Mount Pleasant Village Board of Directors

Robin Sandenburgh, President

Robin was a resident of Mount Pleasant from 1984-1988, when she moved to Kenya “for a year.”  She moved back to Mount Pleasant in 2014, having spent the intervening years doing environmental work for the World Bank Group in Zimbabwe, India, Egypt, and Turkey.

Robin has an undergraduate degree from Brown University (History) and a masters from the University of Michigan (Public Policy).  She served as a Mount Pleasant ANC commissioner from 2019-2022; was an active member of the Village’s "Neighbors Helping Neighbors" effort from 2020-present; and she is a board member of Margaret McNamara Education Grants, which provides education grants to exceptional women from developing countries. 

Tess Amolsch, Deputy President

Tess has been a Mt. Pleasant resident since 2002. She and her husband Christian, a commercial architect, closed on their first house in Mount Pleasant the day they got back from their honeymoon. They and their growing family--a daughter and twin boy and girl twins, now at Deal--lived in their first house at 19th Street and Newton for eight years. 

Tess has been highly involved in Neighbors Helping Neighbors. Her professional work has been in the field of non-profit management.

Fred O'Regan, Vice President

Fred and his wife Nancy first moved to Mount Pleasant in 1983. Fred's career has focused on poverty-alleviation and environmental conservation, domestically and internationally with a focus on Africa, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Biology and an M.S.W. He began his career as a community organizer in Cambridge, Mass., after serving in the Peace Corps as a science teacher in eSwatini (formerly Swaziland).

 

Ross Hamory, Treasurer

Ross graduated from Maryville College and worked for 34 years in management and executive positions with the Federal Aviation Administration. Before moving to Mount Pleasant to be closer to family, Ross served on the Board of Directors of the Habitat for Humanity in Beaufort, N.C. and the Main Street Organization in Washington, N.C.

 

David Arnold, Secretary

David came to Mount Pleasant in 1992 from two years working in Kenya. He and  his wife, Courtney discovered the tree-lined row houses on 19th Street and fell in love with the neighborhood. His professional life has included editing a national magazine about the underserved regions of the world for the National Peace Corps Association and working with Ethiopian journalists producing daily shortwave news programs to Ethiopia and Eritrea.  He is very interested in the intergenerational nature of Mount Pleasant and its potential for the Mount Pleasant Village.

 

Jesse Boardman Bump

Jesse's affection for Mount Pleasant dates to 1997 when Rock Creek, the diverse community, and lively streets drew him into a basement apartment on the 18th and Lamont corner. Following years in Italy and Boston, he and his family returned to the neighborhood in 2012. Jesse joined the Village in 2017. His children are students at Bancroft school. 

Jesse has an active interest in historic preservation on our business street and residential streets.  He is the Executive Director of the Takemi Program in International Health and Lecturer on Global Health Policy in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Member of the Bergen Center for Ethics and Priority Setting at the University of Bergen.

 

Jill Eden

Jill been in the D.C. area since the late 1980's and moved to Mount Pleasant in 2011, joining the village in 2019.  She has spent her career in health policy—mostly in research at the Institute of Medicine (part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine) where she directed studies on a broad range of health policy issues.  Originally from the south shore of Long Island, Jill went to Barnard College and earned M.P.H. and M.B.A. degrees from Columbia University. Jill is a founding member of the Village Clusters and currently leads the Cluster Coordinators Group. She is especially passionate about family, friends, music, and nature.

Josephine Escalante

Josephine Escalante began volunteering for the Mount Pleasant Village in 2018, assisting in the Village's Raffle Fundraiser. Since then, she has assisted many committees and currently serves on the Partnership (Co-chair) and Volunteer Management Committees. Josephine is an attorney and mother of three. She has lived with her family on Newton Street since 2005. In 2018, Josephine suspended her work as a federal litigator specializing in intellectual property law to devote more time to her non-profit work. In addition to her work for the Village, Josephine serves on the Board of Visitors and Governors for St. John's College, her alma mater. She is also the current President of St. John's College's Alumni Association. Prior to her legal practice, Josephine was the founding Executive Director of New York non-profit, Filipino American Human Services, Inc. (FAHSI). Her work at FAHSI garnered The Banaag Award, among nominees from all over the world, for exemplary service to the Philippine community.

 

Jan Fenty

 

Judy Fisher

Judy has been a District resident since 1967 and in her Lanier Heights home for more than 30 years. She earned degrees in English and secondary education from Howard University and an M.A. in early childhood education from the University of the District of Columbia. She is active on the Diversity Committee.

 

  

Mary Anne Gibbons

Mary Anne Gibbons is an attorney with over twenty-seven years of federal government and ten years of private sector experience.  Prior to retiring in 2013, Mary Anne served as General Counsel and Executive Vice President of the U.S. Postal Service for more than 14 years and in other management and staff positions previously.  

Mary Anne has been an adjunct professor at Georgetown and American University law schools, assistant general counsel at the United Mine Workers of America Health and Retirement Funds and an administrator at Millersville University in Millersville, Pennsylvania.

She is a 1980 graduate of the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law, where she served on the Board of Visitors for many years. She holds an M.A. in Education from Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., and a B.A. in Education from Mundelein College in Chicago.

Mary Anne has been a resident of Mount Pleasant since 1980, and volunteers for a number of community non-profits. She serves on the Village’s Program, Partnerships, and Membership Committees and leads the Village’s walking group. In addition, Mary Anne volunteers for the Sacred Heart Dinner Program and the Brothers of Charity transitional housing program. Mary Anne and her husband, Michael Healy, have a 24-year-old daughter and a 21-year-old son.

 

Meredith Golemon-Bielke

Meredith Golemon-Bielke is Senior Director, Global Trade Policy, at Oracle Corporation, where she supports and advises the global trade compliance teams and supports the corporate sustainability strategy.

With close to three decades experience in international trade policy, Meredith also serves on the Board of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC)—the premier association for leadership, expertise, and influence on international tax and trade policy issues. Meredith received a B.A. in International Studies from Bridgewater College.

Meredith, who joined the Village in 2019, has been a resident of Mount Pleasant since 2010. She lives on Kenyon Street with her husband Rick Bielke and daughters Nora and Ana. Both her daughters attended Bancroft Elementary School where Meredith was active in her daughter’s Girl Scouts Troop. Meredith has also helped to organize the annual lantern walk, participated in the Village clean-up on Earth Day, and distributed food at the Msgr. Romero building for the Village-World Central Kitchen collaboration during COVID. Her other volunteer work includes volunteering at her children’s current schools, Our Lady of Victory and St. John’s College High School and at area food banks.

Leo M. Sanchez 

Leo fell in love with the prospect of living in Mount Pleasant in 1996 when he realized he could live in the city without the feel of being in the middle of it. 

He is a Village Cluster Coordinator.  Leo is an avid swimmer and a certified Master Gardener.  He volunteers at the Hillwood Estate Museum and Gardens and is also a literacy tutor through the AARP Experience Corps. Retired from Federal Service in 2016, he spent most of his Federal career at the U. S. Small Business Administration (SBA).  He has served as a Latino Economic Development Corporation (LEDC) Board Member.

Martha Sipple

Martha originally moved to Mount Pleasant in 1982 and lived on a number of different streets--Park, Ingleside, Lamont, and Irving.  In 1987, she moved to a cooperative building in Lanier Heights, where she has served on the coop board for about a decade.

Martha joined the Village 2019. She has been an active member of the Diversity Committee and is a founding member of the Waste Management Interest Group, which seeks to make Mount Pleasant a community model for Zero Waste.  Martha is a communications strategist in international development focused on poverty alleviation.