Steven Gluckstern, Chairman, Board of Directors
After a distinguished career in the financial services industry, Steven M. Gluckstern continues to be active as an educator, philanthropist, investor, and entrepreneur. After founding a specialty reinsurer in 1988 (Centre Re) and then serving in a number of executive management roles at several global financial institutions, Mr. Gluckstern, in 1998, co-founded Capital Z Partners, an alternative asset management firm. Prior to entering the business sector, Mr. Gluckstern also spent seven years as a teacher and private and public school administrator in the US and overseas. Over the past 25 years, he has served on a wide range of both for-profit and not-for-profit boards and has been an active supporter of a broad range of philanthropic activities in the arts, the fields of education and children's causes, GLBT advocacy, and HIV/AIDS research and treatment.
An Arjay Miller Scholar and 1982 M.B.A. graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Mr. Gluckstern holds both Ed.D.(1974) and LH.D.(2003 honorary) degrees from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and both B.A. (1972) and LH.D.(1997 honorary) degrees from Amherst College, where he currently serves as a member of its Board of Trustees.
Melvin Oliver
Dean Melvin L. Oliver, a prominent sociologist and foundation leader, has been named dean of social sciences. Since 1996, he has been vice president for asset building and community development at the Ford Foundation, one of the largest private philanthropies in the United States. He joined the foundation after two decades on the faculty at UCLA, where he served as a professor of sociology and policy studies, and a director of the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty, among other roles. You can read more about Mr. Oliver at: www.soc.ucsb.edu/oliver.htm.
Bruce W. Presley
Bruce Presley graduated from Yale University in 1959 with a degree in industrial engineering. Upon graduation he became a physics teacher at the Berkshire School in Massachusetts. A year later Mr. Presley joined the faculty of the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey where for 24 years he served in numerous capacities including heading the computer science department.
While at Lawrenceville he did graduate work under National Science Foundation grants at Princeton, Yale, and Rutgers. In 1975 he founded Lawrenceville Press, a publisher of computer textbooks for high schools and colleges. In 2005 the Press celebrated its thirtieth anniversary of publishing texts for Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and Macro Media software. In 1984 Mr. Presley left the Lawrenceville School to devout his time to Lawrenceville Press. Presently he serves on five nonprofit boards including GLSEN South Florida as board president, The Victory Fund, The Liberty Education Forum, and Saint Andrew.s School in Boca Raton, Florida.
Mr. Presley resides in Fort Lauderdale and New York City.
Learn more about the Palm Center's DADT Project Board.
