Board of Directors
President
Laurie Netter Sprayregen
Board of Directors
Stanford M. Adelstein
Edward M. Berman
Leslie Chatzinoff
James P. Colias
Robert Elman
Victor Friedman
Ralph M. Freyberg
Ragnhild Galtung
Anthony Greenberg
William S. Greenberg
Suzanne Denbo Jaffe
Edward Netter
Henrik Bo Pedersen
Samuel Rachlin
Liv Tchividjian Grimsby
Consul General, Denmark
Honorary Directors
Torben Gettermann,
Executive Director
Rebecca Neuwirth
Laurie Sprayregen is President of Thanks to Scandinavia, a scholarship fund that her father, Richard Netter, and Victor Borge began in 1963. Thanks to Scandinavia awards scholarships to students, teachers, and doctors from Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Bulgaria in gratitude for their rescue of persons of Jewish faith from the Holocaust. Since 1979, Laurie Sprayregen has been actively involved with the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services (JBFCS), the largest mental health agency in the New York area and became a Trustee in 1993. At JBFCS, she has served in several capacities: as Chairman of The Ittleson Center; as a Co-Chair of JBFCS’s Development Committee; and in 2008, she became the Chairman of the Madeline Borg Clinics at JBFCS. She also serves on both the Advisory Board and the Community Advisory Board of WFUV-FM, a public radio station broadcasting from Fordham University. Mrs. Sprayregen has been actively involved with Riverdale Country School, serving as the President of the Parents Association from 2006-2008. A graduate of Cornell University, Mrs. Sprayregen lives in New York City with her husband, Philip Sprayregen. Mr. Sprayregen is a commercial real estate broker with the firm Byrnam Wood. Their two children: Jim, is a sophomore at Indiana University; and Dale, an eleventh grader at Riverdale Country School Stanford M. Adelstein Edward M. Berman is a practicing attorney-at-law, whose firm is Singer Netter Dowd & Berman PLLC, located in White Plains, New York. He is admitted to practice in New York, and before the Tax Court of the United States, the United States Court International Trade, the Supreme Court of the United States and other courts. Mr. Berman has not only been a Director of Thanks to Scandinavia for more than 30 years, but is also actively involved in other charitable organizations, including The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation. He is also Chairman of the Westchester County Airport Advisory Board, Chairman of the Town of North Castle (Armonk, New York) Board of Ethics, and otherwise active in community organizations. Leslie Chatzinoff has been committed to working as a volunteer and lay leader for over 25 years. A majority of those years were spent in Jewish education while serving on Congregation Rodeph Sholom School Board of Trustees and the Rodeph Sholom Board of Directors. In the past 2 years she has become very involved at AJC. She is on the NY Region Board of Directors and will be going on the National Board of Governors in April. She works with the ACCESS team on various projects as well as with The New York Region on programs and is currently on the Diplomatic outreach Committee and Nominating Committee. In 2008, she traveled with David Harris and a small group of AJC lay leaders on a Diplomatic Mission to the Former Soviet Union and in 2009, she was a participant on the AJC Adenauer Exchange Program. She is married to Howard Chatzinoff, a Senior Partner at Weil, Gotshal and Manges, and they have 3 children, Greg(21), Jill(17), and Matthew (11). Robert H. Elman is retired chairman, CEO, and founder of DESA International, a major manufacturer of products for the home improvement industry, and serves on the Board of Governors of the American Jewish Committee. Ralph M. Freydberg was born and brought up in New York City. His parents and Richard Netter were friends, and they enjoyed a warm friendship that began when Ralph was an adolescent. It was from him that Ralph learned of Thanks to Scandinavia, and Ralph has been a "modest contributor" in his own words, over the years. Ralph went to Horace Mann, Perkiomen Prep, and the University of Virginia. Immediately after College, he joined the family business, which manufactured flexible packaging, and, in 1969, he entered the Financial Services industry and enjoyed a managerial career until my retirement in 2004. Ralph has been married for 50 years, and hastwo children and four grandchildren. He lives in Stamford and Morris, Connecticut, and is long-time members of The Fairview Country Club in Greenwich. Ragnhild Galtung has worked at the American Scandinavian Foundation in New York and as a director and honorary member of the Norway America Association in Oslo, Norway. Since 1963 she has been Thanks to Scandinavia’s representative in Norway and in 1999 became a member of the board. Anthony Wolf Greenberg (Tony) is a real estate developer at The JBG Companies, a privately held real estate investment, development and management company based in Chevy Chase, MD. Mr. Greenberg specializes in mixed-use development at transit-oriented sites across the Washington, DC metropolitan area. He is currently involved in projects totaling over four million square feet of development, including Twinbrook Station, a $700 million, 2.2 million square foot project that broke ground in 2008 on Metro’s Red Line in Rockville, MD. Prior to joining JBG, Mr. Greenberg was a developer at Clark Realty Capital, L.L.C. where, as a LEED® Accredited Professional, he directed Clark Realty’s sustainability initiatives. Mr. Greenberg is a Trustee of the Mary Sachs Charitable Trust in Harrisburg, PA. He is an active member of The National Building Museum, the Urban Land Institute, U.S. Green Building Council, and the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties. He an alumni advisory board member of the Harvard Real Estate Academic Initiative, and is an adjunct faculty member of Georgetown University's real estate program. Mr. Greenberg received his Bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, and holds advanced degrees from the University of Virginia and Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Amir Shaviv is the Assistant Executive Vice-President for Special Operations for the Joint Distribution Committee, supervising Rescue Programs. JDC is the Rescue and Relief Arm of the American Jewish community, established 1914 and operating now in some 70 countries. A 22-year veteran of JDC, he supervised the first team of operators in the Soviet Union from 1989-1991. This team laid the foundations for the return of JDC to Russia after 50 years of expulsion. Later on during the 1990's, he participated in the planning and execution of major Rescue operations of JDC. (Ethiopia. Yemen, Syria, Sarajevo, Kosovo ) Formerly a newscaster for Israeli television for 16 years, Shaviv covered news and produced documentaries on a wide spectrum of issues, among them the Israel-Diaspora relationship, Aliyah and absorption, religious and judicial affairs. He was a War Correspondent during the 1973 war in the Middle East . He graduated cum laude from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (Political Science and International Relations). Edward Netter is Chairman of Independence Holding Company, a publicly traded life and health insurance holding company, and is also Chairman and CEO of Geneva Corporation, a private diversified holding company. In addition, Mr. Netter is Chairman of the Executive Committee, of the Aristotle Corporation, a manufacturer and global distributor serving the education, health and agriculture markets. He is a member of the National Advisory Board of The Center for Community Partnerships – University of Pennsylvania, as well as a member of the Business Leader Hall of Fame (2006) for Quinnipiac University. Prior to 1971, Mr. Netter was Director, Executive Officer and principal of CBWL-Hayden Stone. He is President of Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT), which provides national grants to Investigators at major National institutions. In addition, he is a trustee of Thanks to Scandinavia, which issues scholarships to international students. Mr. Netter is active in numerous philanthropic activities relating to science, education and human services. Samuel Rachlin is one of Denmark's most recognizable on-air personalities. Samuel Rachlin combines his work as a Communications and PR Consultant with his activities as a columnist, writer, and lecturer. He lives and works in Washington DC. Most recently he worked as the Executive Director of Corporate Communications for Saxi Bank, a Copenhagen based on-line investment Bank. Prior to that, Rachlin worked for Danis TV 2 as the anchor of the Finance and Business news. As a pioneer of the network, he participated in building its news departmen and later served as the network's first anchorman of the evening enws. He subsequently became the station's first Washington correspondent. Similarly, he was the first Moscow Correspondent for Denmark's other network, DR, from 1977 to 1984. Rachlin has also worked as spokesman and media advisor at the Washington D.C headquarters of the World Bank from 1995-98 before returning to TV2 as the network's Moscow correspondent. In addition to his televison credits, Rachlin has worked broadly as a financial and foreign affairs columnist for business daily Børsen, national daily Jylland-Posten, Danish weekly Mandag Morgen, and as foreign editor of Børsens Nyhedsmagasin, a business magazine. In recent years, he has published some of his columns in The International Herald Tribune. A graduate of Copenhagen University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Rachlin is also a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He is the recipient of Columbia University’s Alumni Award for Excellence in Journalism.
