. |
 | Jack Caulfield - also an engineer by training, served as project manager for the recently - completed recording studio for LARRS. Currently he is office and finance manager of a niche business serving the entertainment industry worldwide. He spent thirty years with Rockwell International, the last fifteen in the corporate office in various capacities. Jack is legally blind. |
 | Rick Gerber - following graduation from law school, received a Ford Foundation Fellowship to become only the third American attorney to work as an intern in the Legal Service of the European Economic Community. For many years he lived in Brussels. Until his retirement, Rick served as director, Vice-President, and Regional Counsel for Federal Express in Brussels. |
 | Anne Marie Howard has been with AIRS-LA since the beginning. She's a voice-over artist and has been in the entertainment industry for 30 years. Currently the spokeswoman for the National Association of Realtors, Anne Marie appears regularly in feature films and television series. She's hosted infomercials with Donald Trump, Vanessa Williams and George Foreman, and has worked in films with Bryant Gumbel, Nicolas Cage, Adam Sandler, Steve Martin and many others. Visit her website. |
 | Patricia Jordan - was the Public Information Manager for the nonprofit Center for the Partially Sighted, a low vision rehabilitation agency helping children and adults with impaired sight maintain their independence. The Center has offices in Los Angeles, Tarzana, Torrance and San Luis Obispo. Patricia speaks to the public about maintaining healthy vision and about how to find help when vision fails. |
 | Anita Rodriguez-Lambert began working with Airs-LA when she served as the Western Regional Director of Development for the Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB). Her Role at FFB offered her the opportunity to work closely with volunteers and donors who are affected by retinal eye disease. Through this experience, she has become passionate about improving the quality of life and curing those who are visually impaired or blind. In January 2009, Anita joined the Alzheimer's Family Services Center in Huntington Beach as the Director of Development and Communications, where she raises funds needed for the agency to fulfill it's mission of providing quality care for families dealing with dementia. Anita earned her BA in English and a BA in Liberal Studies from the Cal State Fullerton in 1994 and her MA in Organizational Management from the University of Phoenix in 1998. She currently serves
AIRS-LA as Chair of the Fundraising Committee, where she is developing a comprehensive financial plan. |
 | Kristin Macdonald - began her television career doing research at Eyewitness News in Manhattan. After graduating with honors in film and television, she landed a spot in news setting up stories for reporters and pitching new segments. The Executive Producer was impressed with her ability to book talent and hired her as a freelance Associate Producer for his company, Troika Productions. Kristin learned how to produce telethons and went on to produce the Los Angeles Easter Seal Telethon, hosted by Alec Baldwin and Heart of the Nation with Ed McMahon. Working with people with disabilities was rewarding for Kristin and, at the time, she had no idea she would be facing the challenge of vision impairment. |
 | Norma Shannon - former AIRS's Board Vice Chairman, Graduated from U. C. Santa Barbara with a bachelors degree and got her masters degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from San Francisco State College. She began her employment with the State Employment Office during which she placed both veterans and the disabled. She also screened for a number of participants in various programs affiliated with the Employment Development Department. She then went to work for the California Department of Rehabilitation and, during her 36 years there, worked with all types of disabled individuals including those with visual impairments. She then became a Supervisor for Blind Field Services. She retired from the Department of Rehabilitation after 39 years of service in August of 2008. |
