Meet Our Experts
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L P Coleman Contracting Services, LLC has expanded its level of expertise to better serve New Hampshire businesses.

Laura Coleman owner and principal of L P Coleman Contracting Services, LLC, has more than twenty years of background and experience in all areas of grant acquisition and management, business planning and development. Ms. Coleman provides technical assistance in design and implementation of system improvements; organizational development and assessment of administration and leadership, management training needs, communication, human resources and volunteer recruitment and management; market research and feasibility analysis; grant research, proposal development, monitoring and grants management; fundraising; program and organizational evaluation; member recruitment and training; community engagement; marketing; and community development. Ms. Coleman has managed more than $3,000,000 in grants at any given time, and successfully secured more than $13,000,000 in Federal, state, foundation, and community grants for faith and community based organizations in New Hampshire.

Jeff Smith earned degrees from Williams College and the Institute for History, Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. He has twenty years of experience in securing grants for K-12 education, social services, and healthcare. He is founder and past chair of the Tulsa Area Grant Writers’ Network (TAG-Net). He is a successful and seasoned grant writer. In addition to grant writing, his primary areas of expertise are creating projects that get funded, evaluating their performance, and training others to find and get grants. To date, Mr. Smith has secured more than $90,000,000 in competitive grant awards for urban and rural clients, primarily from federal, state, and foundation sources. Over the years Mr. Smith has written three hundred and sixty grant proposals for different programs and he has acquired a cumulative 75% success rate.

Theresa M. Akey, PhD has more than twelve years of experience working as an evaluation and research consultant, conducting multiple-site/method evaluation projects. Dr. Akey has worked with the Youth Volunteer Corporation of America (YVC) providing evaluation and the Americorp’s Youth Volunteers analyzing youth, community, and organizational outcomes. Dr. Akey’s areas of expertise include research design and analysis focused on complex quantitative analyses, categorical modeling, and qualitative design and analysis; program evaluation in educational and community settings; grant and proposal writing; IT development for the management and dissemination of research and evaluation data and findings, development of educational assessment materials; and professional development in the use of data for organizational improvement, assessment development, curricular alignment, and program evaluation.

Ruth Goltz has more than ten years of experience in the design, development, and implementation of quality graphic and interactive Websites. Her Website designs have generated an increased presence for companies throughout the country. Ms. Goltz is highly skilled in all aspects of Website development and marketing.

Sheri Williams has more than ten years of knowledge and expertise in organizational operations, systems development, data collection and analysis, and program evaluation. Ms. Williams has experience in financial management of accounts exceeding $1,000,000 and is adept with multiple software applications relating to systems and accounting. Her expertise also includes market research, organizational and program evaluation, organizational profiling, organizational systems assessment to identify and maximize organizational capacity to ensure efficiency.

Rita Rizzo has a Master’s degree in Training and Human Resource Management with undergraduate education in psychology and nursing. Ms. Rizzo is a certified management consultant and conflict mediator. She has lead more than 4,000 training events in 28 states, two Canadian Provinces, and London England. She is a seasoned facilitator of business and strategic planning working with public child protection agencies, public assistance programs, workforce development programs, parole and probation departments, Head Start, community action agencies, coalitions for the elderly, and private foster care networks.

Cindy Kane has a BS in Computer Science, a BA in Education and sixteen years of experience in writing federal grant applications. Ms. Kane provides technical assistance and training to organizations in areas of organizational development, fund development, and community engagement. She has served on various panels reviewing grant applications, allocating of funds, and creating Requests For Proposals.

Emile Durette holds an MBA from Harvard University, is a candidate at John Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies specializing in international economics and relations, and has a BA in Economics from the University of Maryland. Mr. Durette possesses over 25 years of professional background in grant development and fundraising. He has successfully secured approximately $3 million from foundation, corporate and governmental grantors, and individual donors for various nonprofit organizations.

Marianne Savarese is a graduate of St. Vincent’s Hospital School of Nursing in NYC and received a BSN degree from Adelphi University, New York. She has worked in healthcare for the homeless for over twenty years and currently serves as project director for Manchester Health Care for the Homeless, board president for the NH Coalition to End Homelessness, and board member of the VT/NH Bi-State Primary Care Association. Ms. Savarese has served as a consultant to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Pew Charitable Trust for the 19-city National Demonstration Project for the Health Care for the Homeless Program from 1983 to 1989. She is the co-author of Health Care of Homeless People (Springer, 1985) and Under the Safety Net: The Health and Social Welfare of the Homeless in the United States (W.W Norton, 1990).

Heather Johnson holds a bachelor’s degree in human development with a concentration in early childhood special education and a master degree in social work from the University of New Hampshire. She has extensive experience in early intervention with young children with disabilities and their families. While working as a parent educator for a small family center parent education program over the course of four years, Ms. Johnson successfully managed the planning and implementation of technology upgrades, securing the needed resources for equipping the family center with computers and network equipment, and staffing to maintain the servers and technology functions. As a successful grant writer, Ms. Johnson approaches grant writing from a program centered, service oriented focus. Her grants are compassionate, compelling, and worthy of funding.

Suzanne Lenz holds a Master of Arts in Arts Administration from the University of Wisconsin, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and German Literature from Mount Holyoke College. Ms. Lenz has over none years of experience in developing strategies and proposals for generating revenue, including: direct mail campaigns; corporate, foundation and government grant proposal administration; individual and corporate membership management; major donor cultivation, stewardship and solicitation; and annual fund drives.

Amy Wachspress holds a Master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a Bachelor’s degree in English and Drama from Syracuse University. She completed her course work for her Ph.D. in English Literature before leaving Washington University in St. Louis. Ms. Wachspress has over 10 years of experience in Grant Development and Administration.

Ramona Kearney holds a Doctorate degree in educational administration, a Masters in English, a B.S. in English, a B.S. Minor in Psychology and A.A. in Liberal Arts Education. She served as dean and director of institutional development at both Lenoir Community College and Pamlico Community College (PCC) in North Carolina for fifteen years where she led the institution in planning, research, and evaluation functions; conducted the institutional self-study for reaccreditation which earned the college commendations from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). She provided leadership and supervision for the IE department, college transfer programs, an education program at a private prison (through collaboration with the college), college research/planning and marketing departments, and evaluation processes for all programs. She was the liaison between the college and accrediting agencies, led all publicity and marketing activities, managed budgets, and served on the PCC Foundation Board; coordinating PCC Foundation activities.