Board of Directors
Greg Williams
President
Tom De Simone
Secretary
Carol A. Grosvenor
Treasurer
Jeffrey Erdman
Chris Freeman
Annie Goto
Joseph Hawkins Ph.D.
Bill Kaiser
Tracy Moore
Christopher Ramirez
Matthew Steiger
Board Bios
Greg Williams
President
Greg Williams has been an archivist and curator for thirty-one years, working in archives in Oregon, Virginia, South Carolina, New Jersey and California. He holds degrees from the University of Oregon and Michigan State University. He has written funded grants from NHPRC, NEH, LSTA, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Film Preservation Foundation, and has curated several exhibitions and published numerous collection guides, collection related articles and served as photo editor for three coffee table books. He has volunteered at ONE since 2005.
Tom De Simone
Secretary
Thomas De Simone is Vice President of Real Estate at Genesis LA, a non-profit, community-based real estate finance company. At Genesis LA, Tom is responsible for managing real estate projects and loans; underwriting investments; raising capital for Genesis LA and project partners; and making investment recommendations to the Genesis LA Board of Directors. He is committed to improving the social, economic, and physical character of inner city neighborhoods in Los Angeles through new and innovative partnerships.
Tom holds a Master’s degree from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he studied urban planning and real estate, and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
Tom became involved with ONE through his work on an exhibit called Lavender Los Angeles, which presented a history of LGBT community formation in Los Angeles prior to 1970. This exhibit has been displayed in numerous local venues including the Los Angeles and West Hollywood city halls. In 2011, Lavender Los Angeles was published as a book.
Carol A. Grosvenor
Treasurer
Carol A. Grosvenor is the principal advisor and owner of CG Financial Services, a California Registered Investment Advisor. Carol provides personal financial advice for domestic partners and individuals. She simplifies her clients’ lives and helps to create retirement lifestyles, to control estate assets and to facilitate charitable gifts that reflect the dreams and goals of her clients.
Carol is a magna cum laude graduate of Central Michigan University and West Coast University. She holds masters and bachelor degrees in computer science and music. She’s also a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER practitioner. Carol has served ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives as Treasurer since February 2003. Carol met her partner Marilyn in 1985. Carol enjoys golf and is a fan of the Dodgers and the Lakers. She also holds season tickets to the WNBA L.A. Sparks.
Jeffrey W. Erdman, Esq.
Board Member
Bennett & Erdman
Jeffrey W. Erdman is the managing partner of the law firm of Bennett & Erdman, a full-service Southern California law firm that handles the broad range of legal issues including family law and LGBT law as well as civil litigation matters. Mr. Erdman received his Juris Doctor degree from Southwestern University School of Law in 1995. Prior to law school, Mr. Erdman received a Bachelor of Arts in business administration from the University of Washington in 1987, and had a pre-law career in hotel management with Westin Hotels and Resorts.
Mr. Erdman has previously served on the Boards of Directors of the Lesbian and Gay Lawyers Association of Los Angeles (including a term as Co-President), the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association and the Mountains AIDS Foundation (including three years as President of the Board). He has also previously sat on the Board of Trustees of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, and served as a member of the California State Bar Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination (including a term as Chair of the committee).
Mr. Erdman has also served as an adviser to the Access and Fairness Committee of the Judicial Council of California, and has been active in a variety of other community organizations, including Equality California; Volunteers in Parole, Inc.; Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; the Human Rights Campaign and others.
Chris Freeman
Board Member
USC Professor
Chris Freeman teaches English and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. He earned a Ph.D. in English and Gay Studies from Vanderbilt University. Much of the work he has done as a scholar has direct links to Los Angeles. His first book, The Isherwood Century: Essays on the Life and Work of Christopher Isherwood, which he co-edited with James Berg, won the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Studies in 2001. He and Berg have followed that collection up with Conversations with Christopher Isherwood and a collection about queer Los Angeles called Love, West Hollywood. Chris also edited a Hollywood memoir by John Carlyle, Under the Rainbow.
Chris received the Monette-Horwitz Trust Award in 2005, and he joined the advisory committee for the Monette-Horwitz Trust in 2006. He was proud to join the board at ONE Archives in 2009. As a scholar who teaches and writes about queer history, he is committed to the mission of ONE and to the importance of ONE’s place in that history.
Joseph Hawkins Ph.D.
Board Member
Director, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries
Joseph Hawkins, Ph.D., currently teaches anthropology and gender studies at the University of Southern California. His anthropological research focuses on homosexuality and identity in the postwar period of Japan His translation of “A Tour of Gay Town,” from the Yomiuri Shimbun appears in the recent volume Queer Voices Out of Japan, from Rowman and Littlefield. Professor Hawkins has also completed an ethnographic film about a Japanese Naked Festival. He was the President of the Board of Directors of ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives since the fall of 2003 and is currently Director of the ONE Archives at the USC Libraries.
Bill Kaiser
Board Member
The Purple Circuit
Bill Kaiser has been involved in LGBT theatre for the past thirty years with his own production company Wilde Productions and on the board of Celebration Theatre. He was a founder of The Gay and Lesbian Theatre Alliance and produced Purple Stages, one of the first LGBT Theatre Festivals in the country. Later he founded The Purple Circuit, a LGBT theatre and performance network and edited its newsletter and now website On The Purple Circuit. He has been curator of the Performing Arts Collection at ONE and is chair of the ONE Culture Series.
Tracy Moore
Development Chair
With a BA and MA in English, Tracy’s career began as high school teacher, with sidelines as tax preparer and painting contractor. After earning an MBA (1990, USC), she became a nonprofit management and fundraising professional, working at NYU Law School, UCLA, Lambda Legal, and 89.3KPCC. Now retired, she plies her fundraising trade on a volunteer basis for ONE Archives and for the queer Jewish synagogue, Beth Chayim Chadashim, where her wife, Lisa Edwards, is rabbi.
“In the life” since college in the early 1960s, Tracy’s earliest movement work was in Women’s Liberation and radical lesbian activism in Iowa City, Iowa. Her passion for grass-roots periodicals began while a member of the collective that published Ain’t I a Woman? from 1970-74. In 1981, she co-founded Common Lives/Lesbian Lives, a quarterly journal with a mission to record and preserve the culture and life experiences of ordinary lesbians, which ran until 1996.
While living in Jerusalem for a year when Lisa was in rabbinic school, Tracy recorded 27 oral histories of Israeli lesbians, which were published as Lesbiot: Israeli Lesbians Talk About Sexuality, Feminism, Judaism, and Their Lives (Cassell 1995).
Christopher Ramirez
Board Member
Christopher Ramirez is a Marketing Consultant currently providing his expertise in Public Transit. He previously worked for the City of Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus. He was responsible for developing the “Bus of the Future” campaign which partnered with Art Center in Pasadena to celebrate Big Blue Bus’ 80th anniversary by embracing the future of public transportation.
Before his transition to Marketing, he was a Disability Management Specialist for 25 years. During his career, he served as an Expert Witness, was a Director of Rehabilitation Services for an Insurance company, worked for the State Department of Rehabilitation and was involved in various professional organizations. He was a co-founder of OBRA, the Organization of Bilingual Rehabilitation Counselors which became a statewide professional organization.
Chris was born and raised in East Los Angeles. He started his college education at the University of Redlands and completed his B.A., cum laude, at the University of Southern California with a double major in Psychology.
Chris has been on the board of Christopher Street West, San Gabriel Valley Pride, West Coast Singers, Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and now ONE. He served as Community Collaborator Coordinator for Outfest. He sang with the Long Beach Men’s Chorus, and MCC in the Valley. He has been a committee member of Models of Pride planning groups. He consulted for Claremont Pride, Montclair Pride, Pasadena Pride and Sacramento Pride. He was in the founding group of the Los Angeles affiliate of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates. He has volunteered at the Center when it was on Wilshire Blvd, on Highland Ave. and also at the Village. He was involved in Wendy’s Hope, LA Shanti, the Life AIDS Lobby and GLAAD, as well as VBA, BAPA, and BALA.
Without exception, he considers his greatest achievement to be his long-term, committed relationship with his husband. They will celebrate their 39th anniversary June 2013. He insists they met when they were both in pre-school.
Matthew Steiger
Board Member
Second Vice President
Northern Trust
Matthew Steiger is an Associate Wealth Advisor and Second Vice President for the Family Advisory Services team at Northern Trust. The Family Advisory Services Group provides investment management, financial consulting services, and family office services to successful individuals and coordinates their overall financial services needs.
Prior to joining Northern Trust, Matthew was an Assistant Portfolio Officer in the Los Angeles office of BNY Mellon Wealth Management. Previously Matthew was a Vice President and Branch Manager of the West Hollywood branch of California National Bank.
Matthew is originally from Franklin Lakes, New Jersey where he graduated from Ramapo High School. He is a 1991 cum laude graduate of the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut receiving a BS in International Business with a minor in Modern Languages. In 2008 Matthew completed the Certificate in Personal Financial Planning, With Distinction, at the University of California Los Angeles.
Matthew is a former board member of the Log Cabin Republicans (New York City), Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and the Financial Services Industry Exchange. He also served as the Treasurer of the Los Angeles Affiliate of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates.
