Staff

Molly Abbruzzese

Senior Program Officer, Gates Foundation

Molly is a global health professional who has spent most of her career working in immunization and health systems strengthening in sub-Saharan Africa. Most recently, she served as a Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where she led initiatives focused on increasing equity and demand for vaccines.  She started her career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador and has worked in water and sanitation, HIV prevention, and SafeMotherhood.

Molly holds a joint Master of International Affairs and Master of Public Health from Columbia University, and a BA from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon.

She is a strong believer in youth leadership and has been involved with AMIGOS as a volunteer in the Dominican Republic and Mexico, as the president of the Seattle Chapter, and as the proud parent of a 2017 volunteer.

Ambassador Arnold Chacon

Career Foreign Service Officer

Ambassador Chacon is a career member of the United States Foreign Service currently serving as the Senior Vice President at the National Defense University. He has held senior leadership positions at the State Department, including Chief of Mission in Guatemala and Chief Human Capital Officer. He is widely recognized for his expertise in Latin American and European affairs, talent management, communication strategies and building a diverse workforce.

Prior to his service in Guatemala, he served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Spain. His other diplomatic assignments include postings to U.S. Missions in Honduras, Mexico, Chile, Italy, Peru, Ecuador, and the United Nations. Ambassador Chacon joined the AMIGOS Board of Directors in 2019. From 1974-1979, he served with AMIGOS in Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, and Mexico as a volunteer, route leader and member of the AMIGOS international staff. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Ambassador Chacon is a Boettcher Foundation Scholar and graduate of the University of Colorado. His wife Alida Chacon is retired from the Foreign Service and they have three children.

Andrew Haas

Orthopaedic Surgeon, Orthopaedic Associates of Stamford

Dr. Andrew Haas is a fellowship trained, board-certified orthopedic surgeon who specializes in Sports Medicine. He completed his undergraduate studies at Yale University and earned his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. After his orthopaedic surgery residency at Montefiore, he completed a sports medicine fellowship at Boston University.

Dr. Haas has served as the team physician for several high school and college athletic programs. He was the head orthopedist at the Toughman Triathlon Championships and worked as a physician at the Boston Marathon, U.S. Figure Skating National Championships and the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Hockey Championships.

Dr. Haas was a collegiate-level soccer player and has been participating in marathons and triathlons for over 30 years, including the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. As a life-long athlete himself, Dr. Haas enjoys working with athletes to formulate plans to get them back in the game.

Adolfo Jimenez

Partner, Holland & Knight LLP

As an AMIGOS alumnus and parent, Adolfo hopes to give back to AMIGOS however he can. His four years as a volunteer and staff-member were valuable. His work in the 1990s with the Miami Chapter and his daughter’s summer experience several years ago allowed him to witness the organization’s historical development. The strength and well-being of AMIGOS is important to him. Adolfo’s personal and professional life has always had a strong Latin American component. He has handled disputes and matters for clients from throughout the region. Adolfo hopes to collaborate with other board members to raise the profile of AMIGOS, connect with alumni, and further develop a sustainable long-term fundraising strategy.

Philip C. Johnson, MD

Professor and Vice-Chair, Department of Internal Medicine, McGovern Medical School

Philip Johnson, M.D., is a board certified physician and division director, Professor and Vice-Chair for the Department of Internal Medicine at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth.

He is actively involved in clinical patient care, teaching and research. Dr. Johnson served as the associate program director of the University Clinical Research Center at Memorial Hermann Hospital for 15 years, with interest in the research areas of gastrointestinal and fungal infections and HIV/AIDS. His research awards include, but are not limited to, grants from NASA and leading pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Johnson was listed in Texas Super Doctors and the Best Doctors in America a total of four times and was voted as one of Houston’s Top Doctors in 2002.

Dr. Johnson is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine as well as a fellow in the American College of Physicians.

Kevin Lanier, Board Chair

Deal Lead – Mergers and Acquisitions, Shell Oil Company

Kevin Lanier is a vicarious Amigo, having supported his three children when they volunteered as Amigos in Ecuador (Brennan in 2011), Nicaragua (Sophie in 2015), and Costa Rica (Elise in 2017) respectively.  His son and two daughters came home with such strong confidence, independence and cultural appreciation that he vowed to support the AMIGOS organization and its mission further.

Kevin has worked for Royal Dutch Shell in various businesses over his career which has included commercial roles based in Los Angeles, Mexico City, London, and Houston.  Today, Kevin leads multi-functional mergers and acquisitions teams negotiating and closing deals throughout the Americas.  He received his bachelors degree from the University of Notre Dame, a JD from the University of Texas, and an International MBA from Cambridge University.  The international frame of Kevin’s training and work life help him to deeply appreciate the mission of AMIGOS.

Catherine Masterson

Board Member

Catherine has been an active leader in the Houston community for over 20 years, serving on boards and chairing fundraisers for numerous organizations including the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Rice University, The Methodist Hospital, and St. John’s School.

Currently, Catherine is serving as Co-Chair of the Trustee-Nominating Committee and the Development Committee for the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston. She also serves as a Board Member for the Council for the Future for Friends of Florence, a nonprofit that provides financial support for the preservation and restoration of Florence’s greatest art treasures. In addition, Catherine is a Board Member for the James M. Collins Foundation, which supports education, health, and the arts worldwide.

Catherine’s professional work experience includes serving as a strategic consultant for CHRISTIE’S auction house where she developed a new strategic plan for their Southwest region. Previously, Catherine spent ten years working in the Southeast coordinating sports marketing for Coca-Cola and as Director of National Sales for Speakeasy, Inc., a communications consulting company, which specializes in training CEOs in public speaking skills. Catherine also has experience in Public Relations and Special Events working for White House Political Affairs and Young Presidents’ Organization.

Catherine is a graduate of Vanderbilt University where she majored in European History and minored in Spanish.

Catherine has been involved with AMIGOS since 1988 when she served as a volunteer in Ecuador. She returned to Ecuador with AMIGOS leadership and fellow alums for the first AMIGOS Field Project Visit in 2018. Catherine and her husband, George, co-chaired the Breakfast to Benefit AMIGOS in Houston in both 2018 and 2019.

Lisa Pieper, MD, MBA

Founder & Managing Director, Pieper & Associates LLC

Lisa Pieper has over 20 years of healthcare experience and more than a decade of experience in the life sciences industry. She founded and manages Pieper & Associates, a life sciences consulting firm focused on organizational and leadership advisory services, including executive-level and board recruitment. Lisa was previously a consultant in the life sciences practices of global executive search firms. Earlier, she practiced medicine for a decade in a large multi-specialty group practice, where she served in a variety of leadership roles and founded the evidence-based medicine program.

Lisa serves on the President’s Council of the Gladstone Institutes, a non-profit biomedical research foundation based in San Francisco. She is also an alumna of Amigos de las Américas, a non-profit, Pan-American community services organization in which she held roles of increasing responsibility, culminating in Country Director, Ecuador.

Lisa’s educational background includes undergraduate degrees in International Affairs and Spanish, followed by graduate degrees that include an MD from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she subsequently completed residency training, leading to board certification in her field, as well as an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), with contemporaneous involvement in a number of new ventures and advisory roles. Lisa is fluent in Spanish.

Paul Reidy

Senior Advisor, RPX Corporation

Paul Reidy is a seasoned business executive with experience as a corporate attorney, entrepreneur and business development professional. Paul spent much of his career with Motorola, Inc. where one of his projects was facilitating the establishment of wireless networks in Mexico and Brazil. Paul was also the co-founder and CEO of traq-wireless, Inc. a pioneer in wireless device management. More recently, Paul has been focused on patent licensing transactions designed to reduce patent litigation.

Paul received a JD/MBA degree from Indiana University and a BA in Economics from Michigan State University.

Paul was an AMIGOS volunteer in Honduras (’77) and Paraguay (’78) and a Route Leader in Honduras (’79).

Toby Spoon

Executive Vice President, The TECMA Group

Toby’s first exposure to AMIGOS was at the age of 13 in Guatemala where his parents were missionaries and AMIGOS worked in San Miguel Chicaj, Guatemala. It was there he began to dream about becoming an Amigo while helping by serving as a guide for the volunteers. He went on to get a degree in Theology and was involved in ministry and missions from 1982 to 1990. In 1990 he switched careers and began to work for the Tecma Group, where today he is a partner and holds several titles with the company. Tecma works in manufacturing in Mexico. They have 72 clients, 9,000 employees, and 3.2 million square feet of space mostly along the border. Working with and developing people continues to be his passion.

Toby participates on several boards, and he and his wife LaDeena have been involved in projects in Rwanda as well as AMIGOS. He served as a volunteer, route leader, assistant country director, and project director in Nicaragua and Ecuador. Toby also worked for AMIGOS HQ as the Field Program Coordinator.

He considers AMIGOS the wonderful foundation for all that has come his way in life and he is grateful to be able to serve on the board.

Kirsten Tobey

Founder and Chief Impact Officer, Revolution Foods

Kirsten Saenz Tobey co-founded Revolution Foods in 2006 while in graduate school at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Based in Oakland, Revolution Foods is becoming the nation’s leading innovative, nationwide food solution for citywide wellness. Revolution Foods serves approximately 2 million healthy, affordable meals per week across 15 states, serving over 2000 school and community sites in the US. Revolution Foods’ mission is to build lifelong healthy eaters by making kid-inspired, chef-crafted food accessible to all.

Revolution Foods has been named by Fast Company as one of the world’s 50 most innovative companies and has been listed as one of Fortune Magazine’s “Seven World-Changing Companies to Watch”.  Kirsten is a social entrepreneurship fellow for the Schwab Foundation, as well as an Ashoka Fellow, an Aspen Institute Environmental Fellow, and a member of the Culinary Institute of America’s Business Council. She currently is a member of the Board of Directors for Mercaris and ARTA River Trips.

Prior to founding Revolution Foods, Kirsten was a teacher, researcher and garden educator. Her AMIGOS service included Costa Rica (volunteer – 1994), Ecuador-Manabi (Field Supervisor – 1996) and Ecuador-Cotapaxi (Associate Project Director – 1998).  Kirsten holds an AB from Brown University and an MBA from UC Berkeley. She lives in the SF Bay Area with her husband and three daughters.